Emma Lines TGWDLM

SCENE 2, Lights up

Hi, can I help you?

COFFEE JERK: No caramel drizzle with whip on top…

Sure. That’ll be $5.50.

COFFEE JERK: Hey! I just tipped you.

Oh! Well, thank you.

COFFEE JERK: The sign says tip for a song.

Yeah. That’s a new thing. The owner went to a Cold Stone Creamery over the weekend and brought back the whole singing thing. But, you know, there’s a line, and people are working. I don’t want to disturb anyone…

COFFEE JERK: I don’t care, I just tipped you. Come on.

OK, well, did you do that to be nice, or did you do it to be an asshole?

COFFEE JERK: Fine, I’ll take it back then.

Oh no! What am I gonna do without that dollar I have to split with five other people?

NORA: Emma. What’s the deal over here?

That guy just flipped out on me for practically no reason.

HOT CHOCOLATE KID: She wouldn’t sing for him. And I still haven’t gotten my hot chocolate!

Sorry, I’ll get right on that.

NORA: Emma, I already warned you twice…

It’s just embarrassing, Nora. Maybe Zoey’s okay with the whole singing thing because she majored in theatre…

ZOEY: I think it’s a really fun idea, Nora.

Why aren’t you working?

ZOEY: I’m on vocal rest.

What?

ZOEY: Goddamnit, Emma! Now I need a tea with honey.

Can’t Zoey just do the singing? I don’t like it.

NORA: In fact, don’t bother coming in for your next shift.

Wait, wait wait… I’ll do the singing.

NORA: Yeah, you will. Now move your ass, you got a line.

Hi, can I help you?

PAUL: Just a cup of black coffee. (Tips me.)

Jesus. Really? I’ve been brewing up your coffee, Hip Hip Hooray…

PAUL: I just tipped, because, you know, people should tip.

Thank you. Cause if I have to sing for it, it’s not really a tip. It’s another job piled up on top of my already shitty paying job. It’s like, most of my tips are less than a buck. After the split, I’m not even making 25 cents a song. That’s less than a jukebox! Except a jukebox doesn’t also have to make coffee for these assholes! (beat) Not that you’re an asshole. Well, maybe you are. How much did you tip? (she fishes his tip out of the jar) Five bucks. (touched) Aww. (looks over her shoulder) You meant this for me, right? Like I shouldn’t have to split this with the others?

PAUL: No, that’s for you. I don’t give a shit about them.

That’s very sweet. (she pockets the $5) I’m just so sick of Nora, and Zoey… who is technically my manager, even though she’s ten years younger than me. She hired all her little theatre friends, and they will not shut the fuck up about some crappy production of Godspell they did last summer.

PAUL: Was that the one at the rec center? I think I saw that… I did not like it.

Yeah! It sucked, right?

PAUL: Yeah, they shouldn’t call it Godspell. More like God-awful.

Or ‘God-DAMN-that-was-bad.’

PAUL: Watching people sing and dance makes me very uncomfortable.

Then why do you come to the singing coffee shop? There’s a Starbucks down the street.

PAUL: Yeah, well…some things are worth it. Like… damn good coffee.

I see you in here all the time, don’t I? What’s your name?

PAUL: Paul.

Hi, Paul. I’m Emma.

HOT CHOCOLATE KID: Excuse me! I’ve been waiting for a very long while!

Sorry, sorry! (Emma rushes off, back to work)

TED: If you don’t like what we’re doing here, Charlotte, then there’s the door! (Lights down on them, lights up on me and Zoey.)

Oh, God. The cherry on top of an already perfect day. (She holds her apron over her head to shield herself from the rain) Zoey, you need a ride?

ZOEY: In your shitty car? I’d rather not crash and die, thank you.

Great. (Emma runs off.)

PAUL: Please, God, I just want a black coffee!

(Emma enters singing) Black coffee! I’m your coffee gal…

PAUL: Not you too, Emma! Please God, stop singing!

Okay. Okay. I’ll stop. Oh! I didn’t forget. You’re the guy who doesn’t like musicals. Paul, right?

PAUL: Emma. You’re talking to me…Like a normal person.

Yeah, and if my boss catches me, I’ll get canned. New company policy. Not only do we have to sing when people tip, but when they enter, when they order, all the time apparently!

PAUL: Emma, I think there’s something terribly wrong with the world today.

Yeah, fucking tell me about it. I spent the entire morning learning this dumbass new tip song, I’m exhausted.

PAUL: Promise me you’ll think about the implications!

(confused) Okay, I promise.

PAUL: Emma, I think the world is becoming…a musical.

Uh…

PAUL: Don’t say anything! Let it sink in.

Okay.

PAUL: Okay. Now…are you frightened?

