KAOS-TV Play Script

In KAOS-TV, students in a TV production class run amok when their teacher does not show up. When the school administration is duped into believing that they are NOT on their own, it’s a total takeover of the air waves! Five students will have to fight to be in charge. Will their pirate episode be about school announcements? Recycling? Or Fashion in Body Piercing? This chaotic edition of the in-school news will either enhance or destroy their futures. A great comedy for teens!

James Rayfield taught theatre in high schools for over thirty years mostly in Tampa, Florida, USA.  He received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin.  In addition he studied acting with Viola Spolin on Los Angeles, California.  Currently he writes, directs, and occasionally acts in Tampa.  In addition to KAOS-TV he has published several plays for teen actors.  These include:  “The Five Pound Sack” and “I Hate Mothers” published by Samuel French; “Help Wanted,” “Final Exam Destination,” “Attack of the Giant Ex’s,” “The Boy Friend Project,” and “Senior Year Survivor,” and “Ten Actors in Search of a Cell Phone.”  Playscripts: “They Call Me Danny Brillo.”

Excerpt from the play:

CHARACTERS

WARREN – a somewhat less than dedicated high school television production student.
TURNER – an even less dedicated student.
LANA – a student who has found out just how little she needs to do to survive in television
Production class.
GIGI – a really conscientious student – maybe a little too conscientious.
BETH – only using high school as a stepping stone to great success – she thinks.
UNSEEN VOICE FROM THE OFFICE – an adult.

SETTING – The television studio of Katherine Arthur Ormandy High School

(The television studio of Ormandy High School.  At center is a cabinet which contains the mixer and electronic equipment.  This cabinet opens from the back and we can see cables and connections from the rear. Right of the cabinet is a table with monitors and computers of various sorts. UR is a camera on a tripod with cables that snake through the room.  RC are five chairs placed at random.  DL is the anchor desk with the call letters KAOS-TV on the front.  There are two chairs behind this desk.  UL is a door to the studio.  Far DR is another monitor which is not really part of the studio, but it is the monitor which comes on during the play so that the audience can see what is being broadcast.  At rise all the lights are out.  We hear noise beyond the door.  Suddenly WARREN and TURNER burst into the room playing some sort of spy game.  We hear them in the dark briefly before they flip on the light switch beside the door.)

WARREN
I told you it worked.

TURNER
How’d you get a key?  You steal it?

WARREN
No, I just sort of found it –

TURNER
On Mr. Foster’s key chain.

WARREN
How many times a day does he lose that key chain?

TURNER
I think the record is eighty-seven.  Anyway, where is everyone?

WARREN
Nerd Bowl.

TURNER
What?

WARREN
Half the class is on the Nerd Bowl field trip.

TURNER
Huh?

WARREN
Where they go and see how heavy battleships are and fire bananas off into space and predict the impact of falling pocket protectors or something.  Everybody who’s nobody is on the trip.

TURNER
So, how come you’re still here?

WARREN
Funny. Who’s supposed to direct today?

TURNER
The TV Queen.

WARREN
Again?  She’s always sucking up air time.

(Rushing into the room comes LANA, breathless.)

LANA
(Speaking to no one really) I’m not late–did the bell ring–my ride was late– (She stops and looks around.) Where’s Foster?

TURNER
(Whispering) Hiding in the corner.

LANA
Oh.  Where?  (Looking cautiously) I didn’t see him.  Where is he?

WARREN
Lana, you ever do anything for yourself? Try looking around the room.

LANA
Stop doing that–why’d you say he was in the corner?  He’s not in the corner.

TURNER
Yeah, but if he was in the corner he’d say, “Look, look, class, Lana–star of the TV screen and detention–is making another grand entrance.  Let’s give her a round of applause and her forty-seventh tardy referral.”

(TURNER and WARREN applause.)

LANA
You sound just like him.  He is so rude–I can’t stand him.

WARREN
You’d never know it the way you kiss up to him all the time.

LANA
I do not!

WARREN
Do too.  “Oh, Mr. Foster, I want to do this TV project so much–can you let me go to the library so I can do it like you want it.”

LANA
I never said that.

WARREN
Did too, did too.

LANA
So?

TURNER
Kiss up, kiss up.

LANA
It works. Foster thinks he’s so smart–always cracking on everybody–but he falls for it.  I go all over the school and he thinks I’m doing something for this dumb class.

WARREN
You never do anything for this dumb class–\

LANA
I ran sound once–

TURNER
And screwed it up–played the wrong tape and got feedback and you had the sound levels down so low you couldn’t hear anybody on the air.

LANA
Yeah, but I screwed up so bad, that I never got assigned to do anything again.  I still get B’s in here and I don’t have to do a thing. The rest of you run around and–

(GIGI rushes in–frantic.)

GIGI
Oh, my god, it was horrible–guess what I just saw?

WARREN
Yourself in a mirror?

GIGI
This is serious–Mr. Foster—