Grit v. Gossip

Grit v. Gossip is a play about finding one’s voice. Bets, a high school student scared she might be pregnant, sets out to determine if a certain classmate has taken advantage of her. Meanwhile, after joining her first club ever, the newly launched Grand Old Oprah Gossip Club, she soon realizes it’s not at all what she expected and must decide whether to defy peer pressure and, herculean as it seems, tell the truth.

Denis Meadows was born in Pittsburgh and currently resides in Brooklyn. He is a Play Reader for the Young Playwrights Festival, a playwright-in-residence for The Acting Group, and a longtime member of the Dramatists Guild of America. His work has appeared in a variety of venues. Woodside Players of Queens presented A Brush against the Indifference of the Universe. Plays & Pizza presented two of his plays in Manhattan, Only Connect and Skip to My Loo. At Sea, Two Guys in Clerical Guise was produced by the Starlite Players in Sarasota, FL. Winterview was voted a finalist at The Secret Theater Festival in Queens, NY. He was named “Best Playwright” at the North Park Playwright Festival in San Diego and received the Judge’s Award from Driftwood Players in Edmunds, WA. Full-length plays include The Root of All, In Flew Enzo, Irish Crossing, Shayna, Yes or No, That Limpid Pool of Delusion, and Edifice Wrecks. His play, The Mind-Boggling, Spine-Tingling Math Race, can be found on Drama Notebook’s Script Library.

Excerpt from the play:

CAST OF CHARACTERS

BETS — our heroine, striving to find her true self.
YO-YO –– foul-mouthed prankster, in love with Bets.
JASMINE — a beauty running for Homecoming Queen.
X –her boyfriend, the butt of jokes about his stutter.
ALICE — founder of the club, every inch the leader of the pack.
CAYDEN –Alice’s main rival in grades and ambition; strict about rules.
CINDY –one-third of the cheerleading squad, who speak in unison.
DARLENE –second cog of squad.
GIGI — third cog of squad.
DEDE — content to hang in Cayden’s shadow; quite pious.
IDA — sight impaired, with an in-your-face personality.
FATIMA — lives for boys, dance, and an hourglass figure.
WALTER — computer whiz, known as Sir Walter the Geek.
ZEKE — sharp dresser, self-styled ladies man.

The time:
After 3 PM on Costume Day, the day before Halloween, at Thomas Paine High School.

SETTING:
A large room with folding chairs stacked along the back wall.

At rise, school dismissal bell RINGS. The stage is dark.

BETS enters, turns on LIGHTS. Dressed like Minnie Mouse, she’s weighed down with flip chart, desk bell, and rolled-up banner. Trips over herself, drops everything, frantically picks it all back up.

BETS
Calm down. Get a grip, girl. (to audience) I’m really scared. Missed my period, first time ever. Meaning… (beat) Last month I made a huge mistake. Snuck out of my house to go to Dexter’s party down the street. At the Promising Tots Pre-School his parents run in their house. Only they were nowhere in sight. Which they shoulda been. Had a single glass of wine Dexter thrust at me, went all woozy and blacked out. If only I’d just said “no”. When I came to on a mattress on the floor, half-clothed, there was a boy passed out beside me. Pushed his arm off, grabbed my things and bolted out of there like a house on fire. Back home, my dad, still waiting up, read me the riot act but calmed down when I assured him Dexter’s parents were chaperoning. Never lied to him before. So ashamed I could die. (beat) Thing is, if…if…it’s over. All over. Have to drop out of school, lose out on college, never land a decent job, wind up a total failure. How did I let this happen? One mistake and my life’s… (beat) Can’t tell anyone, that’s for sure. Put on a face, blank, sullen, uncaring, like all the other kids here. Pretend nothing’s amiss, till I start to show, then…then they’ll all turn on me. For sure. I know they will.

YO-YO, wearing no costume, sails in on a skate board.

