UN Centenary Peace Child

United Nations Centenary Peace Child

© Peace Child International – April 2024

United Nations Centenary Peace Child

– Saving Life on Planet Earth –

1 ST D RAFT B ASE S CRIPT

by David Woollcombe

© Peace Child International April 6th 2024

Cast

This Base Script requires a cast of 12 youth + a Storyteller and the Peace Child – Youths 1 & 2 of the Story as older people. Both Storyteller and Peace Child play other roles. There can also be a youth / adult chorus of 15-500 members, depending on the size of your stage. The youth cast should be genderbalanced and, where possible, Asians should play Asians, Africans – African etc. The Youth use costumes, make-up and wigs to play elder diplomats, soldiers, doctors, TV Hosts, Jack, Gail and other parts. The Storyteller and Peace Child can be played by youth greyed up, but are better played by genuine elders over 50. In this Base Script, the youth are identified by numbers: as you write your own version of the story, replace the numbers with the names of the cast-members playing those roles. In this way, you will empower the cast to imagine that they are the young people they’re playing:

Youth 1 – The Girl – no ethnicity or nationality defined

Youth 2 – The Boy – no ethnicity or nationality defined

Youth 3 – Indian

Youth 4 – British

Youth 5 – Arab from the MENA region

Youth 6 – Latin American

Youth 7 – French

Youth 8 – Russian

Youth 9 – American

Youth 10 – Chinese

Youth 11 – African

Youth 12 – Indigenous Youth – from a Small Island State

Setting

Bare black stage with large screen at the back on to which images ( – and, where necessary, translations / sub-titles – ) are projected; scenery (tables, chairs, prison bars etc.) are brought on from Stage Right and Left. There are steps down from the stage into the auditorium;

Vignette / Lesson Plans

This 1st Draft is sourced in conversations between the author and Peace Child’s Youth Advisors reacting to the Zero Draft of the UN’s new Declaration on Future Generations. Using these 7 x Vignette-Lesson plans as much or as little as they wish, the script is to be re-written by any cast that performs it, drawing on the final Declaration as agreed by UN Member State Governments at the UN in September 2024.

 Vignette ONE: the UN’s Centenary Targets – what must the UN – and our world - have achieved by 2045 to have ensured the survival, both of the UN organisation, and Life on Earth? Songs: Peace Day; If you close your eyes….

 Vignette TWO: What does your conscience tell you? Can anyone really tell us Right from Wrong? What should our consciences object to? Is Conscientious Objection therefore courage or cowardice? Songs: I who am I? - I believe & Listen to Me;





Vignette THREE: The UN Security Council: what kind of “Security” do most human beings seek? Can the UN Security Council ever deliver that kind of Security? Songs: I want to Live & Reach Out

Vignette FOUR: The Earth Situation Room: How bad is the State of our Planet? What do we have to do to turn it around? What are the Key Indicators we need to measure? Why are these measures are so critical? – and why did our Ancestors get their behaviours so wrong? What would it take to be a “good ancestor?” Songs: World & I’m Sorry;

 Vignette FIVE: What is war? If it really is hell on earth, why does humanity not abolish it? What kind of global institutions and regulations could actually prevent War? Songs: WAR & Inventions;

 Vignette SIX: The Immense potential of the Business Sector: Is Capitalism the problem? Does advertising and pension schemes mean that growth is sacrosanct? Can the Business Sector solve the problems that Governments self-evidently cannot? Songs: Superman & We are the World;

 Vignette SEVEN: Solutions – Mindsets and Values: what changes in human behaviours and values have to happen to sustain and improve life on earth for everyone? Can we achieve them in our Lifetimes? Look back over all the Vignettes – and check that you have done all that needs to be done to build Harmony in your own mind; Harmony between you and ALL the people around you; - and – Harmony between humanity and the natural environment which supports all life. Songs: Child for a Day; SING!

