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Dusty and the Big Bad World

  • Cusi Cram
  • Full Length Play, Docudrama/Historic, Comedy, New Millennium / 21st Century
  • 1M, 4F
  • ISBN: 9780573696916

Dusty and his animated friends hold a competition to find a model family based on letters written by children. The winning family will receive a visit from Dusty and will be filmed for an upcoming episode.

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Docudrama/Historic, Comedy
  • 120 minutes

  • Time Period: New Millennium / 21st Century
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Interior Set
  • Cautions: Mild Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups
Dusty and his animated friends hold a competition to find a model family based on letters written by children. The winning family will receive a visit from Dusty and will be filmed for an upcoming episode. 

Out of the 15,000 letters received, the producers pick Lizzie Goldberg-Jones and her family to be featured on the most popular animated PBS show in America. Her parents are exemplary role models – and they are two men. When word of that selection and the resulting episode reaches Marianne, Secretary of Education, she exercises her authority, deciding that the program should not be aired on public television because of its possible influence on children. Her decision, calling the episode "special interest TV", is a blow to Jessica and Nathan, the producers/writers of the show and to Karen, Marianne's secretary. Karen admires her boss' tenacity in overcoming a self-destructive past, but feels her decision to cancel the episode is definitely wrong. She secretly reveals that self-destructive past to Nathan and almost brings Marianne down, but not quite. 

Based on an actual incident that happened in 2005, Dusty and the Big Bad World is a very funny, no-holds-barred yet even-handed look at PBS, government bias, gay marriage, the right to privacy, children's allergies and the ability to survive in a small-minded world.
REVIEWS:

"Dusty raises passionate and polarizing questions about the role of public TV in the education of our children. That's a battle for both hearts and minds. And in this country, a battle that will never end."

 Denver Post

"Though titled after a fictitious dustball, it is one of the more human plays I've seen in quite a while. Credit Cusi Cram for crafting a story replete with tiny moments of authenticity... Dusty and the Big Bad World will have you laughing and thinking out loud."

 Boulder Weekly

Premiere Production: Dusty and the Big Bad World premiered at the Denver Center Theatre Company in Denver, CO, in January 2009 under the direction of Kent Thompson.

Characters

  • Casting: 1M, 4F
  • Casting Attributes: Features Children

  • JESSICA - Early forties, driven, focused, a TV producer. Seemingly hard as nails but has a vulnerable side.

  • KAREN - Twenties, edgy, neurotic, was an addict, is barely keeping it together, is deeply self interested because she has to be -- smarter than she lets on.

  • MARIANNE - Late-forties, early-fifties, Southern, very Christian, driven, seemingly soft but secretly hard as nails -- has a super maternal side.

  • NATHAN - Late-thirties, early-forties, neurotic, wants to be heroic but it's not easy for him -- becomes monomaniacal as the play progresses.

  • LIZZIE GOLDBERG-JONES - An honest, somewhat precocious 11-year-old -- not an annoying kid. She speaks the truth more than anyone else in the play.

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Dusty and the Big Bad World Script Order Now

    Dusty and his animated friends hold a competition to find a model family based on letters written by children. The winning family will receive a visit from Dusty and will be filmed for an upcoming episode. Out of the 15,000 letters received, the producers pick Lizzie Goldberg-Jones and her family to be featured on the most popular animated PBS show in America. Her parents are exemplary role models – and they are two men. When word of that selection and the resulting episode reaches Marianne, Secretary of Education, she exercises her authority, deciding that the program should not be aired on public television because of its possible influence on children. Her decision, calling the episode 'special interest TV', is a blow to Jessica and Nathan, the producers/writers of the show and to Karen, Marianne's secretary. Karen admires her boss' tenacity in overcoming a self-destructive past, but feels her decision to cancel the episode is definitely wrong. She secretly reveals that self-destructive past to Nathan and almost brings Marianne down, but not quite. Based on an actual incident that happened in 2005, Dusty and the Big Bad World is a very funny, no-holds-barred yet even-handed look at PBS, government bias, gay marriage, the right to privacy, children's allergies and the ability to survive in a small-minded world.

    		$24.95

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