I am starting to get a little frightened…

ZOEY & NORA: Emma! Tip!

Oh thank God. Sorry Paul, I gotta do this dumbass new tip song, er, sorry. (Cup of Roasted Coffee begins.)

(As the number continues, Emma struggles to keep up with Nora and Zoey’s choreography; frustrated, she shouts…)

Alright, alright, stop! Stop! What the fuck was that!? A whole ‘nother a-section? When did you learn that? (She throws up her arms.) You know what? I’m done! When I got this job, I signed up to serve coffee and cold, shitty pastries. If I wanted to be in a musical, I’d be in a damn musical! That’s right, Zoey. I was in Brigadoon in high school and I fuckin’ killed it. But now, I’m just trying to make ends meet while I pay my way through community college. And I can do that just as easily down the street at Starbucks. I quit!

ZOEY & NORA: You can’t quit, Emma.

Yeah, I sure as hell can.

ZOEY & NORA: Everyone here will be singing it soon!

What are you talking about?

ZOEY: They’ve all had their coffee. Their apotheosis will be upon them at any moment!

Wait, what did you do to their coffee?! (Emma grabs one of the customers’ cups; she upends it and a blue goo slides out; Emma recoils) Fucking gross!

ZOEY & NORA: How do ya, how do ya, how do ya doooo?

They’re singing! Why are they all singing?

SCENE 8, Lights up.

Oh my God. What the fuck was that?

PAUL: I told you it was scarier than it sounds!

You were right! I didn’t think about the implications. Oh my God, I didn’t think about it!

BILL: No! It’s not alright, Paul!

AH!

PAUL: I don’t know! Give us a warning or something next time! (just then, a loud DONG sounds from within another trashcan)

AHHH!

CHARLOTTE: Sorry, I tried to warn you!

Who are these people?

PAUL: they’re my friends from work.

What are they doing in the trash?

TED: (points to Emma) You, beat it!

Uh, fuck you?

CHARLOTTE: He needs to get to a doctor!

Listen. Charlotte. Charlotte, right?

CHARLOTTE: (in a state of shock) I’m Charlotte.

We have to get out of downtown. Downtown is fucked. The hospital is downtown. We can’t go there.

CHARLOTTE: But he needs a doctor.

Okay, okay. I got it! I know where we can go! I have this kooky reclusive biology professor! Professor Hidgens! I’m his favorite student ‘cause I bought him groceries once. (turns to Charlotte) He’s got a doctorate. That’s kinda like a doctor. He can help your husband. Probably. (turns back to the group) He’s got a lab, and security! His whole house is like a panic room. He’s like a… I don’t know. What do you call a guy who lives in a fortress?

TED: A king.

No! He’s a doomsday survivalist. He thinks the world is ending. He’s spent the past twenty years preparing for the apocalypse.

PAUL: Charlotte, I think the best thing for all of us, including Sam, would be to get to the professor.

Let’s go now. We can take the squad car.

PROFESSOR HIDGENS: Who is it?

Professor Hidgens!

HIDGENS: Don’t lie to me whoever you are! I’m Professor Hidgens!

No, Professor, it’s me, Emma Perkins! The whole town’s gone crazy! I didn’t know where else to go!

HIDGENS: Alexa, open the gates! (Gates open, Emma enters with everyone)

Thank you, Professor. (motioning to her companions) These are my friends. This is Paul, and… them. We came from downtown. This is gonna sound crazy, but everyone’s…

HIDGENS: Like they’re in a musical? They want you to join them, and once they get you, you’re a part of it?

(amazed) Yeah. How did you know?

HIDGENS: Tell me, Emma. What on Earth does this look like to you?

I dunno. Some kind of…blue…shit?

TED: Whatever. (Paul takes the bourbon and goes to sit by Emma; he pours her a glass)

Why did I come back here?

PAUL: To uh… drink?

(correcting him) Back to Hatchetfield. I spent the first 18 years of my life trying to get out of this place. I shoulda stayed in Guatemala. Sure, they got volcanoes and coatimundis everywhere, but…

PAUL: What’s a coatimundi?

It’s like a little raccoon thing. They get into shit. People hate em. But at least they don’t sing and dance.

PAUL: Coatimundis? Up in your shit?

Naw. It was my sister, Jane. She was the good one. When she was twelve, she had this Lisa Frank binder where she mapped out her whole life, and I swear to God, she stuck to it, bullet point by bullet point. Job, husband, house, kid. And when one sister is so on top of her game, it almost demands the other be a total fuckup, right?

PAUL: What is yin without yang?

That’s what I’m saying. She was off, doing life. And I was doing… something else. Backpacking, mostly. She would invite me back home for the big events. Wedding. Baby shower. I’d always say, “Sorry, I’ll catch the next one.” But when I got the invitation to her funeral, I was like, ‘Oh, there won’t be a next one.’

