Speech & Debate (TCG Edition)

Stephen Karam

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781559368650
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

• Originally performed as a workshop production at Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island in the summer of 2006• New York premiere in the fall of 2007 at the Laura Pels Theatre, a production of Roundabout Theater (Off-Broadway, New York)• It was the inaugural production for the Roundabout Underground, a program in which the Roundabout Theater gives professional productions to playwrights early in their careers.• Selected as a New York Times Critics' Pick.• One of the country's most produced plays in the 2009-2010 season according to American Theatre magazine.• Subsequent productions in cities across the country at theatres including the 2nd Stage Theatre in Hollywood, CA; Relative Theatrics in Laramie, WY; Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, OR; Bricolage Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA; Playwrights Rep at Brown University and more.• Speech and Debate is being adapted into a film, with the screenplay by Stephen Karam, opening at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2016.• Karam won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play for his smash hit play The Humans • Karam has written two plays that were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: The Humans in 2016 and Sons of Prophet in 2012

SCENE 1

POETRY READING

The stage should be relatively spare, dominated by a large screen or back wall onto which various slides/images can be projected.

With a loud tympani crash, there is a total blackout.

Lights up on an eighteen-year-old boy, Howie. He has his computer keyboard on his lap and is in the middle of an instant-message chat.

Howie’s screen name is “BlBoi”; the unseen stranger he is communicating with is “BiGuy.” Their names appear on the screen in two different colors.

Throughout the following silent scene, an “instant-message” online conversation is projected.

The dialogue’s projection is timed precisely with the music from Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. The result is a choreographed musical number. A cyber-ballet.

BIGUY	Im scared
BLBOI	Y?
BIGUY	u r 2 young
BLBOI	says who?
BIGUY	the police

Howie searches for clip art on his computer, finds a picture, pastes it, presses return.

BLBOI	[image of a crying baby]
BIGUY	LOL
BLBOI	Im 18
BLBOI	Blonde
BLBOI	Sm...