CAS Help!

[--- mk]

Hi,

For CAS, me & a couple of people are thinking of putting together a play, as in writing the script or monologues & then performing, with the aim to incorporate both creativity & service in the project. The idea was the writing & acting would be the 'Creativity', whilst giving the money raised by ticket sales to a charity we feel strongly about would be the 'Service'.

The problem is, I feel like I have no idea where to start. All of us have agreed the play has to have a message or moral as the majority of the seats will be filled up with secondary school kids (aged between 11-16), but we also believe because of the range of ages of our audience, we may not be able to take the performance to the level we'd like - an idea was to have a character in a mental asylum relive her story and perhaps something negative in her past could be mirrored in the lives of the other characters, thereby making the moral, but someone was concerned it would be too haunting a story for some members of the audience.

How do we begin creating a script for a play that ought to last between 1 - 2 hours, is anything but cliched and is something great for all ages (11-16) to watch?

Please Help!

- mk

[Award Winning Boss]

Ok lemme try (this is for the story anyway)

there was a young boy (me) who was just of fair intelligence but just so good looking lacking in confidence with his friends and teachers. His friends were getting higher marks than him in class. He decided to finish up the IB with a simple 30 points and go to university.

Then when he's sleeping some angel type thingy floats down like a spy and splashes water on him while he sleeps. Then the character would be like " What the hell?!! " but the angel will tell him a secret .. a location of where to find a potion

Now i'm getting really lazy and i can't be bothered to finish the story. So the moral of the story is " If you want to become an Award Winning Boss with many medals fight some dragons, give the money raised to charity then rule the world since you now own the all the dragons in the world"

[flinquinnster]

Ok lemme try (this is for the story anyway)

there was a young boy (me) who was just of fair intelligence but just so good looking lacking in confidence with his friends and teachers. His friends were getting higher marks than him in class. He decided to finish up the IB with a simple 30 points and go to university.

Then when he's sleeping some angel type thingy floats down like a spy and splashes water on him while he sleeps. Then the character would be like " What the hell?!! " but the angel will tell him a secret .. a location of where to find a potion

Now i'm getting really lazy and i can't be bothered to finish the story. So the moral of the story is " If you want to become an Award Winning Boss with many medals fight some dragons, give the money raised to charity then rule the world since you now own the all the dragons in the world"

Ha, perhaps that could work...

But seriously, the idea of having a character undergo some kind of a journey overcoming adversity is your typical play structure. It's possible to be creative using that formula but if you want to try something very different, it might be good to break up that structure. Your idea about the mental asylum doesn't sound too bad and as brofessional said try and make it funny.

Otherwise, I think keep the story not too complex, but try to make it a bit weird and quirky, and a bit humorous. Action, humour and a happy story seem to work - you don't want people too depressed by the end of the play. And to save money, perhaps don't make the set/lighting/sound too complex.