Synopsis

Act 1

We see a simple bench and table made crudely of wood. There’s painted-on-canvas image of a 16th Century kitchen. The look suggests artificiality. It screams “I’M A STAGE SET.”

Sir Toby Belch, the legendary, literary drunkard and bon vivant, is playing Act II, Scene 3 of Twelfth Night. He arrives home very late singing about his night of carousing and wench-seeking but during the song, after a stage lighting effect, he vanishes from the stage.

Jim Dandy and a buddy are sailors in the US Navy. It’s San Francisco 1942 and Jim is starring in the war-time musical, Taking a Liberty. It’s the last day of Jim’s leave. The two sing a song about, when time is short and the enemy awaits, how to land a lady on land, but it doesn’t get very far when, after the same stage lighting effect, Jim suddenly disappears.

Penny Vincent and Betsy Bennett, two small town girls in their 20s, are visiting the “big” city of Duluth. They are in the hit 1950s musical, The Duke of Duluth. Penny starts to sing a song of adoration about her new city when she, too, mysteriously vanishes.

The next backdrop suggests Times Square in the 1930s as seen through the eyes of someone in the 1960’s, Coca-Cola sign and all but, on the sign, it says, “Moxie Malone: a good time waiting to be had”. Moxie and her friend, Trixie, are in Time Square as part of the 1940s, pastiche musical written in the 60’s called Manhattan Manhunters.

Moxie sees many men pass by and knows she can have any of them. She starts a song about her own irresistibility but once again, during the song, after the same lighting effect, Moxie is gone without a trace.

A black, featureless stage, Sir Toby, Jim, Penny, and Moxie are in some sort of limbo. We hear the ominous voice of Mr. OMNI, the “Producer,” of a reality TV show entitled, GET REAL! whose premise is to take fictional characters out of their fictional works and offer them a chance to experience life in the real world. They ponder the question, sing of the possibility of freedom and all agree to give what’s real a real try.

A bar. Sir Toby and Jim are present. Jim is in the mood and, with all liquor surrounding him, Sir Toby is in Heaven. When it comes to women, Jim wants to have fun but, as for permanent companionship, he is all he needs. He sings a song about his extreme self-sufficiency. By the end of the song, he is off with a lady or two from the bar.

Eddie, a member of the GET REAL! production staff, seduces Moxie, who confesses that, for her, love-making has always been a kiss and a fade-out. She’s never gotten to experience what really happens between a man and a woman. Eddie and Moxie sing a duet which ends with them going to bed.

In Manhattan,. Penny gets and suffers an attempted mugging. She is saved by Bill Berquist, a good-hearted and handsome young man. She explains to him that she isn’t really a real person but, real or not, Bill is charmed by her.

Late that night, at The Character Residence, Eddie is leaving Moxie, after making real love and loving it. She asks him to stay, but he can’t. He has to get home to the wife. They sing the duet CALL ME WHEN YOU’RE SINGLE. Eddie leaves. Penny dances in, over-the-moon about Billy Berquist.

It turns out he’s a New York actor, currently playing a recurring role in a crime TV show, so he has lots of experience with fictional people. Sir Toby walks in and promptly passes out. Finally, Jim arrives, having gone home with the hot babe he met in the bar. She took him back to her place and taught him how making real love is better than any love scene. There was just one little thing. When the lights were back on, Jim discovered that she…was a he!

“It looks like we both slept with illusions.” says Moxie, “The is Reality stuff is trickier than we thought.” Moxie wonders, who is the lie, them or us? At least Jim and Moxie are who they’re written to be. Their duet, concludes with a kiss between them, and ends Act 1.

Intermission

Act II

The next day, Jim & Moxie have spent the night together and are in love. Penny has a date with Billy to go meet his mother. Sir Toby wants to explore HIS new wonders of the 21st Century: vodka, tequila, etc…

Jim and Moxie though, have no interest in going outside. They want to stay in, and explore a different new world, being in love but once, left alone, Moxie collapses.

