Manuscript by Paul GrellongCharactersDavid-19 year old man, attends Harvard, very good with words,
conniving.
Chris- 19 year old man, David's best friend, relaxed, extremely intelligent, attends Princeton.
Elizabeth-19 year old woman, Chris’ girlfriend, will do anything to get what she wants, also attends Princeton.
SynopsisAfter their first semester away at different Ivy League schools, David invites his best friend Chris to his New York brownstone for Christmas break, with his new girlfriend Elizabeth. Elizabeth, however, had known David from a summer time writer’s workshop and they had been romantically involved.
Both David and Elizabeth are writers. Elizabeth’s sister is a well established author, and after her first published essay, it seems Elizabeth is on that road as well, though the publishing house is hounding her to finish her first novel, now several months over due. David is upset, however, because Elizabeth’s door opening essay had been written by him.
Chris and David convince Elizabeth that they are close smoking
buddies with a fictional, famous, author. When Chris comes back from picking up drugs at his house, he announces that the author was slumped over dead and that in the heat of the moment he had taken the nearly finished manuscript.
David, Chris and Elizabeth argue over what to do with the manuscript. Elizabeth convinces the others to allow her to write an ending and publish it under her name. David convinces her to submit what she has right away in order to appease the publishing house. Only after she submits the manuscript does David reveal that he had convinced Chris to attend Princeton in order to befriend Elizabeth, and bring her to her home. The author actually lives in Wyoming and the manuscript was written by David and already submitted to his agent. With Elizabeth claiming as her own a manuscript that was almost already published, David assures her that her hopes of publishing are ruined.
ThemesGrellong’s play seems most concerned about plagiarism, and stealing
intellectual property. David is so deeply affected by the previous plagiarism that he plans for nearly a year and a half in order to seek revenge. David is also only a year removed from high school and still behaves much like a high school student would. By letting the high school audience relate to the victim, it may give them pause before plagiarizing or stealing someone’s work. Also the long term consequences that Elizabeth is going to face because she thought plagiarism was an easy way out may serve as an alarm.
Grellong also explores the theme of friendship and romance, as Chris must deal with making major changes in his plans in order to exact revenge for David, and then wondering how to balance that with the very real romance he begins to develop with Elizabeth
School Board Alarms (Violence/Sex/Language/Drugs/Religion)
The characters in
Manuscript all talk about using drugs casually. The staging notes also include drug
paraphernalia, however no drugs are ever used on stage. On the other hand, the fictional author develops a drug
addiction and dies because of it, though the play later admits this is a hoax.
Chris and Elizabeth make a couple of obscure sexual references.
The characters use exceptionally bad language, however in every circumstance it is simple to write out.
All of the main characters speak in passing of their shared Judaism, but none of the comments are
derogatory or
proselytizing.
Conclusion: If your school board is sensitive to language some cuts would have to be made. You may choose to stage without the drug
paraphernalia as well.
Why you should do it?
Manuscript is ideal for a smaller program. There are only three characters that need to be cast, and while all three have a lot of stage time a weaker actor can be hidden between two stronger ones.The casting can be realistic as the characters are all close in age to high school students.
The set is limited and could be performed with no more than a bed, but enough details are given that a more elaborate bedroom scene could be constructed.
The theme is particularly on point for high school students, and may ring particularly true with your theatre students, aspiring artists themselves.
Where do I find it?
The play is available through Dramatists for $7.50 and is $75.00 per performancehttp://dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3689Labels: Full Length, Manuscript, Paul Grellong, What to perform
