My three pieces

Opening Scene:

Amidst artifacts and images of Ludlow and the coal mines, there are a couple of benches placed in the space. They are angled towards the front of the room. The space is situated so that audience members are enticed to wander and look around the room. In a cubby at the bottom level of the north shelf, three or four heat lamps emanate heat and light. Heavy breathing possibly can be heard from some body in this cubby hammering a rock. In the center near the front of the room. Smoke or fog rises from a hole in the floor. The distant din of miners at work can be heard from this hole. A couple of actors mill about as if they were apart of the audience. While the audience is looking around, the COMPANY MAN as the union leader walks to the front of the room and calls the meeting to start.

Company Man: Well now, lets all have a seat. The meeting shall begin shortly. waits for people to sit, and motions them to the benches. As you all know we need to organize and work as one if we want change...Now then Can I have your name?

Tom as audience: Tom Larius, Sir.

Company Man: writes in his notebook. Tom Larius...good. And why are you here?

Tom: Because I’m tired of not getting paid for my weight of coal each day. I see the weighman knock my load down every day. sometimes 50 lbs!

Company Man: And what makes you think you are being unfairly paid?

Miner as Audience: Are you kidding? At the end of the day, I go home without enough money to feed my family.

Company Man: Yes...And what’s your name?

Miner: My name?!

John Lawson: off stage in back. I’m sorry I’m late, had some trouble on the roads coming up... Comes onstage with Louis Tikas. Ah! I see you’ve started the meeting without me.

Louis: Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.

After a pause, the Company man makes a run for it. Everyone gets up to chase him and the lights go out. There is a scuffle, and a gunfire is heard.

As the lights fade back up, the funeral procession for Louis Tikas crosses the stage. We don’t know it is his funeral yet. He is covered in black cloth. Once the procession is off stage, the sound of a shovel cutting into dirt is heard. As the sound of the dirt sliding off the shovel and into the grave is heard, some gravel and dirt drops on the audience from the ceiling.

As the dirt falls, the company man and his supervisor meet in the center of the room.

Company Man: Sir, the miners’ are ruthless. I think a strike is absolutely possible.

Supervisor: Do you think they are actually capable of organizing? We hardly have to keep them separate. They break into factions on their own. Their is so much animosity between some groups of miners that I wouldn’t be surprised if they killed each other off before they can even agree on terms.

Company Man: They’re angry and violent. They ran me out of their meeting... I can see the lust for blood in their eyes.

Supervisor: I don’t see what they could be angry about. We provide them with shelter, food and clothing, and they want more? What would they be doing if it weren’t for the mines? Starving on the streets? These foreigners should be grateful, being given a chance here in America. They will come to their senses.

More gravel falls from the ceiling as the lights fade out.


Sound design for being under the ground/feel of piece:

I’d like to heard the constant groaning of support planks. Since it is under the ground, I believe an underwater quality to the sound would fit well with the piece. Muffled, reverberating voices can echo on all sides and the sound of mining carts running along the underground tracks can pan from the front to the back. I like the idea of having an underground quality throughout the entire piece, so we can manipulate outdoor noises to give them an eerie quality of also being underground. For example, if birds are chirping in the morning before the massacre, we could make their sound more sparse and distant, with a slight slap-back echo so that the space the massacre takes place in seems much smaller and claustrophobic than it actually is.


Sound design for the massacre:

I’m still unsure as how to do the massacre visually, but I picture the sound of a peaceful early morning with that flurry of chirping birds that happens around 5 in the morning and carries on until 7 or 8. Faintly in the distance you can here a couple of people in their daily life, gathering wood, filling their pails with water, etc. During this we hear the distant sound of the death special working it’s way down the tracks from the back left. as it reaches the center, is a short pause in which the death special has stopped on the tracks and is getting cocked for firing. Then the sound of machine gun fire over takes the space for 7-10 seconds, and then the death special heads back the way it came from. Firing sporadically as it passes the camp. As the death special fades away, the sound of fire begins to become more prominent until it is also overwhelming. Throughout the entire soundscape though, birds can always be heard chirping.



Woman Piece:

A hardened woman sits at a pail her husband’s Sunday clothes on a wash board. She is preparing for his funeral. She shows no emotion.

A company man walks up to her. He is nervous, and holds back. He watches her work the the clothing.

Company man: Excuse me, Mrs. Larius?

Elsa: without stopping her work. What.

Company man: Mrs. Larius... I’m sorry but-

Elsa: I got it.

Company man: Excuse me? So you know...

Elsa: I said I got it. I have my girls packing up right now.

Company man: Ah...well then. You’ve got two sundowns.

Elsa: slamming her work down. I said I got it! You must be thick, standing there repeating yourself like an idiot. You think I’m the only one this happens to? That loses her husband?

Company man: Mrs. Larius, I-

Elsa: Now get off! For two more sundowns I own this property. And for two more sundowns, I don’t want to see your sniveling nose nowhere near here! Now off!

With her last sentence she pushes the company man with the strength and resolve of a powerful man, and begins to clean her husbands clothes again.

The company man is at a loss and slinks off stage.