the adventures of skater girl
By Trina Kakacek
Copyright 2011
3931 N. Oakley
Chicago, IL 60618
[email protected]
773.636.7946
Cast of Characters
Skater Girl………………………………………………………………………………………… 15
Johann…………………………………………………………………………………………………………16
Old Man…………………………………………………………………………………………… Older
XU, an Asian Carp (pronounced “Q”)…………………Any age
Gramma…………………………………………………………………………………………………Older
Francis (an inchworm) …………………………………………………Any age
Time: Now
Place: Between awake and asleep, between a place
that is, and a place that might be.
Place, setting, props and spoken stage directions:
In parts of the play, the characters speak the
place. Aside from the red door, ice skates, list,
metronome, music box, and window frame, items that
suggest the wall, ledge, tree etc as simply as
possible are preferred. Less is more. Ideally, the
floor being reflective and covered until indicated
would be lovely, but not completely necessary. The
idea of the world being a place of suspension and
soft edges should be paramount.
Things should/could be spoken in a way that sounds
like everything might be manner-of-factly magical
and strange. The characters in the world accept all
things as reasonable right off, nothing is
impossible. Lines written in a disjointed and
separated form, should be read as such.
(To be spoken as if everything
could be magical and strange.)
SCENE ONE
(SKATER GIRL enters.)
SKATER GIRL
So I wore my ice skates to Buckingham fountain ...
(Old man enters. He looks at her
skates.)
OLD MAN
It's July.
SKATER GIRL
Right.
You have ice skates.
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
Right. You want to join me?
OLD MAN
If they catch you skating/
SKATER GIRL
It's the middle of the night. Everyone's home in bed, except
you. Why aren't you home in bed?
Because it's snowing!
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
In July, I know! Isn't it sick?
OLD MAN
Sick?
SKATER GIRL
Sick. You know. Cool. Amazing. Stu-pendous. And I am about
to check something off my sick list.
You have a sick list.
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
A list of things to do before you, you know, stop with all
this doing we all do. Don't you have one?
(Pause)
the adventures of skater girl
OLD MAN
As a matter of fact I have such a list.
SKATER GIRL
Sure you don't want to join me?
OLD MAN
I'll watch. Make sure you don't fall through the ice.
(She skates.)
SKATER GIRL
So your list.
OLD MAN
My sick list.
SKATER GIRL
I sense you probably have pretty much of it checked off, no?
OLD MAN
Yes and no.
SKATER GIRL
I thought this item would be the most elusive one for me,
but look! Ice skating on Buckingham fountain - in July.
(narratively to the
audience)
Suddenly something swims beneath her feet.
Oh!
(peering through the ice)
There's something under my feet.
Those little orange fish?
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
No. Very big. Look, there it goes!
(OLD MAN jumps on the ice and they
follow it around the fountain.)
Ah. Asian carp.
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
Skated on Buckingham fountain, in July, with carp. Oh what
eyebrows that will raise when I'm gone!
(changing tone, to
narrative)
And they skated together for a while.
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the adventures of skater girl
I with invisible skates.
3
OLD MAN
(Some Skating.)
SKATER GIRL
So your list? What haven't you checked off?
OLD MAN
Ice fishing in Buckingham fountain. In July.
(Lights out as they laugh.)
SCENE TWO
(Lights up.)
OLD MAN
(to the audience)
Here inside the newsstand, where I have made my living for
forty years. A fishbowl with a large carp is now on the
counter.
XU
You should put swimsuit issue in front. You get more
business.
OLD MAN
I have plenty of business.
XU
Could fool me. - So your list, what on it?
OLD MAN
How do you know about my list?
XU
Not deaf. I hear you and skater girl talk list. Tell me most
elusive item and then, I tell you mine.
Fish don't have lists.
Of course fish got list!
and worms, got list.
OLD MAN
XU
Everything got list.
Even ants
OLD MAN
What could an ant have on a list?
XU
Move that bread crumb here to there. Take over giant
picnic. Fly on back of eagle. What is next thing on your
list?
the adventures of skater girl
4
(Pause)
OLD MAN
Reading.
XU
Just reading?
OLD MAN
Just reading.
XU
You sit here with all these words and/
Right. Now you go.
Why you no read?
OLD MAN
XU
OLD MAN
When I read my eyes get lost and the words come off the page
and shatter in the light. Then I blink, and they land. Then
I try again. They shatter. Now you.
XU
Oh, well, isn't it obvious?
No.
OLD MAN
XU
I like to fly, with wings, in the sky!
(Lights out.)
