31 Plays in 31 Days, #9 - “Friendsgiving”

One of the things I’d like to achieve with Dream Machine is an eventual chosen-family narrative. I’m a fan of those, as many nerds tends to be. It’s something I’ve worked on before in Mrs. Hawking.

The central theme of Dream Machine is these are all people who are used to only relating to people by proxy or deliberately putting distance between themselves and others. Leah puts on a fake persona and seeks catharsis through narrative so as to avoid needing anything real from other people. Ryan spent years avoiding responsibility, vulnerability, and pain with drugs. Meredith is fixated on making herself needed and useful because she's scared no one will value her just for herself. Josie is a talented actor who only really ever got attention and praise for her performances, and so is only really confident and dynamic when she's in character. And Derek is resolutely, uncompromisingly himself to the point of aggression, because if he's going to scare people off, he'd rather do it before he has a chance to get attached. Because of this, their big journey for the series would be the process of learning to connect authentically. So they will all start suspicious of and contentious with each other, only through having to work together and get along to bond and form a kind of unit.

So one of the ideas I had for an episode to occur later in the first season would be for a forced Thanksgiving celebration. By that point they’ll be shooting the new show, and delays that require the whole crew to work overtime will preclude anyone from traveling anywhere for the holiday, cancelling everyone’s plans. So Meredith decides she will throw a Thanksgiving to make up for it, and to encourage the team to get along. Of course, hijinks will ensure.

It’s a tried and true dramatic technique to lock a bunch of characters in a room to stir up conflict and force them to deal with each other. I love when you have a gang to force them into a social situation and see how they bounce off one another— what relationships build, what fights arise, and how they conduct themselves in a situation where they don’t have a job to do to force them to behave.

If you'd like to check out the episodes of Dream Machine so far, you can find them as follows:
1.01 - "The Show Must Go Off"
1.02 - "Requiem For a Dreamer"
1.03 - "Change or Die"



( Day #9 - Friendsgiving )