Free Download:  A Dragon Is Coming!_Full Play_pdf

(Please note, performance rights are not included with the download.  To perform this play, please contact Christine.)

 

Genre:  Comedic Drama, Fantasy.

Approximate Running Time:  2 hours

1 Intermission

 

Synopsis:  Book Man and Creature of Few Words observe and experience traffic as travelers converge on the city of Eclesia to see the Art Dragon Kalliper perform. As the day progresses, they encounter Dragon groupies, peddlers, trackers, a scientist, a sword for hire, and a murder of Crows that descends upon the land, exploiting everything it touches. They befriend Kronos, a common man of uncommon wisdom, who begins to learn how they experience the world, and they perform an impromptu play with a passing Musician and Appolonius, (a young actor seeking to become Kalliper’s disciple).

This play is an exploration of how we, (as individuals, groups, artists, and a society), interact, (or fail to interact), with art and other artists in our daily lives, especially when those artists and craftsmen are famous, widely revered, and/or held in high esteem. It’s a call to re-examine our relationship with art, and to challenge our preconceptions about the people who make it.

All roles are either gender neutral or easily made so.

 

Cast of Characters:

CREATURE OF FEW WORDS  (KALLIPER)

MAN WITH A HUGE BOOK  (BOOK MAN)

KHRONUS

APPOLONIUS

GUARDIAN/LEAD CROW

MUSICIAN/SCIENTIST

TRAVELERS x 2

PEDDLERS x 3

GROUPIES x 4

TRACKERS x variable

CROWS x variable

 

Award Update, Aug. 2014:

‘A Dragon Is Coming!’ was named a Full-Length Category winner at the Chameleon Theatre Circle‘s 15th Annual New Play Festival!  It was read, along with other winning plays, on September 13th, 2014, in Burnsville, MN!

The reading was directed by Duck Washington.

A Dragon Is Coming! Staged Reading with Chameleon Theatre Circle.

 

Progress Update, 3/12/14:  A Dragon is Coming! is Complete!

 

Prologue:

CREATURE OF FEW WORDS

(Addresses Audience.)

An act of Whimsy have I created

For You, Dear friends, and Dreamers of your Part;

Poesy Lovers, Listening Fated,

Voices of Singers, Whisperers of Heart.

Crafters of Fancies, trafficking Delights,

Seekers of Knowledge, the Heavens to chart,

All come at my Call, to show their Bright Lights

And hie to their places, ere we may start;

So open thine eyes, see this, my first play,

Wand’ring in shadows of letters and Ink,

Tangled in verbiage, a Word Smith’s foray

To reach thru the Eye and make Someone Think.

Hark to my Voice now, and Listen True soft,

A Story we’ll tell, ere my Mask comes off.

 

A recent recording of the Prologue:

 

Here’s a tidbit from Act II:  The narrative poem, ‘When Darkness Falls’

 

How ‘A Dragon is Coming!’ was born:  After memorizing my last sonnet for ‘Sonnet Wars: Phase One’, I woke up the next morning with parts of a play running thru my head.  Typically, when things run thru my head of their own volition I follow them.  (Examples:  ‘Katlyn Zinger’, sonnet: ‘Actor’s Prayer’, sonnet XIII, sonnet XVI, etc…)  So, I shrugged and started writing what had already written itself.  Then I kept going.

 

 

This is the brief exchange that started this project off by running thru my head when I woke up, (Thank You Dream Muse!):

 

‘A Dragon is Coming’:  Act II, scene vii

Man with a Book:  You are a turtle, Sir, whose Tortoisean Wisdom

Far exceeds the timeless, creeping Ocean of your breath.

You’ll age and die, ere you’ve shared a quarter of it.

 

Khronos:  Better to share a quarter than spend a life chasing pennies.

 

Man with a Book:  How so?

 

Khronos:  Were I to follow as Majority do,

Mine eyes would wear on the ground,

And I’d find my purse empty when I finally looked upon it.