Flower in the Desert Preview

Flower in the Desert by Hannah Merrill

A one-act play.

CHARACTERS

Lily—Female, 40s, any ethnicity.

Roxanne—Female, 40s, any ethnicity.

SETTING Outside a café in Seattle, Washington.

TIME A summer night.

NOTE A / mark in the middle of a sentence indicates that the next character to speak should begin her line,interrupting and overlapping the remainder of the previous line.

(Night. Lily is sitting at an outdoor café table with a coffee cup, an éclair on a plate, and an extra chair, absorbed in a book of folktales. She’s wearing pearl earrings. Loud crashes. Lily jumps and looks up. Roxanne stumbles in, drunk, wearing battered jeans and a leather jacket. She trips and falls, her back to Lily.)

ROXANNE: Okay! That was, like, whoa.

LILY: Roxanne?

(Roxanne turns.)

ROXANNE: Lily.

(Brief eye contact.)

LILY: Are you alright?

ROXANNE: That trash can. I beat the shit out of that trash can.

(Lily stands and peers into the distance.)

LILY: You tore a trash can to pieces.

ROXANNE: With my teeth. (She crawls over to the table.) Can I maybe sit here?

LILY: Um. Sure?

(Lily sits and goes back to her book. Roxanne drags herself up onto the other chair.)

ROXANNE: Nice place. Is that an éclair?

** Read the rest of the play by purchasing the Pilot Issue of New Theatre Magazine on issuu.com **