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January 15th, 2026
Short Plays USA Contest #1 – First Place
by Judy Klass
Characters: ROBERT: Male college student, formal, socially "off." AURORA: Gutsy female college student, socially "off." MATT: Male college student, socially "off." Setting: A college dorm common room. Time: The present. Scene: ROBERT adjusts his clothes and faces the audience, addressing an invisible person with a video camera. ROBERT Okay, so tell me when the camera is on. So... now? (speaks awkwardly, as a film narrator, toward invisible camera) So, uh, hi. I'm Robert. Um, so this is the freshman dorm common room. We're all taking a first-year course on Social Anxiety. And we have this film project due for Professor Donnegan on "Mitigating Anxiety Through Pop Culture." We're presenting ideas to make people feel better. Especially people our age, with social fear and depression. And, um, I'm doing mine on screwball comedy. (clears throat) ROBERT (cont'd) Um. One reason screwball comedy became really big during the 1930s was the Great Depression. People wanted to forget stuff like breadlines, and the Dust Bowl, and the stock market crash, and no jobs, so they'd go to the movies and watch Shirley Temple. They'd watch Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in outer space. They'd watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. And they'd watch screwball comedies. It was pure escapism. Lots of movies were about rich people in fancy clothes with rich-people problems. There were also screwball comedies onstage, by people like Kaufman and Hart. You had highbrow humor, with rapid-fire dialogue, and witty allusions – but with lowbrow humor mixed in. Slapstick. Knockabout comedy. They didn't have gross-out humor about body functions, or direct sex jokes – the censors wouldn't allow that. There were wacky characters, and unlikely situations. There would be formality, and then the silliness would come crashing in. (AURORA ENTERS with MATT. AURORA wears pointy ears and a cape and carries fake weapons. MATT wears something vaguely medieval. He carries a flute or recorder and an iPhone.) ROBERT Oh. So, you may see that, behind me, Aurora and Matt have come in, though I booked the room for this time. AURORA It's called a "common room," Robert, because it's for all of us. Do your narration at dawn, if you don't want other people coming in here. ROBERT So, Aurora actually did hear Professor Donnegan say that we should be generous and support each other – AURORA Hello! We're going to have an epic battle, on camera. You're giving a lecture. Go do it in your dorm room. ROBERT Excuse me, I hired a videographer, you're filming on Matt's phone, and you could go outdoors for your little battle – AURORA It's drizzly, and we don't have a selfie stick. Okay? Matt can prop up his phone on a ledge here, and keep it dry. MATT Yeah. I can. (MATT finds a place to the side, at eye level, for his phone. ROBERT narrates to the invisible video camera.) ROBERT So, I thought this might happen. But I decided to keep filming, if it did happen, because it could illustrate my point about screwball comedy. Here, we have several eccentric, socially maladjusted people – AURORA Oh, bite me! MATT Yeah! Bite her – ROBERT Strange people engaged in strange pursuits, which is highly characteristic of screwball comedy. You need overlapping activities, and a director and a writer have to keep many different balls in the air – (AURORA gives a weapon to MATT and keeps one. She looks toward the phone's camera, and narrates her own film. MATT plays a medieval-sounding song on the recorder.) AURORA Okay, so, we're here today to demonstrate the importance of LARPing. Live Action Role Playing. When you're LARPing, you can become your character in the game – in a way you can't when you're playing a game like Dungeons and Dragons, and like you can't do with your avatar in a video game. You develop your character over time, and you create or buy the costume and the props. I've been various characters. I've been a mercenary alchemist, and a necromancer sage. At the moment, I am Hagara, a warrior elf. Not a drau. A virtuous elf, with knowledge of bone-knitting and other healing arts. Matt, do you want to say who you are? (MATT shakes his head no.) AURORA (cont'd) Okay, so Matt is Cliffordium. He's a tavern-keeper and a wandering minstrel. (MATT nods yes.) AURORA (cont'd) But of course, even musicians must engage in duels and skirmishes in the magical realms of fantasyland. Matt and I will now demonstrate a combat boffer LARP – where you take PVC pipe, and you cover it with insulating foam, and do battle. Observe! (MATT puts down the recorder. AURORA and MATT engage in a strenuous, grunting battle with their weapons. ROBERT looks toward his invisible camera and