Script

For :

"The annual spirited Telethon against Stone Heart disease"

Based upon my book:

 "Weft over Warp : Re-connecting the human fabric" (the other Manhattan Project, 1939-1945)

The book will be published serially in my journal "Weft over Warp" and - crucially - will share the exact same cover illustration as the telethon script.) 

I am not intending to write the actual musical notes for a script about Dawson's efforts but I certainly think somebody should. (I mean I could do it but would do sit o poorly no one would want to listen.)

My posts and print articles are more of a non-fictional backstory (end notes) for my fictional (but "based upon actual events") script of a sung-through music drama about a present day telethon performed annually by the spirits of the long dead 'selfless penicillin' pioneers .

(A group that includes pioneering penicillin patients and their families, as well as the pioneer penicillin medical staff.)

These spirits (wefts of the human fabric) were prominent in the pioneer days of penicillin and rheumatic heart disease and I see them as constantly coming back annually until they both set straight the story of wartime penicillin and fight off recurrences of stone-hearted-ness in all of us.

(The other spirits (the warps), proponents of stone-hearted-ness, are definitely uninvited but are there fighting equally hard each annual telethon to keep the false myth of wartime penicillin afloat.)

It will be about two and half hours long , in two acts with intervening intermission,  and have a couple dozen or so scenes and songs. It is intended to be performable by school, church and amateur theatric societies.

It will have low financial and technical requirements (in part because the script will be in the Public Domain) but will do best with a large amateur cast and crew - most who will pre-record their visual or musical performances and never be seen on stage.

The actors actually on stage will mime their physical activities at the middle back of the stage (all are in ghostly whiteface - even actors of colour) then step forward to sing directly at the audience as the scene's melody is passed around , turn on turn , to sustain each singing character's 'conflicting' point of view.

Meanwhile behind them , on the set's two giant flat screen TVs, videos and stills AV helps conjure up the time, setting and mood --- particularly at non-sung intros, outros and musical interludes . They also evoke (or mock ironically) the events inferred by the singer's words.

The set must be determinedly no realistic - each scene being actualized by the actors openly carrying the props on stage and openly putting a doctor's coat or pat

Cast members without enough skill to perform reliably 'live' can still take part by acting out some of the video scenes.... in as many short takes as it may need.

If the musical crew is good enough and a big enough pit is available, then they can perform live interacting with the cast- but more likely the music and sound FX will be pre-recorded and or played by one or two skilled musicians upon MIDI keyboards ---- as is common in theatre today.

titles of its major parts and their individual time periods :

Act I has a dozen or so scenes over 3 emotional arcs :

part 1 : Discarding the Weft : roughly from the Fall of 1939 to the Fall of 1940

part 2 : Exalting the Weft :  roughly from the Fall of 1940 to the Fall of 1941

part 3 : Betraying the Weft : roughly from the Fall of 1941 to Christmas 1942

---intermission---

Act II has another dozen or so scenes over another 3 emotional arcs :

part 1 : Agitating the Weft : roughly from the Fall of 1942 to the Fall of 1943

part 2 : Denying the Weft : roughly from the Fall of 1943 to the Fall of 1944

part 3 : Triumph of the Weft : roughly from the Fall of 1944 to the Fall of 1945