Feature Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
So, I’m taking a writing workshop with the inimitable Ed Mabasa on how to write Noir! My procrastinator ass waited til the day of to write a 10 minute play. Even though I haven’t written anything new in a hot minute, I still remember the lessons learned when I participated in the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project. Namely, coming up with an outline!
I originally had another play in mind, but The Wizard of Oz and Wicked were pulling at me. Plus, I wanted to revisit the hero’s journey tropes found in the Wizard of Oz for another play I want to work on. So, this was my way of killing two birds with one stone as the horrific analogy goes.
So, below is my first stab at writing a 10 minute fan-fiction piece based on a pair of powerful slippers in the land of Oz.
CAST
Elphie – the green activist who happens to be a witch in black
Dot – the do-gooder caught in the wrong place in the wrong time
Monks – Elphie’s henchman who happens to be a flying monkey
SETTING
1946
a room in a tower of Elphie’s castle
a dark and stormy night
- lights up on a fire
- jazz playing in the background
- Monks is throwing some straw into a fire
- above the fire is a piece of meat on a spit
- fade up light on Dot tied up in a chair
- Dot’s unconscious
- Elphie is looking out the window smoking a cigarette
- Elphies’s talking to her sister
- Elphie is talking about completing a mission for her sister
- tells Monks to wake up Dot in a different language
- Monks throws water on Dot
- Dot wakes up and asks why she’s there
- Elphie reverses the question since she knows that a Wizard sent her
- Dot asks where’s her friends?
- Elphie says why doesn’t she ask them?
- Dot calls out for scarecrow
- Monks picks up the straw and puts it on the fire
- Dot calls out for the tin-man
- Monks pulls out the funnel from tin-man’s head and blows in it to cause the fire to grow higher
- Dot calls out for lion
- Monks gets lion’s tail and smacks Dot with it
- Dot calls out for toto
- Monks dances around the meat being turned on the spit
- Dot asks why is Elphie doing this to her
- Elphie wants to know the chant
- home’s where the heart is
- home is where you hang your hat
- motley crew’s home sweet home
- Dot says she doesn’t know any magic to remove her slippers
- Elphie calls Dot a liar
- Elphie saw in vision that Glinda told her
- Elphie says that she can offer a way for Dot to get home
- but first she needs the slippers
- Dot asks how
- Elphie wants the red slippers to unlock all of the power of the Grimmerie
- then Elphie will send Dot home
- Dot asks why she should help her especially since she’s already killed her friends
- and her little dog too
- Elphie says that they were already dead when the timer expired
- Elphie blamed Glinda for that spell
- Elphie says that Glinda is really the bad witch
- Elphie says that the bitch of the north is using her
- Elphie says that her sister was at Munchkintown to get those little people their freedom
- only way to carry out the mission is to use magical slippers that Dot is wearing
- Elphie reveals her long plan to overthrow the kingdom of Oz
- Elphie reveals that anyone who has the red slippers and the Grimmerie will have unlimited powers
- Dot doesn’t believe this book even exists
- Elphie conjures up the book
- Elphie again asks for the spell
- Dot doesn’t know
- Elphie gives her one last chance
- Dot says she doesn’t know
- Dot tells Elphie to remove her slippers if she wants it so bad
- Elphie says something in Monkey
- Monks uses the tin-man’s axe to cut off one of Dot’s feet
- when Monks tries to pick up the shoe with the foot in it, he gets electrocuted
- Elphie says “see? it doesn’t work.”
- Elphie again threatens Dot for the chant or she’ll lose the other foot
- Dot is crying
- Dot says that she’ll help her, just take away the pain first
- Elphie tells Monks to pour Dot a drink
- Dot takes a shot of it
- Elphie asks for the spell
- Dot begins with, There’s no place…
- Dot finishes, Like your booger stained skin and starts to laugh
- Elphie asks what’s so funny
- Dot conjures up a spell to levitate Elphie
- Dot tells Monks in Monkey to bring the Grimmerie to her
- Dot says something that reveals that she’s really Nessie, Elphie’s sister, the wicked witch of the east
- Dot asks why Elphie never told her about the Grimmerie
- Elphie says it’s because Nessie was too weak to use it
- Elphie reminded Nessie that it was her who first gave the slippers to her
- Dot then tells Elphie who was the one who made the house fall on her
- So before she was killed, she used a spell to trade spirits with the real Dorothy from Kansas
- Dot thanks Elphie for the book
- Dot uses a spell to put on Monks to kill Elphie
- Dot uses another spell to grow back her foot
- Dot leaves with the Grimmerie
End of Play