"Bottom Desk Drawer" by Mark S.P. Turvin Copyright (c) 1988, 1994-Mark S.P. Turvin and Goldfish Publishers Following is a Summary Information File for the three-act drama "Bottom Desk Drawer" by Mark S.P. Turvin. The play is rated PG. The average running time of this piece, with intermissions, is 115 minutes. Acts One and Three Characters: David Whithouse-32, a television scriptwriter. Tall, sandy brown hair, brooding. Janet Newkirk-Whithouse-33, a college professor. Beautiful, light complexion and dark features. Patient, and a bit distant. Bob Morrow-33, a drifter. Tall, dark, rugged. Intense. Dara-A pizza delivery girl--to be played by the same actress playing Nichole. Act Two Characters: Dave Whithouse-20. Bright, energetic, ambitious and a bit cruel. Janet Newkirk-21. Quietly determined, a bit reserved, Dave's girlfriend. Bob Morrow-22. Seemingly slightly crazed. Nichole Samios-22. Tall, dark, gorgeous, and drug infested. Sometime girlfriend of Bob's. Rick D'Alanzo-20. Italian featured, a bit pudgy. All of the above are seniors at NYU. Joey-A pizza delivery man. Time: Acts One and Three-August, 1996. Act Two-April, 1985. Setting: Act I and Act III take place in a plush "Two Room" studio in Queens. The entrance to the apartment is SR, near the kitchen and dining area. The entrance to the bedroom and bathroom is SL, near the "office" area. There is a couch CS facing the audience, and two chairs on either side. The television sits before it. There is a large picture window UCS, which at one time afforded a beautiful view of mid-town Manhattan, but is being blocked by a construction project just underway. The view is still there, but the beams and girders show it is soon to disappear. Act II takes place in the same apartment, but the interior is unfinished, showing the abandoned factory that it once was. It is sparsely furnished, and the plumbing is crude, but the centerpiece, the picture window with the view, is bright and clean. The first twenty pages of the script are available in the file BDD.TXT. A bad experience and fear of copyright infringement keeps me from uploading the rest. If you are interested in producing this script, and would like to see more, you can contact the playwright by e-mail. My address is mspt@asu.edu. I am negotiable about fees, depending on your circumstances (i.e., small, college or community theatres, etc.) and I'm sympathetic to budget constraints. I am a member of The Dramatist's Guild, and can use their contracts if needed. I can also be reached by snail mail at: Mark S.P. Turvin Goldfish Publishers, LLC 3106 North 22nd Street Phoenix, AZ 85016-7348 As a last resort, you can also call me between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm MST at (602) 912-0117. I hope you enjoy the piece, Mark S.P. Turvin +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Advertising Description: This play explores the size of dreams, and how, through time, they can be relegated to the bottom desk drawer. Looking at a group of theatre friends in college and then at their lives eleven years later, this play considers the definitions of "success" and "selling out." Dedicated to the ideals of Wallace Stevens, Bottom Desk Drawer dramatizes the lives of five people who are inextricably bound by their hopes, fears, and expectations of the future. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Synopsis: The play takes place in the same apartment, in Acts One and Three in the year 1996, and in Act Two in the year 1985. During Acts One and Three, the stage is set up as a beautiful, gentrified livingroom in an old warehouse in Queens, with a rapidly disappearing view of mid-town Manhattan. During Act Two, it is a typical college students apartment, with second-hand furniture, but view intact. There are six characters in all. The characters include Dave, a television writer, Janet, his wife, a college teacher, and Bob, a drifter. Also, the second act shows them as college students, with their friends Rick and Nichole, and a pizza delivery man. The show opens as Janet returns from teaching. She listens to the radio until Dave enters, shuts off the stereo, and puts on the television. The tension of their relationship is established through their silence. After this silent conflict, Bob enters. He has been away for eleven years, drifting through the world. The scene is a happy one, until, Bob starts insulting Dave's current writing, an hour-long weekly television drama. Things nearly come to a head, but Janet cuts it off, ending Act One. Act Two is in three scenes. The first scene opens with the apartment as it was while Bob, Dave and Janet were at NYU. Bob and Dave's best friend, Rick, lives with them. Their characters are established, as we find that Dave is an experimental playwright whose latest play is being produced by Joseph Papp. Bob is starring in the production, as is his girlfriend, Nichole. Rick is a film major, and aspires to work at Disney, which we find out in the first act he has done. The play they are working on will be produced in a few weeks, and they are just about to graduate. We discover that Nichole, besides being heavily into drugs, is also having an affair with Dave. Dave is trying to break it off, but only half-heartedly. The second scene starts with everyone returning from classes. They start partying, with Nichole supplying the cocaine and marijuana. Janet, who is against drugs, and Nichole begin fighting. Janet goes into the bedroom in a huff. Dave explains to Bob and Rick about his plans of writing, and that to him, the best of all worlds would allow him to write as much as he wants and still make a living, pointing out the way that Wallace Stevens worked for an insurance company and is now considered a great American poet. He is about to finish explaining it when Janet screams from the bedroom that Nichole, who has gone in to apologize, has collapsed. Nichole has overdosed, and is dead before the paramedics come. Janet confronts Dave, asking him who's next. She points out that he was doing just as much as Nichole. Shaken, Dave accepts her offer to "Stay with me. Stay safe." In the third scene, Dave confronts Bob, who is about to leave the country. He begs Bob not to leave, that the show could still be put on without Nichole, but not without him, too. Bob explains that without Nichole's support, he fears that he will sell out, and never become what he could have become as an artist. Bob warns Dave that Janet is pushing him into "selling out." Dave is adament, and refuses to forgive Bob if he leaves. Dave warns him that he will "do anything to keep writing, even if it means selling out." Bob leaves; Dave blows out the candles and, in the darkness, resumes typing the script he had started at the beginning of the scene. The third act begins where the first left off. Janet, who had gotten slowly drunk through the first act, unleashes a tirade on Bob about how infantile it is to consider what Dave has done as selling out. She points out that he has received many awards, and will be nominated for an Emmy. She says that dreams die, and only the realistic can keep part of what they wanted to do alive. This makes Bob angry, and even puts Dave off. He sees now what Bob had tried to point out to him eleven years ago. Bob keeps pressuring Dave to give up what he's got and go back to what he used to write. Dave warns Bob that he hasn't lost the dream. Bob does not believe him, and Dave, pushed too far, opens the bottom desk drawer of his rolltop desk and reveals almost three hundred unsolicited manuscripts, most in the vein of what he was writing in college. Bob is stunned, and, reading through some of them, realizes that his friend has done as he said. Bob tries to convince Dave to get these scripts produced, and give up television, pointing out that it was only a means to an end. Janet threatens to leave Dave if he does this, and Dave laughs off the threat. She goes to the bedroom and begins packing. Dave realizes that his decision is being made for him, and he is powerless to stop it. Janet exits, saying that he'll be back, that he has always needed her to help him, while Bob sits and considers which script to do first. As she is leaving, Dave begs her to come back, but Bob stops him, saying he's only addicted to her. Dave's biggest flaw is revealed, as he lets the decision to leave television be made for him. The show ends with Bob, flipping through the scripts, asking which should be done first, and Dave, realizing now he has traded Janet's controlling influence for Bob's, telling him "You decide."