#1: A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
(Nick contorts his body to fit into a package that is then shipped to Philadelphia.)
NICK: Contrary to popular belief, Benjamin Franklin did not invent or propose daylight savings time in the US. He didn’t do it. He was busy owning slaves and being the Postmaster of Philadelphia.
Curtain.
#2: CONTEXT FOR SAID HISTORY
(While Nick speaks his skin melts off his face leaving only his leathered skull.)
NICK: Daylight savings is March 8th! We are losing time! Do you understand?! Time! That fickle beast of a woman is leaving us! She is giving us direct eye contact while slowly backing into a nice black limousine and waving good-bye. She flicks her cigarette into your eye.
Curtain.
#3: THEATRE IS ONLY MORTAL
(Nick is swinging back and forth from giant racks of meat in an industrial-sized freezer.)
NICK: We cut twelve plays this week. We cut ’em like Dr. Frankenstein on previously incarcerated large male cadavers. They’re dead to us now. We don’t talk to those plays no more. They are rotting husks in the ground.
Curtain.
#4: “HEROES GET REMEMBERED, BUT LEGENDS NEVER DIE.” -THE SANDLOT
(Nick is encased in a glass coffin with the body of Josef Stalin. Nick is holding the Shroud of Turin and is folding it into various decorative napkin shapes.)
NICK: Did you know all of Twitter is in the Library of Congress? Every tweet you write. Goes straight to the Library of Congress. Where it is preserved forever.
Curtain.
#5: EAT MY FLESH. DRINK MY BLOOD.
(In Cloud City. At the end of this play Nick is frozen in Carbonite.)
NICK: You could type in “my blood soaked genitals.” Boom. In the Library of Congress. Go on. Do it. Try it out. A taste of immortality.
Curtain.
#9: IF YOU WERE IN INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE YOU WOULD HAVE PICKED THE WRONG CUP.
(Nick is throwing people out of a blimp.)
NICK: But you are not immortal. Don’t get cocky. Entropy will kill us all. There are cells dying in your eyeballs right now as you strain to read this. Celebrate your mortality by watching the ever-changing “dying” art form of theatre! Enjoy it while you can! Time! She is leaving! This is a commercial. Come see the show!
Curtain.
#6: SISYPHUS
(Nick immolates himself. He then rises from the ashes.)
NICK: Twelve new plays! We rolled a twelve. A bastard twelve. 32 plays were pitched. Only twelve got in. Almost half the show is new since last week.
Curtain.
#7: REALIZE I AM JUST A SPECK AND THAT THE UNIVERSE IS SO LARGE IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
(Nick stands at the edge of the universe and leaps.)
NICK: Does anyone read this… really?
Curtain.
#8: TANGENT
(Nick’s head is grafted on to a seagull. He attempts to eat a Cheeto covered in sand.)
NICK: I still can’t stop talking about this severed deer head on a stake at Loyola Park beach.
Curtain.
#10: BUT FOR REAL, SUPPORT SOME LIVE THEATRE IN CHICAGO
(Nick travels backwards through time. Punches a triceratops in the face. Returns to a future run by cockroach people.)
NICK: DID I MENTION THERE ARE TWELVE NEW PLAYS IN THE SHOW. WE ARE ALL ABOUT TO LOSE AN HOUR FROM OUR LIVES. GAIN AN HOUR OF PLAYS IN YOUR LIFE ALREADY.
Come see the show, sit in the dark with us, Winter is over, Spring is starting, the thaw begins.
Time has hopped out of that limousine. She is holding your hand.
Curtain.
