#22: THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES

(The woods. BETSY and JOHNNY APPLESEED sit on a log and talk.)

BETSY: Tell me a story Johnny.

JOHHNY: (garbled as he is eating an apple) What kind of story do you want to hear?

BETSY: Chew then talk honey.

JOHHNY: (still garbled) Sorry.

BETSY: Take your time. I'm not going anywhere.

(BETSY smiles. JOHNNY finishes chewing and swallows. BETSY stares at him longingly.)

BETSY: You're so brave. And strong. Going into unknown lands like you did and killing anyone and everyone who stood in your way.

JOHNNY: No. I mean yes, I suppose what I did was brave in a way. But Betsy -

BETSY: I love your muscles!

JOHNNY: You do? Thanks, I don't get that a lot... As I was saying, you have to realize: I've never killed a soul. I never would. I never could.

BETSY: I know that's what you have to say to protect yourself and whoever you work for, but I've heard the tales Johnny A. People talk.

JOHNNY: Mere legends, Betsy.

BETSY: Yes sir, Captain Modesty. I understand. (She whispers flirtatiously) We all have our secrets.

JOHNNY: Legends live and legends breathe. Then people wake up and legends die.

BETSY: Oh my, a warrior and a poet too!

JOHNNY: According to legend an apple started the Trojan war, did you know that? But it didn't. People did.

BETSY: Oh, a scholar! Kidnap me and call me Helen!

JOHNNY: Huh what?

BETSY: There are so many apples in your bag Johnny Appleseed.

(BETSY grabs an apple and takes a huge bight. She chews it slowly.)

JOHNNY: The Bible never even mentions an apple in the Garden, just a fruit. It wasn't until Renaissance painters starting painting apples that we began to tell the story that way. People just change history - religion even! - to make it their own. Who can say what's even real?

BETSY: (garbled as she is still chewing) A warrior, a poet, a scholar, and philosopher too. Betsy likes.

JOHNNY: You give me too much credit. I plant seeds Betsy. I walk around, I dig holes and I plant seeds with some skewed hope that they'll become trees. You seem to think I'm some suave Don Juan or Herakles. I'm not Michelangelo. I'm John Chapman. All I do, all I've done is plant goddamn apple seeds. Pardom my language. It's great that you think I'm something more, but when I kneel down and splash my face in the Mississippi River do you know who stares back at me? A tall and lanky introvert from Leominster, Massachusetts named Appleseed. When my day comes and I'm standing on a cloud before the pearly Gates, I'm not sure if a lifetime of planting fruit tress is going to have done me much good. At least you've actually accomplished something measurable, something tangible.

BETSY: Apples are tangible!

JOHNNY: People eat apples. Squirrels eat apples. Worms. Apples get made into pies.

BETSY: I love apple pie. Almost as much as I love -

JOHHNY: You're not even listening. You could never understand.

BETSY: Tell me what was it was like to take a human life.
JOHNNY: Have you heard a single word that I've spoken to you Betsy?

BETSY: You're so wise and strong. A legend for the ages.

(Pause.)

JOHNNY: Hade me my oversized sack of apples. I should be leaving now.

BETSY: I like when you play hard to get.

(JOHNNY sighs, grabs his apples and walks towards the forrest. He pauses for a moment.)

JOHNNY: Did you know the poison of a single appleseed is harmless to a human if consumed, but if enough appleseeds are ingested one would experience the toxic effects?

BETSY: A scientist too! Johnny Appleseed, is there anything you can't do?

(JOHNNY disappears into the trees. BETSY bights into her apple.)

BETSY: Yuck. A worm.

(She chucks it into the woods and exits.)

BLACKOUT

#21: FEBRUARY 29, 1790

(Philadelphia, 1790. Early morning. BETSY'S living room. The house is silent. Then at the front door: Knock knock. Long silence. Knock Knock. Again, silence. Knock Knock. BETSY enters down the stairs with bed hair. She's very sensitive to light. She wears slippers.)

BETSY: Okay. Hold your horses. I'm coming.

(Knock knock.)

BETSY: You're knocking. I hear you.

(Knock knock.)

