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breakinglight11 ([personal profile] breakinglight11) wrote2021-08-29 02:32 pm

31 Plays in 31 Days, #29 - “Three-Time”

The semester is starting next week, so I am busily getting ready. I’m feeling a little bit burnt out, but I need to push through to finish the challenge. I don’t know if my remaining scenes are going to be any good, but I’ll do my best. Here’s another attempt at conversation from the bottle episode of Dream Machine after a bad night at the Emmys with Leah and Ryan.



Day #29 - “Three-Time”
From Dream Machine
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

LEAH LUCCHESI, showrunner of Offcomer at Dream Machine, mid thirties
RYAN DRESDEN, head of programming for Dream Machine, early fifties

Los Angeles, 2021
~~~

LEAH: I really wanted that damn Emmy. Is that stupid?

RYAN: Probably.

LEAH: Gee, thanks.

RYAN: No, seriously. Do you really care what they think of you?

LEAH: I care what everybody thinks of everything about me, all the time.

RYAN: I know it’s very hard that the Academy doesn’t want to have sex with you.

LEAH: This is about the other thing I base my self-worth on— my work! Come on, do you have any identity beyond what you make and who you make?

RYAN: Of course not. But the who matters.

LEAH: Jesus. You’re telling me.

RYAN: I meant, who gives out establishment awards? A bunch of old racists who just want to reward stuff that reminds them out of themselves.

LEAH: Easy for a three-time Oscar winner to say.

RYAN: Yeah, like that made me so happy? Rowan’s Hope was a four-quadrant schlockfest scientifically calculated to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I know— I operated the calculator.

LEAH: And what about The Devil and the Deep? I know that was your baby.

RYAN: Yeah. Yeah, it was.

LEAH: Didn’t it feel great to have the best thing you ever made recognized?

RYAN: Oh, yeah. So great that after my win, I split a speedball with some Veuve Clicquot model in the bathroom and woke up in the back seat of my Charger with the coat check girl.

LEAH: Now you just sound like a rock star.

RYAN: You’re a lot more impressed than my wife was.

LEAH: Shit.

RYAN: Yeah. Especially considering she went home an actual rock star afterward. Really didn’t measure up. And my last one, for Milk and Honey Road, well… when I realized that grinding dull midcentury divorce drama was what spoke to the Academy best— suffice it to say that after party ended with a police chase, a three-car pileup, and the most unflattering of my four mugshots. The pinnacle of my professional career— and I don’t even remember most of it.

LEAH: So… what? You’d rather you didn’t win them?

(Pause.)

RYAN: No. That’s the only thing worse than winning them.

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