Mall Madness is now available!

Just in time for the new school year, Pioneer Drama Service has released my 29th play with them (and 33rd overall). Set in the 1980's, Mall Madness is a lighthearted romp through all those great fads of that wonderful decade: Rubik's cubes, Dungeons and Dragons, Sony Walkmans (Walkmen?), Swatch watches, boomboxes, and, of course, Air Jordans.

To read a script sample or review ordering info, visit the play's web page here.

It's a Mall World After All

Most of my early plays were set in fairly generic settings: an Old West town, a French restaurant, a mythical kingdom. But I've been having fun lately placing my plays in oddly specific locales.

It Happened on Route 66 is set at an actual 1950's diner in Winona, Arizona, which I made a point of visiting last year and discovered it to be very different that the diner I'd imagined when I was writing the play.

Thirty Minutes Till Boarding, a play I'm currently developing with Belmont Day School in Massachusetts, takes place at gate E7 of Boston's Logan Airport. 

And while the abandoned theater of Bringing Down the House is completely made-up, I placed it on a very specific street in Lower Manhattan for one very good reason.

Mall Madness is no different. I could have set it in any 1980's mall. But I decided to plop it down right in the middle of the Glendale Galleria in the San Fernando Valley of California. Why? Well, I wanted the laid-back, Southern California vibe that the characters in movies like Say Anything and Fast Times at Ridgemont High had. I also found that there are a ton of videos and photos of the place online, which inspired my own writing.

The Glendale Galleria also has a fascinating history in itself. It was the home of the very first Disney Store. The home of the very first Panda Express. It appeared in a number of 1980's movies, including Miracle Mile and Valley Girl. And Billie Eilish recorded her music video for her 2021 single "Therefore I Am" in the empty, after-hour corridors of the mall.

Of course, I don't expect directors to make their set a carbon copy of the Glendale Galleria. That would be insane. But I think that having something to look at will inspire them in their own work. They may end up going in a completely different direction. But at least they'll have a starting point.

Those Golden Treasures

One more thing about the play. Mall Madness is one of my few plays that features a full, minute-long monologue.

I know, I know. I should write more monologues as a way to introduce directors and actors to my plays through the audition circuit. And I've tried. I've really tried.

The thing is that my characters absolutely refuse to talk that long. They like to get to the point, their dialog taking a rat-a-tat rhythm that keeps things moving.

Well, that all changed when Darla, a teenage employee of Rooster Ray's, America's Poultry Palace, took the stage in Mall Madness. Her job was to hand out samples of the latest high tech food product: chicken nuggets. And she took that job way too seriously:

I understand, ma'am, but I'm not allowed to give you any more. My manager was very clear about that during my training. Why, I remember it as if it were yesterday. Come to think of it, it was yesterday. "Darla," he said. "Do you see this chunk of chicken in my hand? Well, this is no ordinary chunk of chicken. Oh, no! This chunk of chicken is going to change the world! For too long, mothers have suffered the backbreaking burden of roasting entire chickens in their ovens. For too long, their husbands and children have grappled with scrawny drumsticks and unwieldy wings at the dinner table. But today we are on the verge of a new dawn. Today the chicken chunk has eliminated those hassles forever by offering a source of protein that is not only easy to cook but delicious to eat as well. Which i why we must treat them as the golden treasures they are. No not hand them out willy-nilly. They are much too precious for that. No, our corporate rule--and it is an ironclad one--is that you are to distribute only one sample per customer. Not three. Not two. Not one and a half. Just one. One chicken chunk, now and forevermore.

Summing it up 

Mall Madness is a big, fun comedy jam-packed with crazy characters like Darla. But it's not all yuks. There's also a heartwarming message about teenage relationships and figuring out who your real friends are. And, of course, there's a ton of cultural references that will make any child of the 80's smile.

I think you're really going to love it.

You can check it out here.

UPDATE: Mall Madness booked its first production on August 27, just 6 days after it was released. That's a new record for me. Thank you, Mascoutah Middle School of Mascoutah, IL!

I'm thinking it's going to be very popular.

Raising a stink

One of the worst thing about moving to Phoenix is missing out on all the great Colorado productions of my plays. One of the best things about moving to Phoenix is getting to see great Arizona productions of my plays.

I did a little bit of both yesterday as The Stinky Feet Gang had a dual world premiere: one at an elementary school in Fowler, CO and, just a few hours later, one at a Christian middle school in Glendale, AZ.

I got to see the one in Glendale. From where I live in Mesa, it took about 50 minutes to get to the school, and that's without much traffic. (Did I mention how big Phoenix is? For that entire drive, I was on the metro freeway system, going 65 miles an hour, and I still had about half an hour to go before I would see open desert.)

Director Jennifer Pellish warmly greeted me on my arrival (as did the school principal). She apologized for changing the gender of some of the roles. The Stinky Feet Gang is heavily male but, in a twist that runs contrary to everything I know about theatre, she had more boys than girls try out and had to change a couple of shopkeeper roles from female to male.

