STAGE KISS

Art imitates Life. Life imitates Art. When two actors with a history are thrown together as romantic leads in a forgotten 1930s melodrama, they quickly lose touch with reality as the lines between offstage and onstage begin to blur.

Stage Kiss premiered in 2011 at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, before making its off-Broadway debut at Playwrights Horizons in 2014, under the direction of Rebecca Taichman.


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 CHARACTERS:

1) A woman—SHE--in her mid-forties. Plays the role of Ada Wilcox.
2) A man—HE--his mid-forties. Plays the role of Johnny Lowell.
3) A director, Adrian Schwalbach.
4) Kevin, the reader, also plays the understudy and the doctor and the butler
5) The Husband
6) Angela--An actress in her early twenties who can believably play a teenager—plays the maid in act 1 and Angela in act 2
7) An actress in her late twenties or early thirties, plays Millicent in act 1 and Laurie in act 2

 SET:

 The set has three modes which should easily transform.
A red curtain would be nice to set off the plays within plays.

1) A raw theater space (emptiness)
2) A 1930s stage set (artifice happy to be artifice)
3) A naturalistically messy east village apartment, as real as possible (artifice ashamed of its own artifice)

Act One

Scene one—audition.

Lights up on a raw, empty theater space.
Three chairs and a piano.

SHE:
Sorry the train was—I’m so late—I’m so sorry--
Do you still want me to--?

DIRECTOR:
No problem.

SHE:
Is this--?

DIRECTOR:
Yes, that’s Kevin.

SHE:
Nice to meet you, Kevin. Do you want me to actually kiss Kevin, or Kevin do you mind if we kiss; you look young, I don’t want to traumatize you.

KEVIN:
No—please, go ahead.

SHE:
Could you position your chair this way then? I had sort of pictured your chair this way. Should I start?

DIRECTOR:
Whenever you’re ready.

SHE:
Okay. I’ll start then. Wait, I’ll just move my chair. Is that all right?

DIRECTOR:
Great.

A pause.

SHE:
Sorry—can I ask one thing?

DIRECTOR:
Of course.


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