BETSY: More knocking. This better be grand to wake me up at the crack of - (she opens the door) George!
GEORGE: Betsy. You're late.
BETSY: You'll have to excuse me, my manners left me. Mr. President.
GEORGE: I see that you are not yet ready for the day. This move. Not a wise one.
BETSY: Ready? Why be ready? I was sleeping.
GEORGE: The Census Act. We were set to announce it today. Your second claim to fame. That you all but begged me for.
BETSY: Mr. President - how do I say this respectfully: That's tomorrow.
GEORGE: If by tomorrow you mean today, then yes it is tomorrow.
BETSY: Okay, listen to me: I sewed the perfect dress. I've been counting the days. Being the national figureheard of this Census is set to ensure me as a household namesake, I wouldn't just oversleep!
GEORGE: This is coming from the woman who is wearing her nightgown and rubbing sleep residue out of her eyes twenty minutes after she is due downtown?
BETSY: We agreed by written letter I would meet you at courthouse. We agreed!
GEORGE: That we did.
BETSY: And you told me how proud you were to give me this honor. Just like the flag gig.
GEORGE: That I did.
BETSY: Okay then. So why are you here a day early?
GEORGE: A day early? Your humor - it - it's lost on me.
BETSY: George: we planned this down to the needle and thread. We agreed - mutually - that I would meet you on the 1st of March.
GEORGE: Thank you Betsy. So you admit you failed?
BETSY: Failed? How could I fail to meet you on March 1st when it's still February.
GEORGE: Still February?
BETSY: It's the 29th, we meet in just under twenty-four hours. I may be known to take a long time to get ready, but even I think I can pull it off with a full day of prep time!
GEORGE: The bitter irony...
BETSY: What bitter irony?
GEORGE: O. to think that I was going to bestow this Great Honor of spear-heading the 1st ever Census of these United States, one of the most logistically challenging and detail-driven projects ever to be carried out by the human species to someone so very tragically flawed by her sense of numbers and logistics.
BETSY: Tragically flawed? Numbers and logisitcs? Why do you speak like this?
GEORGE: I will say it once and only once.
BETSY: Yes, Mr. President...
GEORGE: 1790 is not a leap year.
BETSY: God save me! No! I'll run upstairs, I can be corsetted and ready for the public in forty minutes, no, thirty minutes.

(BETSY, realizing her gross error, bolts to the stairs to her bedroom to quickly get ready.)

GEORGE: I'm afraid it's too late.
BETSY: I can still do this.
GEORGE: There will be a Census Betsy. It will be done.
BETSY: Okay...
GEROGE: You are removed from the project.
BETSY: You can't.
GEORGE: You no longer - count.
BETSY: I count. I have to! Let me just throw the dress on and -
GEORGE: Silly Betsy! You threw it all away.
BETSY: The Census of 1790 was my ticket to the top, George. I need this.

GEORGE: Do something useful and sew yourself a calendar.

BLACKOUT

#20: BETSY DOES A FOCUS GROUP

(Lights up. A clean and tidy focus group room. The focus group LEADER, PARTICIPANT #1, PARTICIPANT #2, and BETSY sit around the table.)

LEADER: My job today is to ask you questions. Your job is to respond.
#1: Easy.
#2: Sounds like a plan.
BETSY: I’m not sold.

LEADER: I was hired by a company to ask you a series of questions – to collect information really. Then I will report this information back to the company.
#1: You can ask me what underwear I buy, as long as I get my check!
#2: Yeah, fire away when ready.
LEADER: Okay. Let’s begin. What is your honest and immediate response to this image.

(He holds up a picture of a beautiful field of cut grass on a warm spring day.)

BETSY: I can see right through this.
#1: It looks like upstate New York.
#2: Totally! It’s like this place in the Catskills.
BETSY: Stop right there citizens. Do not reveal a sentence more. Don’t you see, can’t you see what he’s trying to do here?
#1: Um, show us pictures. We seem them.
#2: Pay us money. And we’ll see that!
LEADER: Now now. It’s a little more complicated than that. My job takes time and thought… hours of preparation and years of experience.
BETSY: You Brit! I can smell it on him. He's trying to infiltrate!

(Awkward pause.)

LEADER: As I said, I was hired by a specific company.
BETSY: A specific company, eh? Could it be the East India Company!?!
#1: East India?
#2: Dun Dun duh!
BETSY: I was there in Boston. I saw that tea sink! If the British think they can spy on us and force there way back in, then, well, they don’t know who they’re dealing with.
LEADER: You’re really making it hard for me to my job - (reading from her name placard) Betsy.
BETSY: It’s Elizabeth.
#1: Show us more pictures.
#2: Yeah, focus this group dude
BETSY: (BETSY covers her face with a piece of paper so the LEADER can’t see her speak to #1 and #2) Don’t give any more information to this man. They want their land. They want their power. We will not surrender. (Then loudly to the room:) If we don’t hang together, we’ll all hang separately!
LEADER: Moving on. Here’s the next picture.

(He holds up a picture of a bumble bee nested on a single red rose.)

