Featured Writer of November 2023

   Welcome to the Featured Writer of November 2023! This month we have "Nothing Lasts" by Kate Schwartz. 

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Kate has her MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen (University of Nebraska, Omaha). In March 2019, Kate’s play, LEAR/LOMAN, was awarded “Festival Feature” at 2 Cent Theatre’s Acting Out INK Fest (Hollywood, CA). It was chosen “Best of INK Fest” and won five more performances at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June 2019. In October 2019, Kate had a staged concert-reading of Venus and Mars for Chicago Dramatists/Playwrights Aloud. Retreat in the Berkshires, was included as part of the 2020 Fringe Festival (concert reading) of the Playwriting Symposium at the Mid-America Theatre Conference (Chicago) in March 2020. The Holding Space was a Finalist in the Tennessee Williams One-Act Playwriting Contest in 2021. A monologue from The Holding Space is published in She Persisted: One Hundred Monologues from Plays By Women Over Forty (Applause Acting

Series) In June 2022, Kate had a performance of her play, Clarissa Buys The Flowers Herself, at West of Lenin in Seattle. It was produced by Parley. She is an Associate Playwright for Parley in Seattle, WA.

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 Nothing Lasts

A Ten Minute Play

Kate Schwartz

Characters:

ABBY: Female; Mid-thirties/Early forties; a visionary and an idealist

JEREMY: Male; Mid-thirties/Early forties; ABBY’S husband; Loves HIS wife, but unsure their marriage will survive

Setting:

The disheveled living room of ABBY and JEREMY

Year: Modern Times

     ABBY is in her living room with various pots, pans, tupperware, etc trying to recreate The Great           Pyramid of Giza. A poster of the pyramid hangs on the wall. Her husband, JEREMY, comes home from work.

ABBY

We’re in an emergency/

JEREMY

Christ. What are you doing? (tries to clean up the mess)

ABBY

NO, Jeremy. (grabs whatever HE took and tries to recreate the Pyramid)

JEREMY

(notices the Pyramid poster) Abby. What the Hell is this?/

ABBY

You didn’t hear? The Great Pyramid of Giza – the defining symbol of Egypt – is gone.

JEREMY

Do I need to call your doctor again?

ABBY

The last of the Seven Wonders of the World just vanished. All 479 feet of it. It’s the tallest structure made by human hands.

JEREMY

We definitely need to call your doctor. She may need to readjust your meds. I haven’t heard anything about this Pyramid disappearing/

ABBY

The Great Pyramid of Giza, Jeremy. It has a name. Show it the respect it deserves.

JEREMY

(playing along) Fine. The Great Pyramid of Giza/

ABBY

... is gone.

JEREMY

(pause) It’s maybe not the only thing that’s.... gone.

ABBY

(not listening) It’s all over the news and the Internet. The Pyramid was constructed out of these massive stones of immense size and weight. No one can conceive how humans could have possibly created it/

JEREMY

(pointing to the mess) And, what is this?

ABBY

I’m trying to re-create it. How do you think it disappeared? Do you think Aliens or UFOs landed in Egypt and made it vanish?

JEREMY

Oh my God. No, Abby. Have you taken too much Lithium? What about your Latuda?

ABBY

I’m compliant with my meds. I wish you’d help me figure this out. There’s a theory that Hebrew slaves created the Pyramid. Maybe their Spirits returned to seek vengeance?

JEREMY

Stop. Sit down with me. Let’s talk.

SHE reluctantly sits beside HIM on the couch

You no longer drive/

ABBY

Climate change/

JEREMY

You refuse to fly/

ABBY

Climate change/

JEREMY

You’ve become a hardcore Vegan ...

ABBY

I am environmentally woke/

JEREMY

(notices HER bottles of medicine are almost empty) You need the hospital again. I’m no longer equipped/

ABBY

The Roman Colosseum probably perished because of an earthquake. The Incans abandoned the Great Wall of China. Don’t abandon me/

JEREMY tries to hold HER

ABBY (con’t)

We’re losing these magnificent creations of beauty. We’re losing things that leave us awestruck. (pause) We need things that make us marvel.

