DMP Devised Script

The Perfect Family
To-do List:
  • Old videos
  • Family pictures
  • More interview sound bytes
Script (words)
Visual landscape (video, images, etc.)
Aural/Audio landscape
Bodies/Movement
Space considerations and other stage directions
Start with perfect families



  1. Divorce--Michaella
  1. Disability--Maddie
  1. Storm Out
  1. Waiting for the Texts


















  1. Climax: He’s not going to church but at least we know alive
  2. Cut to black
  3. 30 second stories--Monologues
  4. Cut with audio of do perfect families exist?
  5. End with Becca’s perfection
  6. Becca sits at the table and
Dick VanDyke Introduction?




Cue During #1: Kitchen Background







Cue During #4: Time Lapse Spring to Winter
Cue During #4 after line “He always listens to his messages”:Time Lapse Winter to Spring

Cue During #4 Time Passing


Cue Before #1: Old/Family Music
Cue Before #1: Audio about Family Dinner (Interview)

Cue After #1: Voiceover--can be electronic or another actor.

Cue After #3: Car driving off

Cue During #4: 3 Phone vibrates








Cue During #4 after line: “let me just grab the potato salad from the fridge.”: Phone Ringing
Cue During #4 after phone ringing: Voiceover of Son’s Voice--”Hello”






Daughter and Mother setting the dinner table and eating.













Son storms out of the space and the father comes after them.
30-Second Stories
Sarah:
  • Family Videos:
  • Interview Sound Byte:(on my phone)
  • 30 second story:
    • Sarah: Mackintosh’s Story--Sean Mackintosh grew up in a mormon family in Lehi, Utah. Throughout his growing up years, he slowly came to a life-altering realization: He was gay. After grappling with this discovery, he realized came to the difficult decision that he needed to tell his parents, so he did. At first there was anger, confusion, heartbreak, and misunderstanding. His family relationships, especially with his dad, were strained. One day, in a moment of anger, his Dad shouted at Sean, “How could you choose this?” Seann, bewildered, softly replied, “Dad. I didn’t choose this.” That small exchange, that raw moment, changed everything. His dad began to understand Sean and his experience. He saw him for who he was. It took a long time for healing to occur, but finally the Mackintosh family came together again. Of the experience, Sean said that all he needed was to know his family loved him. And they did. Sean said of his new family situation: “We may have differences, but at the end of the day we’re still family.”
    • Michaella: Tears in Heaven  
        • “I have a box tucked in the back of a closet with his sonogram, a white Winnie the Pooh onsie he never wore, a statue of a baby angel, a sympathy card and the book Gone to Soon: The Life and Loss of Infants and Unborn Children by Sherri Devashrayee Wittwer. There is no other earthly record of his short life. Some might even debate whether he had been a life at all.Only the parents of a miscarried or stillborn child understand the magnitude of the bonding, which occurs in the womb and the loss felt at the death of a fetus. I was surprised at the magnitude of loss for a child I had never seen with earthly eyes. After my stillborn child died, I grieved alone.”
  • Climax (part of script):
Dad: Come here, I need to talk to you.
Son: What do you want? I didn’t even do anything?
Dad: You can’t act that way towards your mom.
Son: I didn’t even do anything.
Dad: She is your mother for goodness sake. She deserves better than this.
Son: I already said I didn’t do anything.
Dad: You need to go apologize.
Son: Screw that.
Dad: Go now.
Son: Fine, I will go. I know that I’m not wanted here.
Son starts packing up bags.
Son: You can go apologize to Mom for kicking her son out of the house.
Dad: That’s not what I meant. Listen when I am talking to you.
Son finishes packing and grabbing the bag.
Son: Screw you and your perfect family. I don’t want a part of it anymore.
Son leaves. Dad runs after son.
Dad: Get back in here.
Sound Cue: Car driving off.
Dad exits. Mom sits at the table. Phone continues to vibrate she checks it hopeful and ends up being disappointed. This happens three times.
Sound Cue: Phone Vibrating.
Visual: Time lapses or Images of seasons ends with Christmas tree or Christmas image.
Child: Is he coming home for Christmas?
Mom: He was supposed to but he hasn’t been answering my calls. That probably means he changed his mind and isn’t coming.
Child: Oh…that’s too bad.I was hoping he would come.
Mom: Maybe you should call him. Even if he doesn’t answer you can tell him you miss him. He always listens to his messages.
Visual: Time lapses or Images of seasons ends with summer image.
Child: Hey mom, you coming to the barbeque? The Smith’s said they got like $500 worth of fireworks!
Mom: Yup! I’ll be on my way in a second, let me just grab the potato salad from the fridge.
While turning to walk away, phone rings…
Mom: Hello?
SON VO: Mom?
Sound Effect: Phone Ring—Voice Over
The following will be silent. Whoever is playing the Mother will act as if she is overjoyed and then a moment of heartbreak as her son then tells her that she is not coming. She smiles again and then hangs up the phone.
Mom (to child): He’s not coming home.
Son: He’s not coming home.
Other members of family come on repeating “He’s not coming home.”
Mom(Stepping Forward): But at least he’s alive.
Time Lapse: Winter to Spring--In Perfect Family Folder under Visual


Divorce Script:


Mom age 33. Daughter age 12.
Mom: Daughter! Come help set the table.
Daughter (offstage): Coming.
Mom and daughter begins setting the table.
Daughter: Where is dad?
Mom: Oh, don’t worry about that.
Daughter: Is he staying at work late today.
Silence.
Mom: Can you grab the salt and pepper please.
Daughter grabs that salt and pepper.
Mom: Thank you.
Both sit at the table. And they both begin eating.
Daughter: I know when you are not telling me something.
Mom: Just eat your dinner.
Daughter: Fine.
Mom: Thank you.
They eat.
Daughter(teasing): But if you just told me then I would know.  
Mom: If I tell you it will ruin our dinner.
Daughter: Good thing I’m already done!
Mom (sigh)
Mom: Your dad left last night. And I am not sure where he is.
Daughter: He probably just went to work…
Mom: Baby he didn’t—
Daughter: You are wrong. He is just at work.
Mom: He packed up all his clothes
Daughter: You are lying!
Mom: I don’t think he is coming back—
Daughter: Why would he leave me?! He loves me why would he leave!
Mom: It is going to be okay. I love you—
Daughter: I hate you! You made him leave!
Mom: Baby
Daughter breaks down and Mom holds her for a moment.
Mom: We are going to be okay.
Daughter: Doesn’t he want us?
Daughter leaves. Mother turns upstage and begins writing in a notebook. Mom leaves the stage.


Transition: Voiceover of her journal entry.
June, 28th 2014
I hate my husband. I had to look in my child’s eyes and tell her that her father was not coming home. I hate him because he made me tell her.
He left me with the pieces that I was not ready to pick up.
I wanted to make it work. I needed to make it work.
And then he just got up and left like a coward.
Maybe I’m the coward.
I’ve dreamed my whole life that I would have this perfect family with a mom and a dad who loved each other. Then there would be kids. So many kids that you would forget all their names.
I’m embarrassed that dream is not my life. That I am not a good enough wife or a good enough mother to make this dream a reality.
I just wanted to have my perfect family.

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