narrates.) ROBERT So, the socially challenged people who engage in LARPing are clearly trying to get away from a world that's miserable, especially for young people. There are huge gaps between rich and poor now, as in the 1930s. Life certainties have disappeared, capitalism is in crisis, democracy is scorned, and war, bigotry and fascism are on the rise around the world, as in the 1930s. But we, um, also have new and different challenges. The environment is under siege, species are disappearing, science gets trashed, we're scared of AI, and, plus, we were all raised by helicopter parents, and we only interact with the world on social media, and we were locked down during a pandemic, so we have no clue how to talk to each other, let alone date. So, it's not surprising that we express ourselves in these odd and pathetic ways. AURORA (still fighting, addressing ROBERT's camera and MATT's phone) Don't listen to him! LARPing is creative and empowering! Unlike war games played by angry incels, LARPing involves lots of women! It creates an environment where shy people, and people on the autism spectrum, and non-binary and trans people, and people from every walk of life can feel at home among the fairy fay folk, and bright witches and rebel warlocks, demons and angels, gnomes and orks, and monsters! Instead of trolling online, you can embrace your inner troll, you can go on a retreat, run through the woods, drink mead, join a guild, and sing sea shanties! ROBERT Um. We are supposed to address gender roles slash sexual anxieties in this film project. So, let me say that in the 1930s, lots of screwball comedies featured women who were "dizzy dames." Like Carole Lombard in the movie My Man Godfrey. Or Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby. They were flutter-brained, daffy vixens who were child-women, and they were often rich and spoiled and never grew up. AURORA (still fighting) And that's your cure for anxiety among people in our generation, Robert? Bite me again! MATT Bite her again! ROBERT In contrast, recently, it's men in comedies who never grow up. Like in Judd Apatow movies. Men get drunk and smoke pot and watch porn and don't have jobs. Um. It's hard to know what this means – the child-women in the 1930s and the child-men in movies today. AURORA LARPing builds social skills. And organizational skills, and writing skills, because we can be game-masters and help write the storylines. LARPing leads to self-discipline and physical exercise. It builds acting skills. When I'm not my character, I'm an NPC, bringing news. You may not be brave, but your character can be brave. You may not have friends, but you are one with your guild, or village, or the others on your quest, as you sit around the campfire. Matt, is there anything you'd like to say about what LARPing has done for you? MATT (hesitant) I'd like to say ... something else. AURORA Okay. MATT So, yeah. I think it would be very healing and positive for our college if we could play Humans vs. Zombies. That can be a college-wide LARP. It's like tag, and most people are humans at first, but then the Zombies get them, and an hour later, they turn into Zombies. AURORA Okay, so, maybe petition the administration about that, not Professor Donnegan? MATT (undeterred) But if a Zombie doesn't get anyone in 48 hours, it starves to death. There are safe areas where the humans can congregate, but they cannot get into cars or go off campus. And it's not true that Humans vs. Zombies turns off women. Lots of women play. AURORA That's absolutely correct. ROBERT (toward his camera) So, in conclusion, for my film project, I would like to say that I think we could alleviate a lot of stress, misery and anxiety if we brought back the screwball comedy, with some 21st Century modifications. Our future has turned into a black hole, there is sadness, anger and despair all around us, and so we should lose ourselves in silliness and mayhem of various kinds. Thanks so much for watching. (AURORA and MATT both wave at ROBERT's invisible camera. AURORA speaks sarcastically:) AURORA Bye! END OF PLAY
About the Playwright
Judy Klass resides in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Read the playwright's biography and The Short Play's the Thing publications
on Judy Klass's Artist Page.
Short Plays Collection
This play is also featured in
Short Plays Collection #1,
published in the The Short Play's the Thing Playhouse.
Keywords: screwball comedy, meta-theatre, LARPing, anxiety, pop culture
Previously published in Short Plays USA:
Tree Grows in Akron
by Christopher Franciosa
Short Plays USA is part of The Short Play's the Thing and waxpoetryart.com.
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- Visit The Short Play's the Thing Playhouse.
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