BETS
(to audience) That’s him. The boy on the mattress. Yo-Yo. His actual name. Claims his folks, high at the time, chose to name their bouncy boy after that bouncy toy, and it stuck. Like so
much in life. If…if he took advantage of me…

YO-YO
Bets. You don’t have to do this. I know Cruella bullied you into it.

BETS extends banner toward YO-YO.

BETS
Help me hang this, please?

YO-YO
(helping) Whenever she’s around you morph into a mousette. A sorry little go-fer. You’re such a giving person, people take advantage.

BETS
I’m no one’s go-fer, Yo.

The banner reads: “The Grand Old Oprah Gossip Club”.

YO-YO
I can’t believe you’re into gossip, either. Settling scores.

BETS
My first club ever. ‘Cause my dad was constantly being re-assigned, had to constantly change schools. Never settled in long enough to join anything.

YO-YO
(re: banner) This club’s so typical of what this Paine in the ass school spawns.

BETS
Googled gossip, here’s what I found: “People with extraordinary minds talk about ideas; those with average minds talk about events; those with simple minds talk about other people.” Given the choice, I’d rather be extraordinary. Wouldn’t you?

YO-YO
That’s the Bets I know. And love.

YO-YO tries to take her in his arms.

BETS
Don’t.

YO-YO
From the second I saw you asleep on that mattress, I said to myself, “Yo, do not screw this one up.”

BETS
Don’t talk about love, either. You barely know me.

YO-YO
Long enough to know we’re meant for each other. Wanted to talk to you then, but too many beers and too many tokes, I fuckin’ passed out…when I awoke, you were gone. Been tryin’ to talk to you ever since.

BETS
You’ve been talkin’ to me non-stop.

YO-YO
I mean really talk. About how I feel. Keeping it real, not all that lame Snapchattery flattery that everyone else in this dump indulges in.

BETS
(beat) Didya forget it’s Costume Day?

YO-YO
Don’t believe in that Halloween crap.

BETS
What do you believe in, Yo?

YO-YO
Me and you, together. All the rest is bull. Literally, the whole entire shitstem sucks.

PA ANNOUNCEMENT
Yo-Yo Graves, please report to the principal’s office. Immediately.

YO-YO
What?

BETS
What’d you do now? (Yo-Yo shrugs) Musta done somethin’. Probably that potty mouth of yours…

YO-YO
I’m tellin’ ya thanks to your influence I’ve been a regular choirboy.

BETS
I doubt that.

YO-YO
I have, except for the occasional lapse, like earlier today, when that a-hole Dexter poked me in passing outside the Fumble’s office.

BETS
(to audience) The Fumble, AKA our esteemed principal, Miss Renee Fumbullmeyer. Packs two hundred plus pounds on a bullet-shaped, pint-sized frame. Mess with the Fumble, you will be pulverized.

YO-YO
Let him have it with both barrels: “I’ll fuck you up, dickhead!”

BETS
Nice. How did he react?

YO-YO
Gave me the finger. And mumbled some shit about you…couldn’t make it out. Ain’t takin’ no shit no more from that a-hole.

BETS
Gonna get yourself expelled, Yo, if you’re not careful. Then where’ll you wind up?

YO-YO
I dunno, maybe the Marine Corps. Get drilled into me how to terminate all sorts of gooks, skinheads, ragheads, whatever verminate’s currently on tap.

BETS
You’re not cut out for the military.

YO-YO
Says who?

BETS
My dad was a lifer, remember?

YO-YO
How could I forget? Gave me the third degree when we met.

BETS
He’s very protective of me.

YO-YO
IMO, keeps you on too short a leash. Needs to let you make small mistakes so you never make the big enchilada.

A moment. BETS looks troubled.

YO-YO
Bets. You all right?

BETS
Can’t blame him. Since my mom died, has his hands full with my little brothers and me. Today he flat out refused to let me come dressed as Wonder Woman.

YO-YO
Why?

BETS
Said that’d attract the wrong sort of attention.

YO-YO
Like I said, too short a leash. You’d look real sexy as Wonder Woman.

BETS
See, he was right. The wrong sort of attention.

YO-YO
What’s wrong with sexy?