(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
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
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