PAUL: Oh… I’m sorry.

(shrugs) Hey. You didn’t crash into her car. (reflective) It’s weird growing up in someone else’s shadow. Because when they’re gone, the light shines on your life for the first time, and it does not look good. So there I was. Thirty. No roots anywhere. Except Hatchetfield. So I figure, I’ll make something of myself. Do something my sister would be proud of. Enroll in community college. Study botany… I’m gonna start a pot farm.

PAUL: Oh. Did your sister… smoke a lot of pot?

No. But weed’s the future. Gonna be legal nationwide soon. I’ll bet you any money. Not that it matters anymore. You know the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid my whole life is dying in Hatchetfield… but here we are.

PAUL: It could be worse. You could be dying in Clivesdale.

Fuck Clivesdale.

PAUL: Born and bred. Never wanted to leave. Still don’t.

We’re the same age. How come I never knew you in high school?

PAUL: You probably went to Hatchetfield High. I went to Sycamore.

Fuckin’ Timberwolves! We hated you guys.

PAUL: So wait… back at Beanie’s you said you were in your high school production of Brigadoon.

(in Scottish accent) I was Bonnie Jean.

PAUL: That was 2003, right? I actually saw you in Brigadoon.

No shit.

PAUL: You’re the reason I don’t like musicals.

Whoa. That’s like, your origin story.

PAUL: Yeah..

So I guess I’m the supervillain?

PAUL: I don’t think of you like that at all, Emma.

(beat) You know, Paul…

PAUL: Oh my God!

Professor! You killed Charlotte!

HIDGENS: I want all of you to sing 16 bars! Right now!

Professor, we’re not aliens…

HIDGENS: I said sing goddamnit!

(Moana singing bit)

PAUL: Take Evergreen, cut through the park, hop a curb, and you’re in the teacher’s parking lot.

Yeah. The window to the staff lounge is always open so they can smoke. Slide in and out. That was my old escape route.

TED: Don’t bother. He’s gonna get lost.

You are such a fuckin’ creep, you know that?

TED: Oh, I’m a fuckin’ creep?

Yeah.

PAUL: Hey. It’s not like you’re asking me to go see Mamma Mia.

Well, let’s go. If we haul ass we can be there and back in 20 minutes.

HIDGENS: Paul. Bill. Godspeed.

Paul. Remember. If those things get you, they’re gonna make you sing, and dance, and all that shit you hate, so don’t you let them.

HIDGENS: How do they all know the lyrics? The choreography?

I don’t know. They’re all gettin’ orders from the mothership?

HIDGENS: On one level, they are individuals, but on another, they’re appendanges of a much larger organism, controlled by a central brain.

And the brain came down in the meteor?

HIDGENS: Or it is the meteor.

And it wants to kill us all so it can resurrect us as part of its shitty musical?

HIDGENS: It might achieve what 50,000 years of human civilization never could… World Peace.

Ok, but how do we stop it?

HIDGENS: Yes, yes. Of course. Stop it.

This all started with the meteor. It’s the brain. If we take it out, will all these things just… die?

ACT 2, SCENE 4: Lights up.

(Emma’s eyes blink open. She struggles to free herself, then calls to Ted…) Hey. Hey!

HIDGENS: So you’re finally awake.

Professor Hidgens, what are you doing?

HIDGENS: Turn off the fences. Shut it all down.

Professor, the fences are all that’s protecting us!

HIDGENS: Alexa, initiate self-destruct.

Uh… I don’t think it can do that, Professor.

HIDGENS: This is humanity’s second chance! My second chance.

Please, Professor. Think about what you’re doing…

HIDGENS: My first love was, and always will be… musical theatre.

Oh, God no.

HIDGENS: They are drawn to music, like a moth to the flame! (he cracks his knuckles and prepares to hit the keys)

Professor! Please! No!

HIDGENS: (singing) Got a show stopping number for you~

(pleading) Please, Professor. If they hear us, they will kill us!

HIDGENS: I’ve also been writing my own musical! Do you mind if I give you the pitch?

We don’t have time…

HIDGENS: (completely delusional) Greg! Is that really you?

No, Professor! That’s not Greg!

PAUL: It’s okay guys. I’m here.

Paul!

TED: Hell, I wanted to abandon Erica back there. Paul… I wish I could be brave. Like you.

Shut the fuck up, dude! We gotta go!

TED: OOOOOOOOOkay! I’m just gonna run away while they eat you!

Hey! Get back here and help, you coward!

PAUL: Oh, god, no… General MacNamara. They got you too.

Who’s General MacNamara?