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#Post#: 10--------------------------------------------------
Side hustle
DIR By: matthew
Date: May 31, 2020, 7:52 pm
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A place to post ideas that might diverge from the central
project. Other possible stories, episodes, scenes, inspirations,
etc.
#Post#: 12--------------------------------------------------
Re: Side hustle
DIR By: matthew
Date: May 31, 2020, 8:12 pm
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Just so it's here to reference, I'll post the other playwriting
and screenwriting ideas I had compiled earlier (since you asked
to see it, Andy). Some are more like scenes or story-starters.
The only idea in here that would probably work for a TV show is
the warehouse setting and the title Fulfillment. It'd basically
be an office comedy set in an Amazon-like "fulfillment centre,"
but I have no idea what the drama would be besides everyday
social interactions. I think I'm just fond of the the irony of
the title and the potential for social commentary.
Anyway, here begins the info dump:
“I start with setting. An idea for a kind of space onstage that
might be something people haven't seen before. Often it’s an
“unlikely” place: a windowless room in a community center […] I
start thinking about the theatrical possibilities inside that
space and then usually the characters start coming to me after
that. Plot is usually the last thing I think about, or, in some
cases, the thing I never think about.” – ANNIE BAKER
Settings:
Photo Studio
A play set in front of a green screen, but we never see the
generated content or whoever it is certain characters are acting
with. Details of the film are slowly revealed.
Living room
A power-outage play, entirely lit by candles. It begins with
characters in a state of digital disconnection and then, slowly,
the natural light brings people together.
Apartment
Stage split in two with a dividing wall, like a TV film set. In
left apartment: a family gathering. In right apartment: a dead
body (dead from the very top of the show. No one knows). Maybe
the left-side action goes on as normal for nearly half the show.
Maybe the whole show. What do we come to learn about either
side?
A garden
A woman sits down on a bench beside a garden and hears voices
talking to her from the flowers. The voice of King Edward using
foul language. Perhaps a body is buried there, unknown to her
(but later revealed?).
Psychologist’s office
A story about a malingerer, someone faking a mental illness. Or
perhaps a story about someone who has done a bad thing and is
there to work it out, someone we hate, but care about.
Hospital
A movie about someone who doesn’t feel physical pain. (When I
was younger, I went to the bowling alley and met a kid there who
had congenital analgesia she said she could drop a bowling ball
on her foot and not feel it.)
School
An elementary school reunion. Big people sitting on tiny chairs,
playing with toys, etc., but having adult conversations.
Pub
Sitcom-ish story about a pub quiz team and their fight for #1.
In the spirit of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
Fishing Village
Two estranged twins show up in the same place at the same time,
unbeknownst to each other.
Research Lab
A Moby Dick of thought. Neuroscientist protagonist.
LAN Party
Four boys at a square table, each on their own monitor, playing
games and wearing headsets. A multimedia stage play. We slowly
learn what they’re up to and it’s not good. Maybe one of them is
the ‘conscientious narrator.’
Hospital room
Character: a doctor for whom “the world is a body.”
Painter’s Studio
A recluse artist and his dealer hire a clairvoyant who offers to
tell them exactly what buyers are looking for. Strange requests
start to come in.
Nowhere (a la Beckett)
Two brothers sit in a strange room, getting intimations about
the outside world through a series of deliveries, akin to food
through the door in solitary.
Library
Title: Gorilla in the Roses. The story of Joe Orton, who was
jailed for six months after he and his boyfriend (who later
killed him) defaced library books with nude imagery in the 60s.
Kitchen
Adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s unwritten story idea “The Day of
the 24 Cakes,” in which a woman bakes one cake an hour for 24
hours to “preserve her sanity” after an argument with her
husband.
Mental Health Facility
A research play, perhaps a documentary play based on interviews,
about Riverview Hospital during a particular period of time
(perhaps a site-specific show, if at all possible).
Ancient Greece
A play about the suicide of Seneca, accused in a plot against
Nero and ordered to kill himself.
Law court
How a judge’s family – her husband and kids – influence her
decision during a high-profile (fictional) trial.
Factory
A priest is called in to perform exorcisms on factory workers
who have fallen into mass hysteria.
Space station
A musical adaptation of Sarte, set in a space station.
School
The outbreak of a psychogenic illness.
Nature room / Conservatory
There is no more “nature.” Nature has been moved indoors. People
pay to sit in rooms full of alive things. We are in one such
room.
Journalist’s office
A skeptic reporter sets out to find someone who can show her
“real” magic. Gets more than they bargained for (black magic,
curses, etc.)
