The first script I wrote✨

Strong emotions right now from not being able to perform this play I wrote with a few other peers (Excellence, Llana, & Zoey). We ran out of time after the kids performed their plays. Anyways before I get gloomy doomy negative here's the script for the play that and my peers wrote for our volunteering with CanU

Title: Moral of the story Steven lost the kids. NOT the mentors.✨

Instructions: Improv in italics text.

Narrator (N): “Steven takes the CanU kids & mentors to a forest in Nicaragua. A pristine place barely touched by humans filled w/ waterfalls & wildlife. Mountains & ocean sunsets for scenery w/ green----

^Steven (cuts off the N): I LOST THE KIDS!

Mentors: Oh no! Let’s split up & look.

N: The mentors now feel lost in the forest but soon run into Malan the wolf.

Mentors (ask the wolf): Have you seen any kids?

Wolf (Malan): improv I am so famished! I saw a beautiful plump girl in her divine red cape but before I feast on her I must blow down those annoying little piggies' house.

N: Without answering the question Malan leaves. To feel less lost the mentors decide to follow the wolf. Soon they reach the cabin of the 3 little pigs & the mentors hide behind a bush.

Mentors: improv mentors NOTICE Ana (the Shrek-obsessed fan) in the neighbouring bush.

- Who is that?

- I don’t know 👀

N: Ana doesn’t notice the mentors but early gets out of her hiding spot to go talk to Malan.

Ana: Oh, hello wolf! Have you seen Shrek?

- improv RANT of how much she loves Shrek, describing how Shrek looks

Wolf: improv No

- Leave me alone I need to destroy these pigs…

N: As the wolf is distracted in conversation a gingerbread man sneaks up and tries to slay the wolf with his axe. The wolf is surprised and flees unharmed.

Pigs to Gingerbread: improv giving thanks for being saved

- Pigs happy to be found by the mentors

- Gingerbread hands of Pigs to Mentors

- Pigs join the search for the rest of the kids

- (Hold the pigs and the mentor’s puppets in the same hand?)

N: The group follows the tracks Malan has left behind.

- Stage effects: Make the astronaut hang off the side of the stage to show deadness…

Mentors/pigs: improv horror of finding the half-eaten/dead remains of an ASTRONAUT, with wolf fur as evidence.

Ana: I wonder if Shrek did this!

Ana: improv Ana being a Shrek crazy, even with the wolf fur as evidence of who killed the astronaut.

N: The group hears a girl crying in the bushes

Group: improv discovering, consoling, & asking Red “have you seen any other kids”.

- Red joins the search.

Someone in the group says: Let’s keep searching.

N: The group keeps wandering the Nicaragua forest & stumbles across a talking cat (Misrael).

improv

Group (ask cat): Have you seen any kids?

Misrael (cat): YES, follow me!

Ana: No, I think we should go this way. I saw Shrek! or I see some Shrek tracks!

N: The mentors deem Ana a lunatic & choose to follow the cat instead of Ana

Ana: Please listen to me! (Ana stays w/ the group & pesters them as everyone follows the cat.

Group: improv

- Of finding the wolf trying to eat the kids

- Steven SCARES the wolf away

- Reunion – happy

- Ana interrupts the reunion with IMMENSE EXCITEMENT b/c she thinks steven is Shrek “SHREK, I FOUND YOU!

- Mentors/kids clear up the confusion “No, this is Steven!”

- Ana tries to speak in Shrek TOUNGE to Steven.

- When Steven doesn’t understand Ana has a mental breakdown.

- Someone says, “I am excited to sleep for the whole plane ride home”.

N: Everyone concludes that Ana is a crazy Shrek-obsessed fan & they decide to leave her behind in the Nicaragua forest. Alone. To continue her aimless search.

Act out:

- Ana looking sad to be left behind & no one believing her that Shrek is real

- The real Shrek peeking/watching Ana, looking SUSPICIOUS

Ana (sad voice): I know I’ll find you one day…

Act out:

- The SUSPICIOUS Shrek disappears once again.

THE END

Props to borrow from the kid's plays':

- Gingerbread man (woodcutter makeshift)

- Wolf

- Red

- Astronaut

- Shrek

Fun name for the kids we made with permission:

Israel = Misrael = cat
Alan = Malan = wolf
Steven – dressed like a fake Shrek

The inspiration for this story started when I and Excellence forgot some kids at our previous location. Steven luckily saw them and brought them back to us. We later joked about it and put the blame on Steven that he's the one that lost the kids and not us. We continued this joke with this play that we wrote over 5 weeks (meeting once a week for a few hours).

I felt like a director working on this project. The writing, collaboration, figuring out the flow/logistics, & being the narrator. All of it felt so good. I need to bring more of this into my life it is soul-feeding stuff for me. The mystery of the feelings from performing something I wrote & the reactions it would get from the people it was for, makes me want to do this more.