Season Ten: Fall 2012

TEN YEARS!!! Somehow I cannot believe it has been a decade since we published our first edition of SpeechGeek. In the time weve published dozens of scripts, expanded our efforts to include The Market, and offered free advice and observations via our blog and social media outlets. Some things weve tried have worked and others have not. Like a good performance, you have to start with experimentation and refine things along the way. Its been a great ride so far, and we simply cannot thank you enough for joining us along the way. Heres to the next decade ahead! We wish you well at the start of another season. Give your best effort, and enjoy the journey between here and Nationals next June. Corey Alderdice Publisher Dont forget to like SpeechGeek on Facebook at: facebook.com/speechgeek.

SpeechGeek SpeechGeek

SpeechGeek ISBN 978-1-61387-038-9

Corey Alderdice Editor and Publisher

Email: thegeek@speechgeek.com

Season Ten: Fall 2012

806 Brownstone Way Bowling Green, KY 42104 (888) 742-2028

SpeechGeek is published four times per year: August, October, December, and April by Corey Alderdice, 248 Arlington Park Dr., Hot Springs, AR 71901. Special issues are published from time to time.
h t t p : / / w w w. s p e e c h g e e k . c o m ISBN 978-1-61387-038-9 Price $25 US http://www.speechgeek.com

Marvelous

by Jane Nicolaas

(Older man pulls truck up to a stop. Leans out. Smiles at audience.) Hey kiddo, whaddya having today? (silence) Bomb pop? Pink Thing? (silence) What? We got popsiclesfudgciclesdreamciclespush popsbarscones. (Silence.Tries harder.) Aw, cmon. By the look on your face, youd think I was asking you to explain cold fusion. (Laughs. Audience is still quiet.) Cold fusion. Ice cream truck. (Silence) Yeesh.Tough crowd. (He looks at one person.) Oh ohI saw that look. Something caught your eye. Let me(He leans out of the window and looks at the side of the truck.) Ah, the novelty character treats, eh? Oh, dont be bashful. These are great. The chocolate dipped Mickey earsSpider-Man with the bubblegum eyes. Ah, but this (He reaches into freezer.) This is my personal favorite. The Shazam! Bar: cherry ice cream around a lemon lightning bolt.You get down to the center and you find a surprise. You get the reference, right? (No response.) The lightning bolt? SHAZAM!? You dont? Great. (He turns off engine.) Youre about to. I love telling stories about heroes and kid youre about to hear the best one. (He clears his throat.) END TEASER Seventeen years. Seventeen years Ive been driving this truck. Seventeen years Ive been taking this old girl through the roughest, poorest, dirtiest parts of the city blasting the Maple Leaf Rag on repeat.You know the song. (He hums part of it.) Its the ice cream truck song. Man, I dont care who you are, where youre from, or how old you are.When you hear that song, (hums) you better run like youre being chased. Its the closest thing to living in an action movie most kids ever get. (He does an intense pretend dialogue between two kids.) Did you hear it?Yeah man!Where is it?I gotta go get a dolla from my mom!THERES NOT ENOUGH TIME!! Lemme rephrase that.The closest thing to living in an action movie most kids from the suburbs ever get. But like I said, I dont drive this truck through the suburbs. Nah, I drive this down the streets of Honey, lock the doors, and Kids, dont make eye contact. People who drive through here just see the dirt. They dont see the kids. Ah, but you know that. Back to the heroes. Every summer, Im driving through these rough neighborhoods because most of these kids folks are either tryna to make ends meet or spending half their paychecks on booze and drugs. Either way lots of em dont have air conditioning, and