On the Road
The story of a storm chaser with astraphilia / brontophilia
(sexual arousal from thunder and lightning). We follow them
across Colorado as they search for the perfect orgasm.
Dinner party
Story of Hitchcock’s famous “blue dinner,” where every morsel
and decoration was blue.
A Dream
Would a film treatment of Chaucer’s The House of Fame be
possible? But a modern version, with the names of famous people
etched in ice. A giant spinning wicker house? Problem: it would
have to feature many famous people.
Human Psychology Lab
A version of the Asch conformity test, where a bunch of people
are brought into an experiment with the knowledge that all but
one of them are actors. Their interactions would continue
outside the walls of the lab. Their only instruction would be to
hang out, go to pubs. Easy enough? They collectively speculate
as to the purpose of the experiment, maybe one of them knows.
We, the audience, don’t know who the knowledgeable person is
either, but we’re given clues (and red herrings). What's the
study and what results does it produce among these particular
people? Is it surprisingly benevolent and comedic? Is it
something like: surprise they're all robots but you?
Bunker
A YouTuber recording videos in his underground bunker.
Warehouse
Stage designed like an Amazon warehouse (minus the copyright
infringement). Cardboard boxes and Roombas. People fulfilling
online orders, the last of their kind. Title: Fulfillment.
Support Group
A mindfulness seminar gathers to learn about meditation. A play
where we watch them meditate during long stretches of silence.
Perhaps something dramatic happens to test their mettle – a
literal fight or flight scenario. Perhaps there is a highly
impatient person among them, someone who can’t sit still, or has
anger issues.
Romeo and Juliet
A movie, perhaps in the style of Her, about the first robotic
Romeo and Juliet and the person whose wild dream it is to put
this show on. Perhaps their humanness is overzealous: the robots
are made to intentionally forget lines, miss subtle cues.
Board Game Store
A period piece about the moral panic surrounding D&D
University
A story like “The Screwfly Solution” (about division of the
sexes) in which university campuses become split into factions.
Church
A young girl overhears her father’s confession at a church. What
is it, though?
Small town
A couple on honeymoon travel to a cute little town that, soon,
they are unable to leave. “For fifteen years we have missed all
trains” (Leon Bloy).
Restaurant
A woman goes out for dinner with both of her
boyfriends/girlfriends at the same time (to reveal to one that
she plans to marry the other?). The downfall of an open
relationship.
Waiting Room
There’s a new drug on the market to extend the human life span.
People can only use it once, but they may use it whenever they
want (most people taking it in their 20s). It will preserve
someone in their current state for five years. And to take it
twice would be injurious. Don't know where it goes.
Shooting range
A film that opens with a cut scene involving every member of a
family adopting a shooting stance. The woman goes to the range,
squares up, and fires. The man goes to yoga and does a pose
involving “kali mudra” (hands clasped and pointed like a gun).
The children go to daycare, where they chase each other around
with finger guns. Not sure what the ensuing story would be.
Could be a strong opening sequence, though.
Forest at Night
A play, probably. A staging of multiple meetings of the
Acéphale, Bataille’s anti-religious, anti-fascist secret society
that met near an oak tree that had been struck by lightning.
They read Nietzsche and Sade aloud and lit torches. Everyone was
given a canvas folder inside which was a map to the forest where
there were two sacred sites.
House Party
Probably a film. People go to a superstition themed party. Some
are believers, others skeptics. In the ensuing days and weeks,
people start having bad luck and blame it on the party. Some
have really bad luck. How to avoid it becoming Final
Destination, though? One solution would be to make it an
understated comedy like Toni Erdmann.
Adult store
Morgue
Greenhouse
Barn
Chess tournament
Yard sale
Comedy club
Community centre
Bus station
AirBnB (or regular B&B)
Historic House Museum
Retail store
Art gallery
Military barracks
Employment agency
Bereavement camp
Women’s shelter
Hotel room
Afterlife
Crisis line centre
Dance studio
Same building, two time periods
Apocalyptic ruins
Crime scene
Fan expo
Cabin
Lecture hall
Diner
Bank
Theatre stage
Radio station
Taxi / limo
Fort Langley
Court
Theme Park
BDSM Dungeon
Island
Motel
Gender-neutral bathroom
Cubicle job
Airport
Treatment / addiction centre
Empty void
Radio station
Post-apocalyptic scrubland commune
Paris Fashion Week runway
Airplane
Wedding
Interrogation Room
Spa
Remote island
Cabin in the woods
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