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Thursday Tea Dance

A Slice of Life in Five Thursdays

  • Slice of life
  • Romantic comedy
  • 7-character play
  • 5 women, 1 man, 1 either
  • 35 min
  • Beginner
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Synopsis

At Les Glycines retirement home, Thursday is tea-dance day. Jeanne, 81, has never danced in her life; Rose offers to teach her the waltz, in secret, in the laundry room. But no secret lasts long at Les Glycines: the other residents open a betting book on the man who must be behind these lessons, and the spring party is coming, with its opening waltz.

The common room, the laundry room and a corridor of Les Glycines retirement home, in Angers, on five Thursdays in March and April, today.

Casting

473 lines
  • JEANNE Female role, Senior 81, widowed, moved into Les Glycines last autumn; has never danced.
  • ROSE Female role, Senior 79, former seamstress; danced every Saturday at the local dance hall for fifteen years.
  • IRÈNE Female role, Senior 88, the oldest resident, a retired accountant.
  • GISÈLE Female role, Senior 74, the youngest of the residents, never misses a tea dance.
  • MARGOT Female role, Senior 76, retired nurse, reads a novel a week.
  • LUCIEN Male role, Senior 83, the only man who comes to the tea dance; he brings his own records.
  • CAMILLE No gender marker, Adult adult, has run the activities at the residence for two years.

Contents

  1. Scene 1: First Thursday
  2. Scene 2: Second Thursday, Morning
  3. Scene 3: Second Thursday, Afternoon
  4. Scene 4: Third Thursday, Morning
  5. Scene 5: Fourth Thursday, by the Lift
  6. Scene 6: The Spring Party

Excerpt

Scene 1: First Thursday

(The common room at Les Glycines, a Thursday afternoon. Tables, chairs, a teapot, a plate of biscuits. A record player on a side table. Lucien and Gisèle are dancing a tango. Irène and Margot sit at one table, Rose at another. Jeanne sits alone at the back, her handbag on her knees.)

(The record stops.)

GISÈLE

Another one, Lucien.

LUCIEN

I’m catching my breath.

GISÈLE

You caught it last week.

LUCIEN

It got away again.

IRÈNE

Let him breathe, Gisèle. He’s the only one we’ve got.

468 more lines, 6 scenes

The rest is waiting in the file.

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