none of them have swimming pools or shopping malls to hang out and cool off at. So they scrounge up a buck or two for when the ice cream pulls around.There are trouble-makers, sure. Probably drive their teachers up the flipping walls during the school year.They fall in with the punks, gang members, vandals, and drug dealers because either their family members dont have time to tell them otherwise or their family members ARE the vandals, gang members, and drug dealers. Its a regular rogues gallery living down the hall from you. (beat) Whaddya mean you dontarghrogues are villains.The rogues gallery is the huge bunch of villains the heros always gotta beat. Hang on a sec. (He starts shouting off-stage.) HEY! HEY! YOU, KID.YEAH,YOU.YOU TAKE YOUR GRIMY, FILTHY PAWS OFF THAT OTHER BOY OR ILL COME OVER THERE MYSELF. NO, NO, I DONT BELIEVE THAT HE OWES YOU MONEY. IM SERIOUS. ASK YOUR BUDDIES. (He returns to the audience.) I know all the kids around here. I dont take money from thieves. Nonea this stealing nonsense. Its the bigger ones that cause the trouble.The littler ones, eh, theres still hope for them. Theyre not quite baddies yet. Few years back, I notice this one kid. Luis. Luis couldnt have been more than ten or eleven years old. He wasnt as big as the other kids his age. He wasnt tough. (Pauses) He was good. Some people, you look at them and you can see that theyre good. Everything with Luis was Sir.Yessir.No, sir. I dunno where he got all his manners from, but its the one thing I wish some of the others would take from him. One day, Luis comes up and orders this ice cream that Ive got here. (He looks at it and realizes it is starting to melt.) Ack. Goofy thing is starting to drip down my hand. Here, Ill get you a new one.but dont you go running off yet.The storys just getting good. (He continues to talk while retrieving another pop.) So Luis looks up at the side and asks about the Shazam! Bar. So I start to tell him all about Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was this great big superhero. People mistook him for Superman all the time, but he was really Billy Batson. Billy was an average kid, just like Luis.Wisdom, strength, power, courage Billy was given all these powers from this great wizard, Shazam. All he had to do was shout the wizards name andwell(shouts) SHAZAM! He became Captain Marvel. Here was this hero who would fight for justice, honor, and fairness. At one point, he was even more popular than Superman. Pretty soon, we were meeting every week, sometimes twice a week, to talk about Billy, Captain Marvel, and all these great adventures. He liked the idea of a hero that was a kid, like him. Eventually, we were talking about all the superheroes. He was reading comic books and pretending to fight off bad guys. It was an escape, a much needed one for Luis. (beat) It was tough for him. Being a good kid in a bad part of town. I didnt live in that area. I had a wife and two little ones of my own back on the other

Jack Thornton

VOICE.

by Jane Nicolaas

JACK is an imaginative, excitable, creative eight-year-old who loves heroes and comic books.The VOICE should have a gritty, epic, comic book narrator feeling. DOC is an adult who, clearly, is a doctor.When casting in a duo, DOC and VOICE should be played by the same performer, though the roles can be played by a male or female. (Performers begin back-to-back. JACK is facing the audience, VOICE is facing the back wall. JACK takes on an epic action pose, looking off into the distance. He waits. He lifts his head up and coughs a couple of times, waiting for VOICE to take the cue. He finally speaks.) JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. JACK. VOICE. Hey, ya gonna do this or not?! (performers regular voice) Oh, sorry. Are you ready? Argh! Clearly! Or I wouldnt have said ya gonna do this or not?. (regular voice) My bad. Sheesh. (resumes epic pose) (regular voice) In a world where NO! WHAT?! YOURE SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE THE GUY IN THE MOVIES!!! (sighs, then adopts the epic voice) In a world (JACK nods, approving.) where chaos reigns (epic superhero posing with each line) I AM THE UMBRELLA OF TRUTH! where evil lurks in the shadows I AM THE FLASHLIGHT OF HOPE! where criminals run amok I AM THEuhTHEBRISKLY WALKING GUYWHODOES JUSTICE-Y STUFF. (VOICE and JACK come together over the next few lines to create an epic superhero image.) only one hero can save us all. JACK THORNTON! A hero with courage, with braverywith an 8 oclock bedtime. (frozen in pose) Psst. I got it pushed back to nine. Watch out, crime. Justice is staying up late.

DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. thingies. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC.

I know, right? On this ordinary day, Jack Thornton was just an ordinary kid. Until (turns around to become DOC) (excited, breathless) JACK! AUGH! You startled me. Sorry! Jack, you have to come with me! Butwho are you? Im a doctor! My mom warned me never to leave with strangers. How can I trust you? My lab coat is white. Look, I have one of those stethoscope Could be a Halloween costume. I dont have a mustache. Evil guys always have mustaches. Interestingstill not convincedgo on (annoyed) Its really important, man. Come on. Do you have two forms of photo ID? (pauses, then has an ah-ha moment) Heres my fake hospital badge that the secret underground government laboratory gave me to make sure our ultra-high-tech plans never get discovered. Is that enough for you? Meh. Good enough.

JACK.

