Burial
A small group of singers is getting ready to perform at a funeral the next day. One of the girls reveals something that makes them question whether they should perform.
MARGARET – Soprano; warm, loving woman
FANNY – Soprano; Margaret’s daughter, a teenager
JANET – Alto; from Texas
ANN – Soprano
LIZZIE – The soloist
Margaret and Fanny’s Living Room in Albany, California. The play takes about ten minutes to perform.
| [Margaret, Fanny, Janet and Ann are around a piano, singing “Amazing Grace”. On top of the piano is a tambourine. The women finish with a flourish, pleased with their work.] | |
| JANET: | Well, we are getting to be better than a stack of flapjacks under real maple syrup. |
| MARGARET: | Let’s hope we sound that good at the service. |
| ANN: | How can we, at 8 a.m.? Who ever heard of a funeral at 8 a.m.? |
| MARGARET: | Ken told me it was specifically requested by his family. |
| FANNY: | Maybe we won’t sing till the end, and it will be close to nine. |
| MARGARET: | No, he said “Amazing Grace” comes right after the invocation. |
| JANET: | Drink yerself a whole dang pot of coffee; that’s what I aim to do. |
| ANN: | Oh, great; and half way through the service, I have to pee like crazy. |
| FANNY: | I am going to get up way early. I don’t mind. Mr. O’Rourke was such a wonderful teacher. I want it to be perfect. |
| ANN: | How could you ever have him? |
| FANNY: | Well, no, of course. But all the boys who did said you automatically loved soccer and volleyball when he taught you and he got everybody moving around and in better shape. |
| MARGARET: | The whole town of Albany will be up early seems like, to see him off. |
| JANET: | Well, it was such a terrible shock; him only 40 something and all. Terrible. |
| FANNY: | I hope they find who did it. |
| ANN: | My friend Danny had him and he said he talked your ears off about doing your best and practice, practice, practice. He wasn’t interested in just the star players. Danny is a total athlete but he said he paid attention to all the class, unlike a lot of gym teachers. |
| FANNY: | In fact, they said, he seemed to like the small weak boys best. He gave them lots of encouragement. “Diligence pays off”, he always said. |
| MARGARET: | Well, we certainly practiced this piece diligently. He’ll be looking down very pleased, I would think, knowing how hard we worked. |
| JANET: | Speaking of which, what do we do now? I don’t want to be here until midnight if I’m singing at 8. |
| ANN: | [looking at watch] An hour. |
| JANET: | I’ve never known her to be on time especially but this is a little ridiculous. |
| MARGARET: | Well, maybe she’s had car trouble or something. |
| ANN: | She gets worse at every rehearsal. |
| FANNY: | She does? I was thinking she sounds better every time. |
| ANN: | I mean she gets later. Not her voice, dummy. |
| MARGARET: | I guess we could just go over our part. |
| ANN: | It’s her entrances and all that we need to practice. Our part is easy all by itself. |
| MARGARET: | Fanny, you sing her part so we can practice. |
| FANNY: | Me? |
| MARGARET: | Your voice is actually a little better suited than hers for the song anyway. |
| JANET: | It might be good to have a stand-in, in case she does this tomorrow. I mean, if she’s an hour late manana, they could have him all tucked into the cemetery ‘time she’s ready to do her thing. |
| ANN: | Oh, for a performance, she’s on time. Are you kidding? An audience? |
I wrote this play for the Playfest of a group called Women’s Will, a group of women performing Shakespeare. Every year they held a 24-hour fundraiser in which a group of 5-6 playwrights each wrote a play overnight. The plays were then rehearsed the next day and performed the second evening. When I was first asked to do it, I was curious whether I could do such a thing. It was extremely satisfying to see that I could create a plot, developed characters, and have a point to the play, and do it in 24 hours. (Actually more like 10, since we met our actors and got the required prop list between 8 and 10 the first evening, and turned in the finished plays at 8 am.) Not all the “playwrights” could; some had a bunch of people doing soliloquies, like week two of “Playwriting 101. Not that I ever took Playwriting 101, so I found the whole experience exhilarating, knowing I had figured out for myself that I was a playwright, and had gone out and figured out my craft. I think I did Playfest three times, before I decided I was too old and tired to stay up all night.