Survival Island! comes to life

The contestants signal for help from a passing helicopter

The world premiere of my new comedy Survival Island! is in the books--and what a premiere it was! The show was produced by my friends at Jacksonville Performing Arts in North Carolina, and they went all out in creating the set and costumes for this reality-show satire. They even built a volcano at the entrance to the theater! Best off all, the audiences loved it.

Getting this premiere was especially important to me because my usual publisher, Pioneer Drama Service, passed on the script. I fully intend on submitting it to another publisher, but before I do that, I wanted to get at least one production to prove the play is not only producible but marketable. 

Of course, the production photos--JPA took over 200 of them!--will also help.

Investment banker Michelle seeks to
corner the market in seashells

Pioneer didn't tell me why they passed on it, and I didn't ask. But I suspect it may be because they felt that the play was too grim.

Admittedly, Survival Island! starts a little darker than most of my plays. The play centers on the eight cast members of a Survivor!-type reality show, and as soon as filming for the show is about to begin, they discover that the entire crew perished when they fell into a volcano. Now the contestants are entirely on their own.

At first, they vow to work together. But soon, they divide into competing mini-countries when their only food source runs low.

Anthropologist Edith and chef Andrea
disagree about the best way to run the island

Toward the end, they finally learn to work together, but not until after an epic fight in which their few remaining bananas serve as effective, if very silly, weapons

That's when they finally come up with the solution that'll allow them to get rescued: Build a battery out of a banana so they can charge the one satellite phone they have (yes, banana batteries really work!).

Only then does the crew reappear, revealing that the volcano incident was all a ruse. They'd faked their deaths in order to heighten the tension and increase the show's ratings.

So yeah, the play ends up being not as dark as it sounds.

The Battle of the Bananas

Now that JPA has produced the play and sent me their photos, I have everything I need to submit it to the next publisher on my list. Which I will do, as soon as I figure who that is.

In the meantime, you can license the play directly from me for the very reasonable fee of $60 per performance. For a free perusal script or to discuss licensing further, simply email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com.

Building the banana battery