(The blocking locking should now indicate a change of location.) JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. JACK. DOC. Where am I? Youre in my ultra-sciencey laboratory of science stuff. Sounds important. It is.Weve been notified that there is an imminent threat to New Random-City-Burg. What is it? Meteor! Meatier than what? A double cheeseburger? No! A Giant rock thingie hurling from outer space to the earth! Sounds like a plan for NASA Theyre too busy making educational movies and freeze dried ice cream. (takes a beat and gets very serious) We need you to be strong for us, Jack. What do I have to do? Sit in this chair. (JACK sits.) Are you afraid of needles? A little. Then Im afraid this will hurt a little. (Pulls out a gigantic needle. Jack gulps and then closes his eyes.) Just do it, Doc. There you go. (beat) You know, Jack.Were asking an awful lot from youto be brave in such a scary situation. I know youre only eight years old. Do you have any questions?

JACK. VOICE.

INTRODUCTION VOICE. JACK. (Back is still toward the audience.) It was just an ordinary day in New Random-City-Burg. Birds were chirping. Babies were crying. Radios were still playing really horrible pop music. Seriously, this stuff is really bad.

Rethinking Pink

part of her public self.

by Julia Neva

Breast cancer has become one of the most widely recognized, researched, and discussed diseases in America today. One of the ways in which people have sought to bring attention to the disease was through pink ribbon campaigns. However, in an effort to raise funds to fight the disease, the conversation has moved away from the individuals suffering and toward a pink-washing of products in an effort to raise funds.This poetry program seeks to remind individuals to not only donate money to research, but to donate their time by supporting patients through the unpleasant realities of treatment.
IN THE CAR ON THE WAY TO THE LUMPECTOMY Ashley. Amanda. Candace. The wigs names are feminine and familiar, ones that small town girls peel from their skin like dried glue in favor of an alter-ego foreign and artificial. Amy. Emily. Chelsea. The names are snapshots of the girls I once knew by those names. Remember them for their freckle dappled noses skin snuggling the sun while wind made sloppy, careless love to wild, un-ribboned hair. Even the models seem foreign and artificial. Elizabeth. Lily. Lynn. I search the pages for my mothers name, fail. I search for wig styled like her while the drugs make rough, loveless jabs to thin, un-ribboned hair. Bands and ribbons only pull out whats left, she examines her reflection with the precision the surgeon pays to her chart. She is losing the most personal

My mothers bedroom feels foreign and artificial. T-shirts, tote bags, bandannas. Pink. All pink. Not coral or salmon, not one-hour-too-long-in-the-sun or earthworm wriggling from rain soaked dirt pink, but a nauseating Pepto Bismol pink, toy store saturation, the color of man-made marketing enthusiasm, foreign and artificial. Shes inducted in the sorority of survival. She is a call to marathons, a plea for donations, a face in the sea of statistics. The disease becomes an open invitation to unearned intimacy. Strangers mouths cant help but spill the names of those who died from the disease into her lap. Susan. Gretchen. Margaret. The room looks like it belongs to A girl 40 years younger. Everything is pink except her skin. Everything is rosy except the circumstances. Im losing my mother to a cause spit-shined with optimism on the outside, while a disease disease lingers and gnaws her from the inside. Uncertainty is a horror film. I no longer place faith in the once unwavering belief that when my sons feverish wails left me lost in my own home, she would be there to pick up the phone, and gently guide me back to where I needed to be. Somehow, while she waits for The surgeons instructions,

12

13

Origin Story

Mom, hed reply, drawing the ahh out to highlight how off base I was,Youre thinking of Harry Potter.

by Julia Neva

Isnt Harry Potter a wizard? Yeah I thought your game was about wizards? It is, but not the Harry Potter kind of wizard. Oh, so like Gandalf then? Argh! No, mom. I was just teasing him about that last one. Teens forget that sometimes their parents arent completely clueless. You shouldnt encourage him, Hank would tell me as we got into bed,I dont like it. You dont like me encouraging my son? Clearly, Hank was ridiculous. That game. That stuff. I dont like all this talk of fairies and unicorns and magic. I want it to stop, he growled, growing more annoyed and urgent. Youre overreacting, Hank. Well see about that. Three weeks passed and Hank made no other mention of the game or his quite obvious desire for Chris to magically become interested in sports or roughhousing. On the night of the open house at Chriss school, things were eerily pleasant in our house. Hank and Chris were talking about some movie they both were interested in seeing.They were smiling, laughing, and Hank had his arm around Chriss shoulder. I wanted to freeze that moment in time. It was the first time in a very long time that they looked like a father and son. It would also be the last time. Hank froze when he saw Chriss contribution to the open house. Chris had painted a family portrait of the three of us, but as characters from his Magic cards. It was gorgeous and fantastic. Clearly, he had spent a great deal of time working on it. While I looked a bit elven, Chris gave himself a cloak and a glowing wand. Hank towered over us both, true to form, an impressive wall of muscle and masculinity.

