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SOMEONE'S GONNA SNAP A Rage-Driven Farce for Four Actors To Play the Bloody Hell out of Fourteen Characters By David Don Miller November 9, 2017 ii. CAST ACTOR 1 MALE: MR. SAUL NUSSBAUM, 26, a bright but neurotic first year teacher who stifles his voice until it erupts from the center of his being. KENNY HILL, 18, failing student overflowing with bravado; never misses a party; crude but charming; Sounds “urban,” despite being white with a quasi-rural upbringing. OFFICER BEN KERNS, 35, overweight school police officer who is used to doing a whole lot of nothing. ACTOR 2 MALE: MR. DANNY FREDERICKS, 42, caustic veteran teacher; has had it up to here; would rather keep his teacher rating high than provide quality instruction. LIAM SCHNECK, 18, party jock who can make friends with anyone; impulsive, will put himself in harm’s way for a friend. LYLE, 54, tired, defeated custodian, everything about him suggests “whatareyagonnado?” MR. MOE PUGLESE, 41, assistant principal; big fat ignorant bully; prone to malapropisms and Italian idioms. ACTOR 3 FEMALE: MRS. EILEEN MELVIN, 58, proper but outspoken teacher; a year or two from retiring; champion of high standards; yearns for the “good old days.” KIM KNAPP, 18, artsy introvert; intelligent and cynical; quietly relishes chaos. MRS. TERRY BLOCK, 35, panicky principal; hangs onto a facade of control any way she can; will stay the course as captain of the ship, even as it sinks. MRS. JANET BOGGS, 52, jaded but resourceful nurse. ACTOR 4 FEMALE: MS. MISSY VALENTINE, 32, spitfire teacher who values connection to students’ social lives; understands students in ways others don’t. CRYSTAL BUZBY, 18, emotionally raw student; demonstrative with personal drama. DOTTIE, 63, hypervigilant and tenacious custodian; ferocious when provoked. iii. SOMEONE'S GONNA SNAP Synopsis It’s an explosive time at Mid-Valley High School, where students and staff are pushed to the brink of insanity by a nonstop barrage of standardized testing. Desperate to avoid a global history exam that he is sure to fail, Kenny Hill (18) plots to spread rumors of a bomb threat. When vigilant custodian Dottie Daugherty (63) overhears his plan and hauls him to the office, Principal Terry Block (35) calls for a lockdown, freezing everyone in their rooms, postponing all exams, and creating building-wide panic. As the lockdown wears on, tempers boil over, mental health short-circuits, scandals break, careers implode, arrests are made, and a grown man runs through the halls in search of his pants. Someone’s Gonna Snap is a full-length, rage-driven farcical satire on the current state of American public education. It is a play for four actors to play fourteen characters with the velocity and virtuosity of a quartet of dueling Taekwondo masters. The stage is their dojo. Props, costumes, and characters are their bo staffs and nunchuks. Production Notes: Only a long rectangular table, four chairs, a movable door, and four movable flats(roughly 7' x 3'), are essential for the set. Props, wigs, and costume pieces must be accessible for actors to make character changes with maximum efficiency. An upstage table, behind the flats, might work best. SCENE 1: THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE (Enter MR. SAUL NUSSBAUM, 26. He has had a very stressful day but you’d never know it by looking at him. He moves with a deliberate economy, almost to the point of elegance, but just beneath this veneer resides a wellspring of neurotic energy. He sits at an end chair, and removes a paper bag from his leather shoulder bag. He opens the paper bag and removes a neatly constructed avocado sandwich on rye bread. The sandwich, the quiet, the moment, is an oasis for him. The calm center of a tornado. He takes a bite, and he is totally relaxed; nourished from within. Before he gets to his second bite, enter MR. DANNY FREDERICKS, 42, a caustic but surprisingly eloquent middle linebacker of a man, fresh out of concern for what anyone thinks of him. He chucks a beat-to-hell nylon bag onto the table.) MR. FREDERICKS Fuckin’ A, man. MR. NUSSBAUM Hmm? MR. FREDERICKS When I am behind that locked bathroom door, that’s my time, you know what I mean? If you knock and I answer with an “Occupied,” or “I’m in here,” that means there’s at least a slight chance of me being in there awhile. It’s not like I said, “Just a minute” because we all know it’s never gonna be just a minute. It’s either ten seconds or ten