LEADER: If this picture could represent a product, what product would it represent?
#1: A bug zapper.
#2: 1-800-FLOWERS.
BETSY: There will be no taxation without representation!
LEADER: Alright Betsy –
BETSY: ELIZABETH!
LEADER: Of course, Elizabeth… you are making this impossible for me. I am obviously not British. And I am not trying to take away your government.
BETSY: I lived the times that tried men’s souls. I will NOT live them again. Give me your weapons!
LEADER: I have a mechanical pencil and digital watch. Which do you want first?
BETSY: Don’t tread on me!
#1: I bet this is part of it all. They want to see how we react.
#2: Totally! Psychological study type a thing. Focus groups are awesome.
BETSY: You cannot buy a government, you have to build it!
LEADER: This is ridiculous. You are fixated on historical lines, cliché ones at that, for no apparent reason.
BETSY: Oh there’s a reason!
#1: Yeah there is.
#2: Obviously. Focus group!
LEADER: What’s your reason, Elizabeth?
BETSY: My reason is: I was there...

(The actors stand up and freeze in position. The set breaks apart and weird revolutionary flashback music plays. In slow motion the four characters take out a single piece of period clothing and put it on; they are transformed. It is now 1773. Centuries before the focus group, we find ourselves on the deck of the Dartmouth in Boston Harbor on the verge of a soon to be infamous “party”.)

To be continued…
BLACKOUT

#19: TWO BROKEN FUSES

(Lights up. 2008. A Manhattan office place. Cubicles, chairs, and people.)

CO-WORKER: I was playing Jeopardy before online with my mom at work - I mean she's at home, but I'm at work - obviously - so we're playing Jeopardy 'cos what else would I be doing here right, you know? Right?
PLAYWRIGHT: Right, I know...
CO-WORKER: And the question or - excuse me the "Answer" - was all about um, like on what day do Americans flock to Betsy Ross' house - and I was like OH MY GOD, I don't know! But I thought you would. I just thought it was weird after we were just like talking about your weird plays -
PLAYWRIGHT: Flag Day.
CO-WORKER: Oh My God! How did you know that?
PLAYWRIGHT: Lucky guess, I guess.

(The CO-WORKER begins her inept attempt to fix a paper jam at the printer.)

CO-WORKER: So, the play-a-day thing. She sewed the flag. We get it!
PLAYWRIGHT: Yeah, but we know nothing else about her.
CO-WORKER: Good, who cares. So what.
PLAYWRIGHT: So I can pretty much make her do anything.
CO-WORKER: You're officially weird. Isn't this every day thing going to get really old like really fast? Do it like once a month. Max.
PLAYWRIGHT: I can do it.

CO-WORKER: AH! This stupid printer always breaks! "Fuser Error"? What the F is the fuser?
PLAYWRIGHT: I'll Google it. (Pause.) Okay. Done. It's a "pair of heated rollers". In the printer.
CO-WORKER: Obviously. It's freakin'crazy we can't even get a printer that works here. It's embarrassing.

MYSTERIOUS VOICE: I'll fix it.
PLAYWRIGHT: (to the CO-WORKER) I didn't know you could fix a fuser.
CO-WORKER: Um, I didn't say I could smart ass. She did.

(The CO-WORKER points to where the MYSTERIOUS VOICE came from. There stands BETSY with a toolbelt. She pulls out a screwdriver. The PLAYWRIGHT is shell-shocked; the CO-WORKER views her to be nothing out of the ordinary.)

BETSY: (with unjustified ominous intent) That's right. I can fix any fuser.
PLAYWRIGHT: (secretly) This is against the rules. You can't just show up like this. We have an arrangement.

BETSY: Had my dear friend. Had.
CO-WORKER: OMG, you're the new tech girl right? When you're done here could you like pop by my desk. Whenever I run like lots of things, um, like Facebook and MySpace and then like open up a new tab on Firefox: it freezes.
BETSY: Surely. I'll be right there.. (searching for her name) Bla-Marrr-Nanc-Cath-Ju-Ja-Jah?
CO-WORKER: Jennifer... it's um, just Jennifer.
BETSY: Right. So it is. So it is. I'm just Betsy.
CO-WORKER: Just like his lame ass plays. Betsy. Tell her all about 'em Shakespeare.

(The CO-WORKER walks back to her desk. BETSY raises her screwdriver as if to attack. The PLAYWRIGHT disarms her.)