My story begins with Magic: The Gathering cards. No, they werent my cards. I never had a clue how they worked. Plus, I doubt there were a lot of other moms gathering around to play cards with wizards and warlocks on them.They belonged to Chris. Everything in the room down the hall belongs to Chris. He collected and organized them for years.You couldnt walk into his room without being overwhelmed by all the stuff. The cards were the first things he loved that I didnt understand. Now that Im twenty-four hours away from a surprise intervention for my own collection, what some may call hoarding, I get it. Needless to say, I understand it now. He had gone over to a friends house and was introduced to the game. Chris had a difficult time making friends. Our recent move was hard on him. It was complicated for all of us. Chris and I both felt lonely and isolated while Hank kept pile driving through life as he usually did. So when Chris found something he was interested no OBSESSED with, I was relieved. Passion and purpose can distract a person from their woes. Hank was less than impressed. Hank was a wall of musclea mans man in every sense of the word. Gruff, aggressive, and ruggedly handsome, it was hard for me not to fall in love with him as a girl. As his wife, the Mr. I-Want-To-Rip-Trees-FromTheir-Roots-With-My-Bare-Hands routine grew old. As his son, Chris, a gentle, sensitive, and introverted boy, it was hard for him not to feel shortchanged by fate. I encouraged Chris to collect cards for a game I didnt understand. He loved not only the structure and the rules but also the opportunity for imagination. In this world, he wasnt the skinny, scrawny, nerdy kid his father wasnt interested in. In the world of the game, he was a hero. He was a warrior. He was a fighter. Soon, Chriss room was plastered. Posters of the game were on the wall. He had row after row of books and dozens of notebooks journaling previous games and their outcomes. Binders where he meticulously organized his cards stood like soldiers on the shelves. He drew pictures of the characters and framed them. He charted and plotted spellsfighting ones to cause near fatal damage and healing ones to bring characters back from near death. As Chriss obsession grew, so did Hanks disgust. I tried to counteract his negativity. On the days he came home from playing at a friends house after school, I tried to ask how everything went. So, sweetie. How did your Quidditch match go?

18

19

The Yates Transcript

by Erica Mehl

My name is Andrea Yates. I am 36 years old. My husband is Rusty. I stay at home with our five childrenNoah is 7 years old. John is 5 years old, Paul is 3, Luke is 2 years old. Mary is 6 months old. This morning, I killed my children. All of them. I killed them because I am a bad mother. God wanted us all to be punished. Rusty and I met when we were both 25. In 1993, we were married and a year later had Noah. We told everyone that we thought God expected us to have six children. And we almost did. After Noah was born, I heard Satan speak to me for the first time. So I told Rusty that I thought I needed some help. The doctors gave me medication for depression, but it didnt work. Rusty was at his wits end. He introduced me to his missionary friends, Michael and Rachel. I told Michael that I worried about Satan getting a hold on Noah and he told me that parents were to be held accountable for the actions of their children. Rusty and I went on to have four more childrenJohn, Paul, Luke, and Maryand things were going well. His job at NASA was good and I was able to keep my spirits high, home-school the children, and teach them to be good, submissive Christian children. A few weeks ago, Rachel was at the house when looked at me and said,Andrea dont you know that you are wicked? You are evilall of us women are in Gods eyes. We are daughters of Eve, who was a wicked witch and tricked Adam into eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Rusty told us that you dont listen to him.You know that a wife should do her husbands biddingit is the wifes job to be subservient to her husband. Michael told Rusty that the window of opportunity for us to minister to you is closing. God is telling us that your children are on the path to evil because YOU are on the path to evil. You must repent or your children will suffer. I knew that something would have to be done. Rusty left for work this morning at 9. When he left, the children were having their breakfast. They were eating their cereal and I had just given Mary her bottle. I filled the bathtub with water. It was time to do it. I needed to save them from everythingfrom me.

22

For more quality material, visit our website at http://www.speechgeek.com!

Dramatic Interpretation (Male) Marvelous by Jane Nicolaas Duo Interpretation Jack Thornton: The Boy Who Breathed Fire by Jane Nicolaas Poetry Program Builder Rethinking Pink by Julia Neva Prose Interpretation Origin Story by Julia Neva Dramatic Interpretation (Female) The Yates Transcript by Erica Mehl

SpeechGeek 248 Arlington Park Dr. Hot Springs, AR 71901 thegeek@speechgeek.com

Season Ten: Fall 2012 Copyright 2012 ISBN Number 978-1-61387-038-9