minutes, you know what I mean? MR. NUSSBAUM Is this to me? Are you telling this to me? MR. FREDERICKS I don’t know. Did you just knock? Like twice within two minutes? MR. NUSSBAUM No, I--just now? You were in there just now? 1. MR. FREDERICKS Yeah. MR. NUSSBAUM No, I . no. MR. FREDERICKS Then it’s not you, it’s one of these b---people we work with. MR. NUSSBAUM Mmm. MR. FREDERICKS Knock once, I say “occupied.” What’s gonna change two minutes later? If I don’t come out, why knock again? You think the urgency of your situation is going to supplant mine? MR. NUSSBAUM How do you know it wasn’t two different people? MR. FREDERICKS What? MR. NUSSBAUM Who knocked. (FREDERICKS thinks quickly.) MR. FREDERICKS It’s the brusque urgency of the second knock following the obligatory politeness of the first. I’m telling you. It was some impatient blowhard who thinks their shit--their actual shit--is more important than mine. I mean, you don’t know what’s going on in that bathroom, nor should you bother yourself with speculation! MR. NUSSBAUM It still kinda sounds like you’re talking to me. MR. FREDERICKS If you knock once, I hear you. You don't like the wait? Leave! You knock again? And you are on my permanent shit-list dickhead! (MR. FREDERICKS yanks a foil-covered, bone-in chicken breast out of his bag. He unwraps it and tiger chomps it. MR. NUSSBAUM assumes the guilty role.) 2. MR. NUSSBAUM I’m . I’m sorry. MR. FREDERICKS Ah, I wasn’t talking to you. It’s these people. Job is gruelling enough without being interrupted in the can, you know what I mean? MR. NUSSBAUM Mmm. (A tiny respite. They eat.) MR. FREDERICKS You ever notice everyone around here’s got this . inflated sense of self-importance? (Enter MRS. EILEEN MELVIN, 58, a walking reminder of decorum and high standards. She yearns for the good old days. And during the good old days, she yearned for the other good old days.) MRS. MELVIN Not in thirty-five years of teaching have I seen anything like this. MR. FREDERICKS (to MR. NUSSBAUM) See? MRS. MELVIN In thirty-five years you think you’d see it all. Nope. (She takes an end chair and removes matching lunch- ware and real silverware out of an insulated bag.) MR. NUSSBAUM The testing? Are you referring to he testing? MRS. MELVIN It’s all we do any more! We used to have one week of testing in June. One week. Some classes had state exams, and others had final exams. If a class terminated in a state exam, that would stand in for the final exam. MR. FREDERICKS Them’s was the good old days, right? 3. MRS. MELVIN Well sure! Now we give the old state exam and the new--in the event that a student doesn’t pass the one or the other. And then we’re mandated to give our own final exams on top of that, regardless! All of them are watered down in terms of academic rigor, but are much more difficult to administer because it’s a nightmarish snafu to coordinate the days, the proctors, and the rooms with all the special ed needs and conflicts with the other tests! It’s the worst of all worlds! (She shakes her head in disgust, and tries to stuff down her frustration long enough to take a bite or two of her lunch.) MR. NUSSBAUM Yeah, um, I have to proctor a test later and it says I have to give one of the students multiple special ed accommodations and I wanted to ask one of you how I’m supposed to do that when it says the student needs to use a word processor but also needs minimal distractions. Being that a computer in and of itself is a distraction I thought-- MRS. MELVIN (clanking fork, stepping on NUSSBAUM) Oh, and plus! This year we have to give that test the district has purchased independently! Under the guise of “monitoring progress.” So many doggone tests I forgot all about one of them! We’ve been on the hotseat to start reviewing since March, then testing itself ramped up in April, and there’s no let up until the end of June! When are we supposed to teach? It’s all test prep now! It’s criminal! MR. FREDERICKS Well . they’re using those tests to evaluate the kids, and they’re using their scores to evaluate us, so . what are we supposed to do? MRS. MELVIN Stand up and fight, how’s that? MR. FREDERICKS Fight, okay. But what do you think most teachers will actually do? MRS. MELVIN Most teachers will simply, and shamefully, teach to the test! MR. FREDERICKS Thaaaaaaat’s right. So better get with it unless you wanna get dinged out. 4. MRS. MELVIN Would you want that kind of education for your own child? MR.

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