Go Go Green Machine

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6 characters, 10-15 minutes long. Students encounter a supervillain while participating in Earth Day cleanup. Perfect for elementary students.

Mrs. Lyon’s Environmental Studies students participate in an Earth Day cleanup, unaware that they are about to meet Supervillain, The Litterbug. Go Go Green Machine is a fun, accessible, Earth Day-themed adventure play. Following the play, you can discuss the ideas presented for how to celebrate, honor, and/or contribute something positive to the Earth on Earth Day.

Playwright Bio

Jonathan Joy has written 52 plays that have been produced in 22 US states and overseas in 9 countries. He is the writer, producer, and voice of Professor Theo on the Professor Theo’s Mystery Lab podcast and author of the Read Me A Bedtime Story newspaper column that earned a 2021 Kentucky Press Association Award.

Excerpt from the play:

CHARACTERS:

Odetta
Evan
Mrs. Lyon
Angel
Pedro
The Litterbug

(Mrs. Lyon’s Environmental Studies students are using litter sticks to pick up trash in the park/playground directly across from their school. Odetta and Evan are first seen. Odetta is picking up paper and plastics and placing them in a white trash bag, while Evan puts trash in a black trash bag. Neither seems excited about the task.)

Odetta
This is boring.

Evan
Yeah, at least last year we got to make biodegradable bird feeders.

Odetta
Peanut butter, toilet paper rolls, and birdseed. I remember that.

Evan
That was all right. Birds in our yard loved ‘em.

Odetta
Pedro kept eating all the peanut butter.

Evan
Mrs. Lyon was saying, “That peanut butter is for the birds, Pedro, not for you!”

Odetta
She gets so mad.

(Mrs. Lyon enters.)

Mrs. Lyon
More cleaning, less talking students. This trash is not going to pick itself up.

Evan
We want to make bird feeders again, Mrs. Lyons.

Mrs. Lyon
That was last year. You think I want to do the same thing every year?  Besides this playground is filthy with debris. It’s worse than normal. (ominously) If I didn’t know better, I’d say The Litterbug had been here.

Odetta
(simultaneously) The who?

Evan
(simultaneously) The what?

Mrs. Lyon
That is a story for another day. No worries, young ones. Forget I said anything about… The Litterbug. (breaking out of her warning trance) Happy Earth Day!

(Mrs. Lyon exits, leaving behind a puzzled Odetta and Evan.)

Odetta and Evan
(unenthusiastic) Happy Earth Day.

Odetta
Evan, I think Mrs. Lyons has lost it.

Evan
She gets weird every year on Earth Day. It’s like her Christmas or something.

(Angel and Pedro enter. Both carry litter sticks and white trash bags.)

Angel
Whose idea was it to clean up the park for Earth Day?  Last year we…

Evan
…we made bird feeders. That’s what I was saying. That was cool.

Pedro
Mmm. I remember the peanut butter. Those were good bird feeders.

Angel
They were for birds, Pedro.

Pedro
Not exclusively. I ate four of them. And a whole jar of peanut butter.

Odetta
It was boring. This is boring. Earth Day is boring.

Mrs. Lyon
(offstage) I heard that.

(A pause as the reprimanded students resume their cleaning duties.)

Angel
You know two years ago students planted flowers all along the road and some trees over there. I’d much rather plant flowers and trees…

Odetta
…Flowers and trees are… okay, I guess…

Angel
…well, I’d rather do that any day than pick up… what is that?

Evan
(picking up some extra gooey trash)
Yuck!

Mrs. Lyon
(offstage)
That goes in the trash, Evan.

Evan
I know.

Mrs. Lyon
(offstage) Remember, Odetta, you and Angel and Pedro are on recyclables. Evan, you are trash.

Pedro
She said Evan is trash.

(Pedro, Odetta, and Angel are laughing. Evan ignores them. A pause as they work.)

Evan
My brother had Mrs. Lyon three years ago and they made jewelry out of pop bottle lids, plastic waste, old magazines and newspapers, all kinds of stuff. He still has a necklace he made that day. See, that would be cool.

Odetta
I’d take making jewelry over this, I guess.

(A loud and worrying crunching, crinkling noise is heard.)

Do you all hear that?

Angel
(pointing, staring offstage) Who… what… is that?

Evan
(glaring offstage) Is that a new kid? I don’t remember…

Odetta
I don’t think that’s a kid.

Pedro
(shouting offstage in the opposite direction) Mrs. Lyon! You might want to see this.

(The Litterbug enters slowly. A large, hulking mass of trash, The Litterbug drops candy wrappers, tin cans, napkins, fast food waste, and more as he walks around laughing and taunting the students.)

Litterbug
Too little too late.
Now get this straight.
This here is my land,
No matter what you planned.
My place to stash
All this lovely trash.

(The Litterbug laughs menacingly and continues to drop trash. The kids are stunned still. Mrs. Lyon enters.)

Mrs. Lyon
No, no. It can’t be. Kids, listen…

Litterbug
Mrs. Lyon, again we meet.
Still reeling from your last defeat?

Mrs. Lyon
Not this time, Litterbug. I’ve got these students well-trained.

Evan
You do?

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