JEREMY

You make me marvel. I am in awe of you. (ABBY gets up and returns to HER pyramid) Christ, Abby. Why won’t you let me hold you anymore?

ABBY

Where is the reverence for the sublime? The surreal? Greed. Destruction. Illness. Nothing lasts, Jeremy. Nothing lasts.

JEREMY

(shakes pill bottles) Indeed. Nothing lasts. I’m calling your doctor.

ABBY

Fine. Call her. But, she won’t understand. Nobody understands. I’m just trying to make

things last.

JEREMY slowly gets up from sofa. HE takes a few beats to look at ABBY. HE exits with his cell. ABBY is too preoccupied to see that HE is gone.

ABBY

Magnificent creations of beauty ... Things that make us marvel ... Greed. Destruction.

Illness. Abandonment.

JEREMY re-enters

JEREMY

She wants to see you tomorrow at 3. I’ll take you. (pause) Have you taken too much medication? These were just filled six days ago.

ABBY

...

JEREMY

Stop evading my question.

ABBY

I’ve stopped taking them. They exhaust me. They cloud up my brain/

JEREMY

Without them, your mania will relapse. (looks at Pyramid) It’s a mountain of junk

(dismantles more of the structure) 

ABBY

DON’T. Knock it the fuck off.

JEREMY

I refuse to go through another episode of you misusing your medication. (dismantles the

rest of the structure)

ABBY

NO! (pulls HIM away from the structure) You are not in charge of how I choose to handle my Bipolar disorder. You’re a thief. You’re just like that British-Ambassador-What’s- His-Name who stole precious artifacts from the Parthenon and took them to London/

JEREMY

Here we go again.

ABBY

The Bastard had his people steal 17 life-size marble figures, and 15 sculpted panels. He was greedy and defiant, and robbed Athens of its history. Artifacts of beauty and magnificence just gone.

JEREMY

(points to mess) These are not ancient artifacts. And, I am your husband ...

ABBY

By making me take that poison, you are robbing me of me. I need my imagination to be fully intact if these historic structures continue to just vanish.

JEREMY

You are my wife and I love you, but you need to live in reality.

ABBY

But, where is the veneration for the people who died? Who continue to die? We’re losing them ...They’re more than statistics, Jeremy. How can we honor them?

Silence

JEREMY

I wish I knew.

ABBY

Maybe you’re meant for the mundane and the regular, but I’m not/

JEREMY shakes HIS head and massages HIS temples as if HE has a headache

ABBY

I read the works of the great thinkers ... philosophers. (goes to bookshelves and throws books) Look! Aristotle. Nietzsche. Plato. Kant. Heidegger. And your favorite authors? (throws books) Harlan Coben. James Patterson. Dan Brown. Tom fucking Clancy.

JEREMY

Abby. Enough. Please?

ABBY picks up a book and looks through it with great interest

ABBY

(leafs through pages) The Greek Parthenon. Disappeared.

JEREMY

That’s a work of fiction ...

ABBY

I’m just trying to make things last.

JEREMY

I know. (softer) I know you are.

Pause

JEREMY

I know this is your creation ...

ABBY

Yes ....

JEREMY

But, what would you think of coffee cups? Highlighters? Pens?

ABBY

Yes. That could work!

JEREMY

Maybe more Tupperware containers? You can even use some of my books.

ABBY

Good thinking. (pause) I’m sorry about the Tom fucking Clancy remark.

JEREMY

It’s all right. He’s hardly a visionary like you.

ABBY

I’m also a dreamer. And, a thinker. What about my Psychiatrist appointment?

JEREMY

Let’s worry about that tomorrow. Somehow this seems more pressing. I love you.

ABBY

I love you, too. (kisses HIM) Thank you for not abandoning me.

BLACKOUT. End of PLAY.

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  Thanks for reading this month's Featured Writer! Come back next month for more works by talented writers.

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