Billy and Penny are out in the park, after visiting his mother in an old folks home. Penny is sorry that Bill’s mother was written so old and feeble.

He explains that she wasn’t always like that. Once she was as young and beautiful as Penny, with her whole life ahead of her. Now it’s almost over.

Penny comes from a musical that takes place over the course of a week. She’s never encountered “aging.” The thought that some people turn old and feeble over time is foreign to her. Bill explains to her that everyone ages. It’s a natural part of life. Penny doesn’t like it one bit.

Bill explains that real life is a one-time only trip and that everyone dies…even those we love. Grief is the price of that love and death is the price of life. They’re steep prices, but worth it. Billy loves Penny and wants her to live a real life with him. Penny wants Bill to come back and be with her forever in THE DUKE OF DULUTH.

Moxie and Jim arrive from a hospital. Moxie has an inoperable brain tumor and may only have a year to live.

Jim pays a call on Phillip Highsmith, the aging author of Manhattan Manchasers, the play Moxie Malone came from. Jim begs him to re-write her as cured. Jim, the man who once sang I Am All I Need, has now morphed into a man who very much needs something beyond himself: he needs Moxie and her life saved. (Possible reprise with revised lyric: I’M NOT ALL I NEED)

Then, Jim has an idea. He could ask Highsmith to write a sequel to Manhattan Manchasers and insert Jim as Moxie’s love interest. This way, he and Moxie could leave reality and go into a new fictional world, and be together forever.

Highsmith agrees to write it, except for one big problem: Taking a Liberty, the musical out of which Jim came is still under copyright. He can save Moxie, but she and Jim can’t be together in the new play.

Meanwhile, Jim has brought Penny to meet Amanda Price, the first actress to have ever played Penny, back in the original Broadway production of The Duke of Duluth. She shows Penny the pictures of her children and grandchildren. Amanda has a rueful solo number about her life, about the trials, the tribulations, the triumphs and about how she wouldn’t have changed a day of it.

Back at the Residence, Mr. Omni announces, the time to choose has come. Then, Phillip Highsmith enters. He’s found a way around Jim’s problem. The musical comedy Jim is from, Taking a Liberty, is still under copyright, but it turns out that Taking a Liberty was based on the novel, Libertines on Liberty.

The original character of “Jim Dandy” comes from that book which is in public domain. Highsmith can write a sequel to save Moxie with Jim in it, but it won’t be exactly the same Jim. It will be the “Jim” as adapted from the book, not the musical. So, our Jim will either have to remain in Reality or go back into Taking a Liberty, but the book-version of Jim can go into Moxie’s new play with her.

Jim chooses to return to his play and his old life without her but, at least, he is comforted knowing that Moxie will live on with a version of him written just for her.

So, they both return to fiction. He, to Taking a Liberty and she into her new life in Tramp Steamer, where she’ll meet and marry the adapted Jim Dandy.

Sir Toby, despite his evident enjoyment of the 21st Century, surprises all by insisting on returning to life in Twelfth Night. Why? “Because there’s a busty little serving wench there named Maria he repeatedly marries her in Act V whom he loves even more than booze….also he doesn’t want to piss off Shakespeare.

Penny decides to stay in Reality with Bill who has asked her to marry him. She reasons that what’s good enough for humanity is good enough for her, too.

Each character has made his/her choice and, fictionally or otherwise, lives happily ever after as…the curtain falls.

Characters

  • Sir Toby Belch, 50’s - Corpulent. Baritone.
  • Jim Dandy, 20’s. Handsome, charming. Tenor.
  • Moxie Malone, late-20’s/early 30’s. A good-time gal, but not a hooker. Alto.
  • Penny Vincent, early/mid-20’s. The perennial, naïve ingénue. Soprano.
  • Two Utility Men who play all the other roles. They must be able to play a variety of ages. 1 Tenor, 1 Baritone.
  • Two Utility Women who play all the other female roles. They must be able to play a wide range of ages and characters. 1 Soprano, 1 Alto.

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