SCENE THREE
(LIGHTS UP on Skater Girl.)
SKATER GIRL
A floating bed. Next to it, ice skates. The skater girl
breathes.
Her heart rate monitor beeps,
beside her.
(slowly - but panicking
all the same)
It goes slower and slower and slo wer ... al most stop
ping...
She wakes, ever so slowly, she finds her list, slowly, she
counts items on it
(MORE)
the adventures of skater girl
it's the worst news,
SKATER GIRL (CONT'D)
for the list could be considered
complete.
(fearing for her life)
Frantically she searches it for more, the monitor, the
breathing, ever more slowly proceed without her. She slips a
way and a way as she sinks more heavily and heavily to the
bottom
of
the
paper
(She holds her breath)
(Beat)
(Then lets it out.)
SKATER GIRL (CONT'D)
Bam!
Conveniently. She gets.
An. Idea.
The monitor speeds up, as she adds a new item to her list,
And her heart becomes lighter.
She bolts from the bed and escapes through a window!
SCENE FOUR
SKATER GIRL
(with a sense of relief at
having escaped disaster)
Skipping all the way to her Gramma's house. Here they sit on
the kitchen table as they are inclined to do.
(To her Gramma.)
SKATER GIRL (CONT'D)
So I was slipping and slipping and thought, why waste an
organ on me, my list is done, why waste an organ and I
slipped down the slope of the list being done, you know?
GRAMMA
You skated on Buckingham fountain in July?
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the adventures of skater girl
SKATER GIRL
With a carp and an old man.
GRAMMA
This seems important. I know not why.
SKATER GIRL
Like I was saying, I was slipping and slipping down the
slope of done, and then it hit me. And I climbed back up.
GRAMMA
Thank goodness for things that hit you. What was it?
SKATER GIRL
I need you to come with me. Then you'll see.
Where?
GRAMMA
SKATER GIRL
Newsstands. There is someone I need to find. To help him
with his list. You see what he wants to do, might involve
one of the things on YOUR list. The next thing.
GRAMMA
I'll go with you, if you go back and get a newer organ.
SKATER GIR
But I don't need it! I told you, I added an item and/
GRAMMA
/What if you find yourself slipping and no pen or pencil to
be found. Then what?
SKATER GIRL
Then I'll add something to the list in my own blood.
Hm. Good idea.
GRAMMA
SKATER GIRL
(narratively)
And off to search for an old man with a carp, then to the
fountain they went, where the ice has now melted.
(Lights out.)
SCENE FIVE
(Lights up.)
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the adventures of skater girl
SKATER GIRL
(to the old man)
So you see, she can read to you, for the thing on her list,
is to read War and Peace out loud, and have some one listen.
There.
OLD MAN
No no no for then won't I simply have completed my list and
have no reason to/
SKATER GIRL
/No! That's the beauty of it all. Not only is War and Peace
very long ... Just as you slip down the slope of the list
being done, if you add another and another and another, you
can climb back up until you decide once and for all the
thing on your list is finally/
The end of your rope.
OLD MAN
SKATER GIRL
I added your item to my list just as I was about to slip
down the slope of/
OLD MAN
/You? NO. You are far too young slip.
GRAMMA
But she has an organ that was born very old in her very
young body. That happens sometimes.
This is terrible.
OLD MAN
GRAMMA
It can be, or not. Depends. You know.
OLD MAN
You must add a young organ to your list.
SKATER GIRL
Oh no that will never do for the installation of such a
thing will only lead to things unpleasant...the pursuit of
things pleasant is far more enjoyable thank you.
GRAMMA
(pointing to her list)
And have you not just checked off the last and most recent
of such items?
SKATER GIRL
(to the audience)
So she had, and that very old organ in the very young body
skipped a beat or two/
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the adventures of skater girl
XU
/But my wings. Someone help find my wings please!
SKATER GIRL
(narratively)
Oh yes! And as she reached into the air and wrote - find the
wings of a fish - on her list, her heart became even
lighter.
(narratively)
For it was widely known, finding wings for a fish could take
an eternity.
OLD MAN
So it could.
(The old man and Gramma take time
to look each other up and down and
decide that their new arrangement,
is promising.)
XU
(narratively as he and
skater girl exit)
And as the carp and the skater girl begin their journey
together the carp smiles and says thank you.
GRAMMA
This reading. Is it the last thing on your list old man?
OLD MAN
(narrative)
And on his list the old man wrote another item ...
(seductively)
Not anymore. Yours?
GRAMMA
(seductively)
And the gramma added Anna Karenina for good measure.
(END)
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