Scene I the Farragut Boat Club South Side of Chicago

1 SIXTEEN INCHES SIXTEEN INCH 2 CHARACTERS FARRAGUT BOAT CLUB EDWARD: White, architect, 30, Harvard graduate, exceedingly friendly, quick to take the lead in a situation. Has become a proud Chicagoan, despite early upbringing in New England area. JAMES: White, 27, businessman, Yale graduate, a tightly wound man, prides himself on making lucrative deals. Considers himself one of the rebuilders of Chicago after the Great Fire. JOSEPH: White, lawyer, 29, Yale graduate, congenial, sometimes a bit clueless (despite being a lawyer). GEORGE: White, 33, reporter, Harvard graduate, reserved demeanor because he likes to keep his ear open for new information. As a reporter has seen the redevelopment of the city first-hand after the Fire and sees the changes in demographics. It interests and worries him. WAVELAND SOFTBALL FIELD (Note: The character descriptions are written as if they’re being spoken by one of the characters themselves, but more like someone who knows them. Hopefully it gives a feel for the tone, the mindset of the main characters in the play. They are rude, profane, blunt-by-accident, but familiar enough with each other to say the things they say.) EDDIE: One of those run-of-the-mill Chicago Polish guys (HE can call himself a “Polack” but you probably shouldn’t.) Looks about 10 years older than he really is, so I’m guessing he’s, I don't know, about 42 or something? His hair’s already turning grey. Kinda got some muscles but not from working out…just that naturally strong shit, you know? Works for the city like his father and uncle. In fact, they got him the job (real surprise there, right?). TONY: A long-time friend of Eddie’s from the neighborhood. About 32, 33. He looks a little like a regular white guy, but his mom’s white and his dad was black, so, you know, that whole thing…. Yet him and Eddie don’t talk about it (though one time, some guy called him a “nig…,” well, you know, something he shouldn’t of, and Eddie popped the guy in the mouth). TAMI: Eddie’s wife, though she could do a hell of a lot better. Nah, I’m kiddin’. Seriously she’s not a bad lookin’ broad… woman, sorry. She’s probably late 30s, I guess. And get this, not a bad softball player. She used to pitch for us. But don’t get on her bad side. She’ll cut you down, that one. JIMBO: Oh, boy, this guy. Short little Irish fucker from Morgan Park who thinks his shit don't stink. Never stops talking, for fuck sake. Which makes sense since he owns a used car lot over by Western Avenue. Does TV commercials too and he’s kinda famous, mostly because of that stupid jingle: “When you need a car/but you’re low on dough/Jim Murray Used Cars/is the way to go….. Jim Murrrrayyyyyy….” For fuck sake. JIMBO NO. 2: A plumber like all the other Polish guys in Chicago who don’t have enough connections to get a job working for the city. They even made up a saying about him: “There’s nobody dumber/than Jim the Plumber.” And he loves that shit, so, what’s SIXTEEN INCH 3 that tell ya? He’s about 37, tall but thin as a fucking rail. Hell of a first baseman, though, gotta admit. KALIFA: I think he’s about 30 but you can never tell with those black guys. They all turn out to be a lot older than I figure. Gotta admit, though, he’s in shape. Not that I’m checking him out or anything, it ain’t like that. He’s kinda touchy, if you ask me. Hell of a softball player. Fast. But them guys always are, am I right? VAL: Val’s cool, I like her. She’s like a lawyer or something, but, you know, she don't talk all that smart shit all the time. And she’s pretty good looking. I don’t know if a woman like that would go out with a guy like me but … who knows, right? RYAN: One of them know-it-all college boys from Michigan or Indiana State or some other college way the fuck over there. All that college and he’s still big, blonde and dumb. And “Awesome”… every other fucking word out of his mouth is “awesome” like ever other 20-year-old white kid. CESAR: Don't really know this guy. He just started coming around the field watching the games not too long ago. He’s not Mexican, but he’s somethin’ like that… something South American. Guatemalan? Yeah, that sounds right. UMP: Just some kid. 27, I guess, which is a kid to me. The Park District pays them twenty-five bucks a game and they show up to watch a bunch of drunk guys run around the bases. But this guy, I’ve