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The Show Home

A chamber piece in six scenes

  • Chamber piece
  • Horror
  • 5-character play
  • 3 women, 1 man, 1 either
  • 30 min
  • Intermediate
  • Ages 12+
PDF Word Free, no sign-up

Synopsis

One October evening, on a new housing estate at the edge of town, the person from the agency is finishing the last viewing of the show home: a couple who want to move in, a mother who wants a bedroom for her daughter, and the daughter, who is leaving to live somewhere else in three weeks. At seven o’clock, the door stops opening. In every room, something is waiting for one of them.

The furnished living room of the show home at Les Hauts du Pré (a grey sofa, two chairs, a sideboard, a picture window looking out on empty plots), a new housing estate on the edge of a mid-sized town, one evening in late October, the present day.

Casting

276 lines
  • NOA No gender marker, Adult age unknown, shows people round the show home for the agency, every evening.
  • VERA Female role, Adult 52, looking for a house with a bedroom for her daughter.
  • ZOÉ Female role, Young adult 20, Vera’s daughter; moving to Lisbon in three weeks.
  • ELENA Female role, Adult 36, viewing the house for the third time.
  • MARCO Male role, Adult 39, Elena’s partner, has the mortgage figures on his phone.

Contents

  1. Scene 1: The Viewing
  2. Scene 2: The Door
  3. Scene 3: The Garage, the Bedroom
  4. Scene 4: The Stars
  5. Scene 5: The Visitors’ Book
  6. Scene 6: Closing Time

Excerpt

Scene 1: The Viewing

(The living room of a new house. A bowl of green apples, a large bound register on the sideboard. A front door with a badge reader, a door to the kitchen, a corridor to the garage, a staircase.)

(Noa comes in from the kitchen, holding a tablet. Elena and Marco behind. Vera comes down the stairs. Zoé follows her, hands in her pockets.)

NOA

And here we are, the heart of the home. Thirty-eight square metres, south-facing. The window looks out over the future park.

MARCO

The future park, is that the field with the puddles?

NOA

That’s the future park. The trees are on order.

ELENA

Marco.

MARCO

I’m only asking. In the brochure, there are trees. Out of the window, there’s mud.

271 more lines, 6 scenes

The rest is waiting in the file.

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