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Song Of Extinction

  • E.M. Lewis
  • Full Length Play, Drama, Present Day
  • 5M, 1F
  • ISBN: 9780573697388

Critic's Choice…artfully balances its theme of mortality between the intimate and the macroscopic…explores inner psychological states with remarkable eloquence and clarity…

The Los Angeles Times

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 90 minutes

  • Time Period: Present Day
  • Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult, Appropriate for all audiences, Senior
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings
  • Cautions: Smoking

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre, High School/Secondary

  • Accolades:
  • Winner! 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award — American Theater Critics Association
    Winner! 2008 Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an Outstanding New Play – Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle
Max, a musically gifted high school student, is falling off the edge of the world — and his biology teacher is the only one who's noticed. A play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption.

Max Forrestal is going to fail Biology if he doesn't complete a 20-page paper on extinction by 2pm on Tuesday — but his mother, Lily, is dying of cancer, and school is the last thing on his mind. His father, Ellery, a biologist obsessed with saving a rare Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife's impending death, or his son's distress. Max's biology teacher, Khim Phan, tries to figure out why Max is failing the class. Helping Max, however, pushes Khim into a magical journey of his own — from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.
REVIEWS:

Critic's Choice…artfully balances its theme of mortality between the intimate and the macroscopic…explores inner psychological states with remarkable eloquence and clarity…

The Los Angeles Times

The interplay of the three [views on extinction] in Lewis' smart and honest script is one small push away from collective transcendence

Los Angeles Weekly
Premiere Production: 2008 - Produced by Moving Arts Theater Company at [Inside] the Ford -- Los Angeles, CA

Characters

  • Casting: 5M, 1F

  • KHIM PHAN (55) - Max's biology teacher. Cambodian. He's been in the US since 1979.

  • MAX FORRESTAL (15) - Son of Ellery and Lily. Sophomore in high school. plays the viola and piano, and has some talent as a composer. Wears glasses and appears uncomfortable in his clothes.

  • ELLERY FORRESTAL (47) - A biologist. Wears glasses and appears uncomfortable in his clothes.

  • LILY FORRESTAL (45) - Ellery's wife. Writes high school science textbooks. Has stomach cancer.

  • DR. JOSHUA DORSEY (28) - A doctor, just out of residency.

  • GILL MORRIS - CEO of a large corporation which owns (and plans to deforest) an area of the Bolivian jungle where Ellery Forrestal has worked for the last twelve years.

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Song Of Extinction Script Order Now

    Max, a musically gifted high school student, is falling off the edge of the world — and his biology teacher is the only one who's noticed. A play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption. Max Forrestal is going to fail Biology if he doesn't complete a 20-page paper on extinction by 2pm on Tuesday — but his mother, Lily, is dying of cancer, and school is the last thing on his mind. His father, Ellery, a biologist obsessed with saving a rare Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife's impending death, or his son's distress. Max's biology teacher, Khim Phan, tries to figure out why Max is failing the class. Helping Max, however, pushes Khim into a magical journey of his own — from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.

    		$24.95

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