PLAYWRIGHT: I think it's best if you fix the fuser and leave.
BETSY: Lame ass plays, eh? That nine-to-fiver calling me lame. Is a lifetime of sewing lame, huh? Are these calloused hands that bled for our counry lame? Answer me that Jennifer!
PLAYWRIGHT: Breathe B, Breathe.
BETSY: Write me unlame words. Prove her wrong.
PLAYWRIGHT: The fuser B, the fuser.
BETSY: Prove me right.

PLAYWRIGHT: The printer, the fuser...

(BETSY lowers her safety goggles. She removes a bigger screwdriver and a mini-handsaw from her toolbelt. She - a product of the 18th century - examines the printer - a product of the 21st century. She feigns expertise and begins to "fix" the fuser with her tools. The PLAYWRIGHT can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.)

BLACKOUT

#18: FALSE PROMISES

(A cabin. BETSY sits in a rocking chair by the fireplace; it and she are rocking. A YOUNG CHILD lies on the floor sewing, as all young children are prone to do in their free time.)

(Long silence.)

YOUNG CHILD: I'm going to sew a new flag every single day!!

(BETSY chuckles.)

YOUNG CHILD: Why the chuckle, Betsy?
BETSY: My dear one, you have so much left to learn.
YOUNG CHILD: But I'm going to do it, Betsy. And do it well! A flag every single day of the year, every year until I die!

(BETSY chuckles some more.)

YOUNG CHILD: Again with your chuckling. Why Betsy Ross, why?
BETSY: Life will surely get in the way. It always does.
YOUNG CHILD: But I promise. And a promise is a promise is a promise. Quote me on that one, Betsy Ross. Quote me.

(BETSY thinks long and hard about what she's heard. She moves to say something important; then she chuckles.)

YOUNG CHILD: This is becoming a pattern. A deliberate one. You chuckle at everything I say. Why Betsy Ross, why?
BETSY: Because for a short while there - a mere second, a flames's flicker in time - I almost believed you.
YOUNG CHILD: You still can! A flag every day.
BETSY: I'm sorry my dear one, but I believe and believe strongly that you will inevitably - (Beat.) you know what? I'm going to go make tea. Some hot tea with sugar. Yes.
YOUNG CHILD: You were about to say something, Betsy. That you believed me? That's all I need and I can do this thing. A flag every day if you believe me Betsy. I promise.
BETSY: A hot cup of tea will have me sleeping in no time. (She goes to exit.) A flag every day... so long you.

(BETSY disappears behind the kitchen door. She chuckles wildly as the YOUNG CHILD sews.)

YOUNG CHILD: Four consecutive chuckles. Dang it. That's a new record.

(The flames in the fireplace and the dreams of the YOUNG CHILD diminish slowly and then...)

BLACKOUT

#17: PLAYLESS TITLES

(The PLAYWRIGHT is asleep at his desk. BETSY jumps out from behind the curtains and wakes him up with her scolding.)

BETSY: What's with all the titles and pictures and no plays you lazy ass?
PLAYWRIGHT: What? Oh, I've been busy...
BETSY: You've got more excuses than the Pilgrims had turkeys!
PLAYWRIGHT: That's pretty generic for a supposedly stinging insult.
BETSY: You're the writer. Don't blame me.
PLAYWRIGHT: Look, I'll make some plays. I swear. Then this play won't even make any sense as there will be no Playless Titles.
BETSY: You bore me.
PLAYWRIGHT: Tomorrow night. I swear Betsy.
BETSY: You have more false promises than Ben Franklin has kites.
PLAYWRIGHT: That didn't even happen yet. And he probably only has one kite. It's a lame joke.
BETSY: Well, you didn't happen yet and you're a lame joke - so there.
PLAYWRIGHT: Look, I'll do a play every day. Only three people are reading my blog anyway so who cares?
BETSY: That's three too many with the shit you're pulling here.
PLAYWRIGHT: Betsy, that's just cruel.
BETSY: You have more complaints than Paris Hilton has drunken hookups.
PLAYWRIGHT: Okay, that definitely didn't happen yet.
BETSY: It will. Clean up your act Campbell or I'll clean it up for you.

BLACKOUT

#16: A BIRTHDAY HAIRCUT

(Lights up. A busy Philadelphia sidewalk. Dozens of people enter and exit, going about their daily routine. Butchers, bakers, slaves, priests, children, dogs, everyone - all preoccupied with their tasks at hand. None of them notice BETSY.)

BETSY: Like my haircut? I thought I'd try something new for the big day. Do you think it's too Old School? Is it too poofy?

(Silence.)

BETSY: Sir, you dropped your - Miss, your chicken! - Hey, watch where you're stepping!

(Silence.)

BETSY: Worst birthday ever.

BLACKOUT