Ask Me Anything

The Paper Birds

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781786828644
• eBook ISBN: 9781786828651
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The Paper Birds invited young people to "ask them anything" and now they're trying to come up with the answers. Inspired by the magazine problem pages they read growing up in the 90s and 00s, in Ask Me Anything, The Paper Birds become the agony aunts. Using the real letters sent to the company, this verbatim show explores what young people think, want and worry about today. Set in teenage bedrooms, this is a play about what different generations can learn from each other whist celebrating teenagers, grandparents and everyone in between, who, like us, are still figuring it all out.

KYLIE, ROSIE and GEORGIE are in the front of house space speaking to audience as they enter and take their seats. ROSIE is offering to apply temporary tattoos on to people, GEORGIE offers crisps and ear plugs, KYLIE reads out horoscopes from a magazine and plays with a magic 8 ball asking questions with audience members.

There are two large TV screens hanging from the rig, a small TV in KYLIE’s set and a small one in GEORGIE’s. A message from the virtual assistant ‘BRIDGE IT’ plays on loop on a screen.

BRIDGE IT: Hi Everyone. Make yourselves comfy. You can even take your shoes off if you like. The show has live music. Georgie has disposable ear plugs. If you want some, just put your hand up. This is a mobile friendly show, which means you can keep your phone turned on if you like. But probs best if you don’t take a phone call during the show. Take pictures and share stuff if you want #AskMeAnythingShow

After clearance BRIDGE IT plays a new message.

BRIDGE IT: I’m here to help. I am your virtual assistant. My name is Karen, Karl, Jemma, Lucy, Alexia, Naomi, Kai, Siri, Mohammed, Jeeves, Gift, Leonie, Joel, Maryam, Dennis, Robin …BRIDGE IT. I will give you information throughout the show and share things that are hopefully helpful. For example: the screen below will be used to share verbatim text: real life quotes, word for word

VERBATIM SCREEN: verbatim screen (waves)

BRIDGE IT: See. I’m here to help. The show is about to start now. It’s 80 minutes long without an interval, in case you were wondering.

KYLIE steps forward.

KYLIE: This show is a conversation.

BRIDGE IT: Conversation noun 1. a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.

ROSIE: It’s an informal conversation between us and you.

KYLIE: The audience.

GEORGIE: Yes, but it’s also a show about a conversation between us and them.

A box sat on a coffee table suddenly moves and makes a noise. KYLIE, GEORGIE and ROSIE all look at it and then move to stand around it. They lower their voices and the lights dim. The box moves occasionally as they speak, they are gentle, cautious around the box.

KYLIE: So, we will start at the beginning. When we first wrote to them. Ok?

KYLIE waits for an answer from the audience, then she, GEORGIE and ROSIE separate and go to areas in their bedrooms.

SCENE 1

BRIDGE IT: Scene 1. Writing to the young people

ROSIE begins to clap into a microphone. KYLIE clicks a pen then begins to write, we see the words appear via a live feed from a camera onto a screen. GEORGIE is texting on an iPhone and another screen casts this.

ROSIE sings her lines.

KYLIE: Dear young people. Have you ever had a question you really wanted to ask but it felt too…

GEORGIE: We know the world you are growing up in is a bit..

Emojis appear on her text chain as she tries to articulate what she’s saying.

BRIDGE IT: Emojis are the fastest-growing language worldwide used by 92% of the world’s online population.

ROSIE: Are you ok? Are you alright?

KYLIE: What do you worry about?

GEORGIE: What are your challenges?

ROSIE: Tell me all of your problems,

What you’ve not figured out.

Tell me all of your problems,

come on and let it all out…

KYLIE: And we know you have the internet

BRIDGE IT: One study suggests that teens spend an average of 9 hours a day online.

GEORGIE: And you could ask Google

KYLIE: But

ROSIE: What if

GEORGIE: You asked

ALL: Us?

SCENE 2

KYLIE turns back to the audience and speaks to them.

KYLIE: So, I guess the normal way to start a conversation is to introduce yourself. So Hi, I’m Kylie

ROSIE: I’m Rosie

GEORGIE: Hi, I’m Georgie

BRIDGE IT: There is also a gentleman called Darren who is operating the show.

DARREN: Shouts Hello

KYLIE: He’s hot. And we wanted to make the sort of show that we would have wanted to see when we were – well – young. Now that we’re, well, not.

ROSIE has been unwinding the yogurt pot phone and passing it to someone in the audience.

ROSIE: For a bit of context I was born in the early 80’s. So, I used to play with things like this when I was young. Anyone else ever made these?

When the girls ask the audience a question, they always wait for an answer from the person they are speaking to.

ROSIE now speaks to the person at the other end of the yogurt pot.

ROSIE: Hi, what’s your name? Bernadette. Did you ever play with yogurt pots like they were phones? Do you mind me asking what your birthday is? Mine is 5th December 1981 but I have always been a bit of an old soul.

KYLIE: I was born in August 1982.

GEORGIE: July 1992. Ten years after these two, as I’m sure you can tell.

KYLIE: Yeah, alright. So, I was a teenager in the 1990’s.

ROSIE: Yeah like Kylie, the 90’s.

GEORGIE: I was a teenager in the noughties.

KYLIE: And when I was growing up, we didn’t really have the internet /

GEORGIE: I did – and I just want to reassure all the young people in the audience that this is not going to be a show about how terrible the internet ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Chapters