Freaky Tiki to be published

Well, I'm flying high. I just received the contract for my 26th play with Pioneer Drama Service, and 30th published play overall.

Aloha 'Oe

This one's a comedy titled Freaky Tiki and it's set at a Hawaiian resort loosely inspired by the partly idyllic, partly creepy one in the HBO dramedy The White Lotus. Of course, the sex-charged plot lines of that Emmy-winning show would be wildly inappropriate for the schools that form the bulk of my customer base, but I figured I could do something clean and funny with that lush, tropical setting.

That something came from another favorite show of mine, The Brady Bunch.

Anyone who grew up watching the sitcom, like I did, will remember the famous three-episode arc in which the Brady visits Hawaii and youngest brother Bobby discovers a tiki figure which brings no end of bad luck to the family.

But I didn't want to copy that plot. I needed a twist.

Lucky charms

As I was doing my research for the play, I discovered something interesting. It turns out that in Polynesian culture, tikis are not bad luck at all bit are considered good luck, bringing power, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth to their owners.

That gave me my twist. What if the staff of the resort blames a string of bad, even disastrous, luck on a tiki that was left behind by a mysterious guest, only to see all of the bad luck turn into good luck at the end?

There was just one problem. I still had to figure out exactly what kind of bad luck befell each of the guests.

I brainstormed for weeks, but none of the ideas I came up with felt quite right. Frustrated, I put the script away.

New eyes

When I came back to the script a couple months later, my path became clear. And that's because I realized I needed to make the curse more specific. The tiki didn't just bring bad luck to whoever touched it. It made them lose whatever was most important to them.

This allowed me to play around with the concept of loss. What different kinds of things can people lose?

Well, obviously, you can lose a valuable like a pricey engagement ring. This inspired a pair of characters: an obsessive young man determined to carry out the world's most elaborate wedding proposal and his sweet but suspicious girlfriend.

You can lose your voice. This led me to a controlling, past-her-prime opera singer and her harried assistants.

You can lose a person. That gave me a group of technology-challenged matrons who wander away from a hike led by the resort's perky activities director, only to become hopelessly lost in the rain forest.

Then, just for fun, I had the resort's hot-headed French chef lose the giant lobster he was planning to cook for dinner. This was the link that tied everything together, since the crazy chase that ensues leads to an even crazier chain of events in which the lobster ends up solving everyone's problems. And everyone's happy.

As I say in my synopsis, sometimes bad luck is simply good luck in disguise.

An excerpt

Want a little taste? Here's the beginning of the play, in which we meet the hapless staff:

ELAINE: Good afternoon, staff. As you know, we here at the Wobbly Palms Resort pride ourselves and being the finest two-and-a-half star resort in Hawaii. And if it hadn;t been for that incident in the goat yoga class last year, we'd still have that third star.

KIKI: Sorry, boss. I didn't think the goats were going to be that big.

ELAINE: Those weren't goats, Kiki. They were yaks.

KIKI: Tomato, tomahto.

NALANI: You would not be saying that if you had to clean up after them.

ELAINE: Look, I know you're all trying to do a good job, but you've got to try harder. The owners are already struggling to make ends meet. If we scare off any more guests, they'll be forced to close the resort for good.

KIKI: They can't close it down!

SPENCER: This is the oldest resort on the North Shore!

MAURICE: What weell we do? Where weell we go?

ELAINE: The unemployment line, probably. But the reason I called you all here was to share some good news. I just got word that a representative from the world's largest hotel chain will be visiting us, and if he likes what he sees, he just may buy the resort.

KIKI: That would be great!

NALANI: We would finally have the money to fix up this dump!

SPENCER: We could all save our jobs!

MAURICE: When ees thees person coming?

ELAINE: I don't know.

MAURICE: What ees hees name?

ELAINE: I don't know that either.

MAURICE: Well, how weell we know who he is?

ELAINE: We won't. That's the point. He needs to stay incognito so that he can objectively evaluate our cleanliness, our efficiency, and most of all, our hospitality. That's why it's important for all of us to remember our motto.

NALANI: We have a motto?

ELAINE: Yes, we have a motto! Come on! What do I always tell you guys?

NALANI: Stop snooping through the guests' belongings?

ELAINE: No, not that thing. the other thing.

MAURICE: Do not throw a temper tantrum in front of ze guests?

ELAINE: A good idea, Maurice, but not what I would call a motto. Spencer would you like to try?

SPENCER: If you drop one more bag, you're fired?

ELAINE: No, no, no! Our motto is every guest deserves the best!

(The STAFF mumbles ad-libbed comments like "Oh, yeah," "Right," and "Now I remember.")

If you subscribe to the New Play Exchange, you can read the full synopsis, cast list, and a 20-page sample on the play's web page. If you don't subscribe, you might consider it. For just $12 per year, you get access to the biggest, most easily navigable play database on the web. I've been a member since it first launched in 2015, and while I was a bit skeptical at first, I've become a huge proponent. Give it a spin!