Play: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE TRASH AVALANCHE

This club play was written as a group collaboration between the participants and the group leader, Trish Denton.
March 12, 2011

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE TRASH AVALANCHE

Starring:
Hibbish, The Crystal Mining Dwarf (Phinn)
Frederick The Hobo (Paulo)
Lila The Sun Faerie(Evey)
Dandelion The Wood Faerie (Ella)
Daisy The Flower Faerie (Giana)
Zarsha, A Witch of WenDrum (Zoe)
Jenny, A Witch of WendDrum (Olivia)
The Almighty Alchemist (Emma)

Synopsis:
Intro. Hibbish is busy mining crystals in the fruitful crystal caves of the Magical Realm. He is so accustomed to finding sizable, valuable crystals that he has grown bored with the hunt. "I wish I would find something really, really cool. When will something extraordinary happen to me?" He is most excited to find some sort of thread sticking out of the rocks. As he pulls on it he senses a gentle rumbling...
I. On the Earthen Realm, Frederick The Hobo is taking his afternoon siesta in his sun soaked junkyard. He has had an epic day of dumpster diving, retrofitting and redistributing goods. He sleeps soundly near a huge rubbish pile. Sensing a gentle rumbling, he awakens. "What is happening? An earthquake...?" And before he can even think a thought he finds himself surfing on a huge avalanche of trash. "What is happening?! Ohhhhh noooooo!" Frederick has to skillfully stay aloft as the avalanche cascades, down, down, down. Finally he feels his feet on solid ground. He takes a look around and is certain he is in a foreign land. He hears a muffled grumble and his attention turns to a pair of legs sticking out from under the trash avalanche. "Oh no! Someone is trapped under the trash! I will help you out!" Frederick begins to tug and pull at the legs to no avail. "You are too stuck! What can I do?" Straining to hear the voice, he decodes Hibbishs' instructions, "...follow the river to the Tree of the Elements. There you will find the Elemental Faeries. Bring them to me..."
II. Frederick skips across stones and balances logs, down, down, down the river bank he walks looking for any sort of tree that might be "The Tree of The Elements". By and by he comes to a tree that has the thickest, most scraggly branches he has ever seen. The tree shimmers like the surface of a swimming hole under the moonlight. "Hello?" One, two, three faeries appear in various branches high above the ground. "Hello... I am Lila The Sun Faerie." Says a glowing yellow Faerie. "And I am Dandelion The Wood Faerie," Says a Faerie that nearly blends into the tree. "Greetings! I am Daisy The Flower Faerie." Says a tiny Faerie that is lowest on the tree. "Hello good faeries! You need to come with me! Your friend Hibbish is trapped under an avalanche of trash!" He pleas loudly. Lila inquires, "Trash? What is trash?" As she flies down to meet him. "Oh, it's hard to explain. Just come with me!" The Faeries are so used to Hibbish getting into trouble that they calmly follow as Frederick leads them back up the river. Once they arrive at the trash heap, they are overwhelming alarmed to see the ugly, foreign, material trapping Hibbish. They combine their powers to try a vanishing spell on the trash. It just will not work. "I have an idea says Dandelion!" Then, she commands a giant dandelion to grow and lift the trash off of Hibbish. "It worked! I'm freeeeee!" Squeals the relieved little Dwarf. Hibbish does a high energy freedom dance that delights Frederick and the Faeries as they clap along.
III. Hibbish suddenly stops his dancing with an alarmed look on his face. "Well friends, I am free, but how do we free ourselves of my oppressor?" He says soberly pointing to the huge mountain of trash. "What is it? Where did it come from?" Frederick asks the gang to sit down. He tells them that he is from the Earthen Realm and that too much "trash" is a common problem on earth. "Fortunately I have made an honest living from other peoples trash and know a few tricks for getting rid of it... but a pile this size is alarming." Says the humble hobo. The Fearies look at one another in agreement. "Friends. We will visit the Witches of Wendrum for the appropriate magic to rid ourselves of this so called 'trash'." Says Lila with a quiet determination. "I will take this sample to show them..." She reluctantly picks up a piece of Styrofoam, holding out in front of her as if it is a dead rat. The group pays visit to the lair of the Witches of WenDrum, Zarsha and Jenny. The two comical characters are baffled by the piece of Styrofoam as they pass it back and forth, back and forth. "There is only one thing to do, Jenny." Zarsha states firmly. Jenny raises one eyebrow, "Vanishing spells?" They pull out their wands in sync. "Yes!" The Witches go to work passing the indestructible chunk back and forth between lighting bolts, sting rays, moon beams and jet streams of magic shooting about. It is very exciting to watch... yet, in the end the chunk still has not vanished. "What will we do, friends? The 'trash' will not vanish!" Whines Hibbish. The Witches seem to know just the thing. "There is only one thing we can do. Visit THE ALMIGHTY ALCHEMIST!"
IV. The crew gathers around the mezzanine protruding from the veranda of the fortress of The Almighty Alchemist. "Who comes to me?" Roars the stereo-surround voice of the Almighty amidst flashing lights. Frederick shouts, "I am a visitor from the Earthen Realm. I've accidentally brought with me a BIG problem that your people need help with!" The lights continue to flash for a moment longer, then cease as The Almighty comes walking down the winding stairs. "Ah,yes. An earth issue. What is causing the problem?" He asks in a fatherly tone. The group says together, "Trash!" The Almighty nods knowingly. "Yes, of course, trash. What have you tried to rid us of the problem?" The Witches of Wendrum step forward, "Why, Vanishing Spells, Almighty one." The Almighty reaches the bottom of the stairs and stands face to face with the group, "Sit down my friends," He instructs. The group sits cross-legged at his feet like children at story time. "Trash will not simply VANISH. This is the very reason why the earth is overflowing with trash... so much that it is spilling over into the Magic Realm. People on earth believe that when they 'throw it away' that it simply vanishes! What an illusion..." The Alchemist stops and shakes his head in sadness, until a look of hope washes it away. "My friends, what we need to do is to make the trash into something useful! We will TRANSFORM THE TRASH!"
Epilogue. The Almighty Alchemist wears his new "Lamp-shade hat" and looks on with pride as Frederick, Hibbish, Lila, Dandelion, Lily, Zarsha and Jenny model their trash transformations. Zarsha transforms an old ratty sweater into a hip, retro, re-make shirt. Lila plants old seeds that were saved into new growth. Hibbish bounces by on a pogo box he made from an old toaster while Frederick drops an anchor he redesigned from a refrigerator. Lily scrapes the calcium from old bones for houseplant fertilizer and Jenny melts down old candy wrappers to create a blingin' new grill for her teeth. Dandelion punts a kick ball around that was made from a combination of old rubber erasers. And so, even though it is only a start for ridding the magic realm of the Earthen Realm's trash, at least the magic is stewing for the anyone in the Earthen Realm to borrow for transforming trash in treasures.