ACT II
Lights on half stage. Mr. Twain and company are manning phones answering questions about where the candidates stand on the issues. The scene is the headquarters for the 4 candidates. There are 4 phones. Signs for the candidates are up on the walls.
Alice:
(phone rings) Chris Mills for city council, how may I help you?…Um yes, yes,
he supports children’s rights.
Mrs. Jacobs:
(phone rings) Glenn Wilson for city council. Yes, yes, he supports more funding
for schools.
Mr. Brooks:
(phone rings) John Burns for…
(John walks in the room. As Mr. Brooks is speaking, he grabs the phone away from Mr. Brooks.)
John:
I’ll get it. (Mr. Brooks struggles to try to keep the phone) Hello, John Burns
for city council. Uh, well, I don’t know much about improvement projects by
the beach. I suppose I don’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be a
moratorium on building…
(Mr. Twain runs and grabs phone away from John.)
Mr. Twain:
Hello, this is John Burn’s campaign manager. I’m sorry, what was your
question?…Yes, well ma’m, I can definitely tell you he supports our beaches
as the community’s greatest assets. (Mr. Twain hangs up)
John:
What did you do that for?
Mr. Twain:
I don’t want you to be bothered by the day to day operations of the campaign.
You’re too important to be answering phone calls. No, what I want you to
concentrate on is your next speech.
John:
(looks at speech) It looks like another song.
Mr. Twain:
What is a song? You say it. You speak it. It’s a story speech that you sing. I
need you to learn your next song speech. Ok? So you go back there and learn your
new song, staying away from the tedious task of answering phone calls.
(sides cont'd)
Mr. Twain:
You don’t get to vote anyone off. Actually, you all can win.
Glenn:
All of us?
Mr. Twain:
Yes, all of you, if you play the game right and work together.
John:
What do we all get to win, if we win?
Mr. Twain:
An 80,000 dollar a year salary for 4 years.
Glenn:
I’m in!
Chris:
That’s a lot of acting.
Mr. Twain:
Well, here’s the catch.
Greg:
I knew this was too good to be true.
Mr. Twain:
Now hear me out. The catch is, you have to get people in the city to vote for
you. In a kinda sorta political game.
Glenn;
I could get my frat bros to give me their votes. Fixing elections is something
we’re great at! Uh, well, not that we’ve ever tried to, or anyways, I could
do this. Mr. Twain, I’m in!
Mr. Twain:
You see Glenn, I know you could. I know you all could. I’ve chosen each of you
for a particular reason. I chose basically if I could be so blunt, a “city
dream team”. Each of you bring your own certain skill and support to the
table, but each of you are dependent upon helping everyone else in the group.
John:
So basically, you want us to run for public office?
Greg:
I wanted to sign up to be an actor, not a politician.
Mr. Twain:
If you ever got a role you had to portray a politician, what better experience
would there be besides actually being a politician?
Glenn:
I’m in!
John:
I don’t know. We don’t even have any money to run a campaign.
Mr. Twain:
Leave that to me.
Chris:
What do we say? What are the issues?
Mr. Twain:
Guys, you have to trust me. I’ve got all this worked out. I’m going to run
your campaign. I just need you to memorize your script and follow directions.
You can do this. All of you can. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time if I
thought you couldn’t. I’ll supply you with everything you need.
Chris:
Well, I wanted to be a doctor, comedian, sports trainer, actor and plumber. Why
not a politician?
Glenn:
(laughing) A plumber?
John:
Just curious, how much does a city council member make?
Mr. Twain:
Eighty-thousand dollars.
Glenn:
You heard me say I’m in already Mr. Twain, right?
Greg:
Oh, so I see. We only get the money if we win. So we could do all this work for
2 months for nothing. No way!
Email Address for Resume Submission CAST & CREW: actorsandpoliticians@issues101.com
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