see him work games before, he seems pretty tired of it. MIKEY: Eddie’s kid. About 11, I guess. He brings him to the game sometimes, on days we don’t go to the bar right after. He’s always goofing around while we’re playing so we hardly see him. DUAL ROLES These parts are to be played by the same actors: GEORGE (Farragut Boat club) and RYAN EDWARD and EDDIE JAMES and JIMBO NO. 1 JOSEPH and JIMBO NO. 2 UMP and MIKEY SETS There are two sets needed: FARRAGUT BOAT CLUB The first depicts the gym area of the Farragut Boat Club on the near South Side of Chicago in 1887. The club is for well-to-do male professionals of the day: Initiation fee is $50 and monthly dues are $25 a considerable amount of money for the time. The gym has a hardwood floor that is not shiny, a little worn from use but kept up. Around the room there is exercise equipment of the day: an old wooden rowing machine, dumbbells, medicine balls and a couple of pairs of old-style boxing gloves: bigger than modern gloves, brown leather, worn. There is a door on one side of the room. SIXTEEN INCH 4 WAVELAND SOFTBALL FIELD The other set is a softball diamond in Waveland Park on Chicago’s North Side. The busy park – biking, tennis, runners, etc. - is between Lake Michigan and Lake Shore Drive, a busy roadway that separates the park from the rest of the city. There is a wooden outdoor dugout bench. The wood is old and worn from being exposed to the elements for years. Behind the bench is a chain-link fence to prevent balls from rolling away from the diamond area and onto the bike-running path nearby. The fence is about armpit height on a man or woman 5-11. The area around the bench is a mix of patches of grass and dirt. The grass isn’t lush and green but dull and mixed with dying brown grass. The dirt, grey and hard, is around the bench area where players walking back and forth have worn away the grass. There is trash on the ground around the bench: old newspapers, potato chip bags (Fritos, Doritos, stuff like that), and a few crushed beer cans. SOUNDS The audience should be able to hear the sounds of other softball games in the background as “white noise”: balls hitting bats, adult voices shouting, yelling instructions, cheering. It isn’t loud enough to distract the audience but enough to indicate this is a busy active park in a busy active city. There is also the faint sound of cars going in either direction on Lake Shore Drive. THE CHICAGO ACCENT Actors playing Eddie, Jimbo, Jimbo No. 2 and Tami should have the actors who either have or can convincingly do a “Chicago accent.” It really shouldn't be like “The Superfans” from the old Saturday Night Live, because that’s too exaggerated to be taken seriously. The actor portraying Kalifa, however, has a different Chicago accent and pronounces words differently that the other characters, even though they have all grown up in the same city. A Chicago black accent is sort of a mixture of the Chicago accent and a southern accent. Certain words are pronounced the same and certain terms are similar, but there is often a southern “twang.” Some good sources on the Chicago accent: http://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/accents/#) http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/March-2012/Where-the- Chicago-Accent-Comes-From-and-How-Politics-is-Changing-It/ http://positiveanymore.blogspot.com/2006/04/chicago-dialect.html https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/chuh-kaw-go-what-do-you-really-sound- like/9054d7a4-f876-4c53-8ce1-08adae048d28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3XZSKr4g58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlV3qCzM5uQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2wRSzQ2ws ACTION (Note: Not sure about this part yet) The “field” is never seen. Actors leave the theater area when they leave the bench area and take the field. SIXTEEN INCH 5 When the Longballers are up to bat, the batter should be seen at the plate hitting the ball and taking off toward first base when the script calls for it. The ball should come from an unseen source (unseen by the audience but seen by the actor, obviously.) The ball should be hit by the actor but preferably not in the direction of the audience (lawsuits, again, obviously), but it’s important to let the audience hear the sound of the ball as it hits the bat.

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