a play by Nicolas D. Pennington
CAST OF CHARACTERS
VALERIE ROSE, a college student in her early twenties.
HARPER DURANT, a mysterious, dark skinned baker from France in his late twenties.
AMELIA, a terminally ill aunt of VALERIE, in her fifties.
JOHNNY WILDER, the beloved, retired cop from Bushdell, in his late fifties.
MILLY, a portly woman in her early twenties, and a friend of VALERIE and BRIDGET.
BRIDGET, a beautiful bimbo in her early twenties, and a friend of VALERIE and MILLY.
VICTORIA ROSE, the widowed mother of VALERIE and LIZZIE, in her late forties.
LIZZIE ROSE, a single mother in her late twenties. Sister to VALERIE.
JOSHUA ROSE, the eight year-old son of LIZZIE.
NURSE, a young woman caring for AMELIA.
FEMALE CUSTOMER, a suburban woman in her forties.
TOWNSPEOPLE, a variety of men, women, and children, in any quantity that can be afforded.
REPORTERS, a group of reporters with microphones and cameras.
Time: Modern day, mid-Fall.
Setting: The play is set in a fictional, Midwest suburban town in the US, called Bushdell. It is small and somewhat isolated, very average. Gossip is a main source of entertainment and everyone, particularly the adults, have an overtly suburban style. Also Pardamay, another fictional city several miles south.
HARPER DURANT, a mysterious, dark skinned baker from France in his late twenties.
AMELIA, a terminally ill aunt of VALERIE, in her fifties.
JOHNNY WILDER, the beloved, retired cop from Bushdell, in his late fifties.
MILLY, a portly woman in her early twenties, and a friend of VALERIE and BRIDGET.
BRIDGET, a beautiful bimbo in her early twenties, and a friend of VALERIE and MILLY.
VICTORIA ROSE, the widowed mother of VALERIE and LIZZIE, in her late forties.
LIZZIE ROSE, a single mother in her late twenties. Sister to VALERIE.
JOSHUA ROSE, the eight year-old son of LIZZIE.
NURSE, a young woman caring for AMELIA.
FEMALE CUSTOMER, a suburban woman in her forties.
TOWNSPEOPLE, a variety of men, women, and children, in any quantity that can be afforded.
REPORTERS, a group of reporters with microphones and cameras.
Time: Modern day, mid-Fall.
Setting: The play is set in a fictional, Midwest suburban town in the US, called Bushdell. It is small and somewhat isolated, very average. Gossip is a main source of entertainment and everyone, particularly the adults, have an overtly suburban style. Also Pardamay, another fictional city several miles south.
FOREWORD
My two biggest life-changing events happened when I was 17 years old, and only two days apart from each other. Early in 2006, I was diagnosed with a severe case of scoliosis. With over a 60 degree curvature, I was forced to undergo corrective surgery or else I may not make it past the age of 21. By September, I finally received that surgery. Spinal fusion. Titanium rods were fused to my spine and kept in place with six 3-inch screws. A couple of ribs had to be removed in the process. After a painful and madness-inducing 8 days recovering in the hospital, I was finally sent home. My family celebrated my return, and everything was looking up. But not for long.
Two days after I returned from my life-saving surgery, my father was tragically killed in a head-on collision with a fire truck. I remember that night, September 16th of 2006, when I awoke to the silhouettes of cops standing in my doorway. Fresh from my surgery, I still couldn't set up or get out of bed without assistance. My body was still numb, and as the cops told us the bad news, I felt my mind go numb as well. How could this happen? What would we do now?
The next three months I spent bed-ridden and depressed. With little to do, I took to writing again for the first time in 7 years. For some reason, I was inspired to write a play - nothing like my previous writing endeavors. The characters were not inspired by the people in my own life, but the play itself dealt with something very fresh and very real to me: death.
Indeed, this play was the healthiest form of coping I had practiced thus far after my father's sudden death. It came to me out of the blue, and I spent all of my time in recovery writing it. It gave me joy, release, and the satisfaction of creating something new out of a painful loss.
That play, then called Harper Berry of Notre Bohneur, was finished later that same year. Being the little go-getter I am, I printed out stacks of the script to give out to interested parties. The play received a reading from both a high school drama class and a local theater. The play was also read by a major theater critic living in Sacramento. The general consensus, from all readings, was that the story was...interesting and fun. However, it required much more polish. The Sacramento critic wrote back to me about my play in detail, and he was very honest. He told me that I was too young to understand the concept of love. I was too young to be writing about these things. I should experience more of life before returning to rewrite the play.
That stuck with me.
Back then, I was frustrated with his words. How can he tell me I'm too young to understand what I already know? He didn't know what I had experienced.
Fast forward sixteen years later, and I see now that the Sacramento critic was right. I was too young. In the years since writing Harper Berry of Notre Bohneur, I have experienced loss and success. Love and lust. I have enjoyed peace and faced fear. I shared the anguish of my little brother when he was diagnosed with cancer, and the triumph when he was told seven months later that he had beaten it. Indeed, I have experienced much more of life in these sixteen years, but that does not make me enlightened. Not in the slightest.
Adulthood has taught me many things, one of which is this: No matter how much we think we know about the world around us, there is always more to know.
Blood & Baguettes is that same play from sixteen years ago, rewritten according to what I know now and what I have yet to understand. It is the product of my own experiences, lifelong fascinations with horror movies and human behavior, and the context I live in. Indeed, this play is more than a supernatural story in a modern setting. It is a piece of me, something to be left behind for others to (hopefully) enjoy long after the day I'm faced with my own mortality. I won't be changing lives with Blood & Baguettes. But if it can elicit any emotion or reaction from those who read or view it, even if it's only a chuckle, I will be satisfied.
Another decade could pass and no doubt this play would continue to change in shape, with all new knowledge and interpretations of life. But we don't have time to wait for that, now do we? So enjoy Blood & Baguettes as it is, while we're still too young to understand it.
- Nicolas D. Pennington