I told her not to worry. I understand the casting constraints schools (or community theaters, for that matter) are under so changing the gender of roles is fine with me. And you don't have to ask my permission.

I do get a little uneasy if a director adds characters or changes the dialogue in a substantial way. In those cases, it's best if you email me (see the link to the right).

Jennifer went on to say that it was one of the easiest plays she had ever produced, which was a great relief to me. I didn't get a chance to develop this play with a school and while I tried to keep it simple, you never know what challenges will pop up when somebody actually puts the play on its feet.

Anyway, the students did a fantastic job. They got a ton of laughs from the audience, and the parents told me they really enjoyed it.

It's always great to see a new play get up on its feet. Even if those feet reek to high heaven.

Mall Madness comes to life

In the 1980's, the mall was the one place where
all the cool (and not-so-cool) kids hung out.

Long-time followers of this blog know that I like to post the first production photos I find for each new play of mine. I do this for a couple of reasons. 

One is to promote the play. My hope is that these photos will help you theater directors and drama teachers out there to get a sense of the play: what it's about, the tone, how difficult it might be to produce.

The other is to provide a little inspiration. If you do decide to produce the play, the sets and costumes in these photos might give you some ideas for your own production. At the very least, they'll get you thinking.

 

"Oh, for heaven's sakes! Popcorn again!
Why can't it ever be something easy
like a doughnut or a quesadilla?"

Today I'm sharing photos from my 1980's high school comedy, Mall Madness. This is not actually my newest play. That honor belongs to A Fine-Feathered Murder, which was released in November. But since Mall Madness came out in August, most schools were unable to squeeze into their fall semester so the first productions are only just happening now.

The good news is that I found two schools which posted photos of their shows on Facebook. These schools took very different directions in their designs, but they did a such great job of capturing the playful, fun-loving mood of that decade that I decided to share photos from both.

 

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm not authorized
to give you a second sample."

The first four photos come from Oak View Middle School in Andover, MN. I love the whole look of their set, from the jazzy, colorful Food Court sign to the chunky, cafeteria-style tables specially built for the show.

All in all, they kept it pretty simple. But still, looking at the set, you can tell exactly which decade the play is set in.

"Now, Blanche. You know we can't be stopping
every five minutes just so you can grab a snack."

The costumes were also a lot of fun. The custodian, Mr. Henry, appears appropriately authoritative in his orange safety vest, while Darla, with her bright red apron and rooster-inspired baseball cap, looks like she just stepped out of a cheesy 1980's fast food restaurant. And in the play, she did, a place called Rooster Ray's, which offered free samples of a brand new food item called "chicken chunks".

I especially loved the neon-colored tracksuits of Blanche and Evelyn, the middle-aged mall walkers. No danger here! You'd be able to them coming from a mile away.

The students, on the other hands, wore more timeless styles. From the nerds to the jocks to the mean-girl Glams, the clothes were largely indistinguishable, perhaps emphasizing the point that, underneath it all, these kids really aren't that different from each other.

"Are you crazy? What makes you
think she'd go with you?"

The last four photos come from Holy Cross School in South Bend, IN. Their set is much bigger, dominated a mostly gray backdrop that extends the entire width of the stage.

Here, the signs like Glendale Mall and Rooster Ray's are just paper cut-outs attached to that backdrop, but the set folks added a lot of additional details, like those geometric accents and an elaborately painted pillar that you can catch one small glimpse of along the right side of the bottom photo.

They also managed to snag some rickety, formica-topped tables for the students to eat at (perhaps borrowed from the school's own cafeteria?). And those molded plastic chairs look uncomfortable enough to belong in any 1980's food court.

"Elwood was right! You really are a jerk!"

As for the costumes, well, they went all out. Elwood and Fletcher, the two Dungeons-and-Dragons-loving nerds at the heart of the story, are outfitted in embarrassingly dorky clothes, while their friend (and potential love interest?) Stevie wore an only slightly less embarrassing sweater and skirt combination with knee socks.

The jocks, three football players exhibiting various degrees of obnoxiousness, wore real high school letter jackets. The Glams, meanwhile, were a plentitude of pink. In fact, these uber-popular girls loved the color so much that they insisted on bringing their own satiny pink tablecloth to the food court!

"Sorry, Amber, but you're forgetting Rule
Number One Hundred Twenty-Eight.
Don't share food with another Glam."

But my favorite touch had to be how they turned Elwood's uncle Wayne into a John Cusack-lookalike for the final scene of the play, in which this lovelorn shoe salesman tries to win back his ex by holding a boombox above his head.

No, it never made sense to me either.

"Oh, I know I've been a fool. I know I've
focused too much on the latest trends in
casual footwear and not enough on you."

If nothing else, these photos prove once again that there are an infinite number of ways to design any scene. All you need is a little creativity and a willingness to think outside the box.

Do you have photos from this or another show of mine that you'd like to share? If so, please email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com. Thank you!