Mall Madness to be published

Good news! For the first time since December, I've got a new play accepted for publication. It's titled Mall Madness and it's being published by Pioneer Drama Service, my 29th play with them. This light-hearted comedy has a cast of 16 (6M, 8F, 2E), uses a single set, and runs about 75 minutes.

Write what you know

After the unexpected success of It Happened on Route 66, I'd decided I wanted to write another play capturing the spirit of a particular decade. But which decade?

Well, since I'd already done the 50's, there was only one obvious choice: those totally awesome 80's. I've always loved the 80's, and not just nostalgically. It was a huge decade for me in real life as well.

It was the decade that I graduated from high school. The decade that I met my future wife. And the decade that Tammy and I got married.

Nobody loved the 80's as much as we did. Cruising around in my black, rusted-out Chevy Nova. Bopping out to new wave bands like A Flock of Seagulls and the B-52's. Catching flicks like The Breakfast Club and Say Anything.

It was a wonderful decade to be young and in love.

So I had to laugh when, thirty years later, our teenage daughters became fans of the exact same bands and movies (rusted-out cars not so much). If they loved the 80's, then I figured there must be a lot of kids who would love to relive those golden days of yore onstage.

Choosing a setting

It Happened on Route 66 took place in perhaps the most iconic of 50's settings: a highway diner. So what was its equivalent in the 80's? Where did 80's teens gather to hang out and, well, just be teens? 

Nothing quite clicked. An arcade? Too hard to recreate on a stage. A video store? Kids didn't really hang out there for long. A school dance? Those had been done to death. 

Finally, at dinner one night, I mentioned my conundrum to Tammy. And, as so often happens, she immediately had the answer.

The mall food court.

I loved the idea. A food court is a rich, fertile ground for humor, with all the tacky restaurants and the potential for awkward social situations. It would be simple to stage, only requiring a few tables and chairs. And as far as I could tell, nobody had ever set a play in a food court before.

Next up: the plot

But what would the play be about? I knew Pioneer already had a couple of plays set in the 1980's, the musical Totally Awesome 80's and its slimmed-down version The Awesome 80's. And they're a lot of fun, basically big mash-ups of the famous movie plots and characters from that decade. 

I wanted to do something different. Think, think, think. Well, let's see. Another fun part of the 80's were the products that had seemed so modern and cool at the time but had since either faded from sight or become just a normal part of our everyday culture. You know, like Rubik's Cubes. And chicken nuggets. And Air Jordans. And boomboxes.

But I still had a problem. How do you build a story out of those?

I wrestled with this question for months. Then my wife and I watched a cheesy Hallmark movie titled Trading Up Christmas. It's about a successful young businesswoman from the big city (of course) who returns to her small town to help her financially-challenged sister get a home. How does she do it? By trading up from a simple Christmas stocking.

I had my plot! (Who says Hallmark movies are a waste of time?) From that point, the writing just flowed out of me and I completed the script in a couple of months. 

The madness begins

I'm very happy with how it turned out. Here's the synopsis:

It's the 1980's, and there's only one place you'll find all the cool kids (and not so cool kids) on a Saturday afternoon: the mall.

That's where Elwood is mooning over the queen bee of the school, Chanel. Elwood longs to take Chanel to see her favorite girl band, the Lipsticks, but he knows he has two strikes against him. One, he's a Dungeons & Dragons-loving nerd. And two, the concert is completely sold out.

Elwood's luck seems to turn when he helps out a mysterious young woman who rewards him with a pair of tickets to the very same concert. But before he can ask Chanel to go with him, brutish high school quarterback Brock swipes the Trapper Keeper where Elwood has hidden the tickets.

There's only one way to get the binder back from Brock without tipping him off to the treasure inside: Offer him a brand new pair of Air Jordans in exchange, Unfortunately, Elwood can't afford such pricey shoes. But if he trades a boombox for the shoes, and a Walkman for the boombox, and so on and so forth, Elwood might finally get the tickets by giving up the one thing he values most: a cheap D&D miniature!

And yes, the boombox from the movie Say Anything does play a key role. As does a very important tray of chicken nuggets.

Mall Madness should be released before the new school year opens this fall.