Songs Act ONE

Song 1: PEACE DAY

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Stage Video @ 11: 35; Indonesian Video)

Song 2: If you close your eyes

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] [Instrumental only]

Song 3: I WHO AM I

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Platform performance; “Classical”)

Song 4: WORLD

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Album track - to 3:00)

Song 5: I BELIEVE

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (“Gospel”)

SONG 6: PLEASE LISTEN TO ME

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental]

Song

7: I WANT TO LIVE

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] [click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for vocal] [click here for instrumental]

Song 8: MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Stage Video @ 47:58)

Song 9: WE WANT TO LIVE – Up Tempo!

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Stage Video @ 1:15: 35; Central American Stage Video @ 5:32)

SONG

10:

WE WISH YOU HAPPINESS

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] [click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals]

Song 11: REACH

OUT

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Stage Version @ 1:17:41)

Act tWO

Song 12:

WORLD

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (reprise – use only one verse!)

Song

13: I’M SORRY

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Audio only: David Ryall)

SONG 14:

INVENTIONS

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] [click here for Score]

Song 15:

WAR!

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Album version)

Song 16:

SUPERMAN

[click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Album version)

Song 17:

WE ARE THE WORLD

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental]

Song 17:

WE WANT THIS WORLD TO SURVIVE FOREVER

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Polish-English version)

Song 18:

CHILD FOR A DAY

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Audio only: Cat Stevens; Arabic / English version; Stage Video @ 19:26)

Finale Song 19: S I N G !

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Audio with vocals] [click here for Audio with instrumental] (Stage Video @ 1:40:51; Peace Child Singers; UN75 Online version)

Scene ONE

Black out. Lights come up with greenish tinge from a heart monitor on a table beside a hospital bed. It clicks, slowly – monotonously. Suddenly, the clicks become more rapid; the body in the bed moves – and a doctor and two nurses come in from Stage Left.

Nurse 1 He’s coming round!

Doctor Quick! Call the wife.

Nurse 2 Done! She’s on her way;

Doctor Remarkable! 20 years – 2 months

Nurse 1 13 days

Nurse 2 (checking her watch) – 4 hours and 37 minutes….

Doctor Not quite an Annie Shapiro but close…

Nurse 2 Who was Annie Shapiro?

Doctor The longest coma in recorded history: 29 years, I think. She woke up, went back to her husband and lived a normal life as I remember.

Nurse 1 They made a film about them, didn’t they?

Doctor Yes they did: Forever Love;

Nurse 2 Shall I get him into a chair?

Nurse 1 I wonder if they’ll make a film about him?

Doctor I think they have - several

Nurse 2 He was really famous, wasn’t he?

Doctor (as they go off) He’ll be a whole lot more famous now…! EXIT – Black Out

Scene TWO

Lights come straight back up on the Story-teller in everyday clothes as she comes on with a bunch of young people, the doctor and one of the Nurses.

Nurse 1 He’s alert – but he doesn’t remember anything.

S-teller You mean he won’t remember me?

Doctor He might. He’s lucid – but he’s a little confused….

S-teller He was always confused;

Youth 1 So – what are we going to do, Mum?

Youth 2 Are we going to go ahead with the Peace Day Celebrations?

S-teller YES! I just can’t believe it – him waking up just before the Centenary?!

Youth 4 It’s like he was planning it all along!

S-teller Knowing him, he probably was, the old bastard.

Youth 6 He’ll be the Guest of Honour?

S-teller He’ll have to be: Social media’s going crazy!!

Youth 5 But we’ll do the play?

S-teller Don’t you want to? (they all nod!) Good. It may help him to remember….

Youth 2 (to the Doctor) You think it’s a good idea?

Doctor It can’t do any harm: could possibly do him a lot of good.

S-teller Don’t give him a choice! We go for it!

Scene THREE

Spotlight splits the darkness picking out a singer, down stage Right – or in a Stage Box: Song 1: PEACE DAY (an Indonesian version)

Soloist 1 Come into my Joy!

A second spotlight picks out Soloist 2 who sings the second line:

Soloist 2 Come into my Pain!

Soloists 1 and 2 then walk towards each other, arms outstretched, singing:

Soloist 1 & 2 Come – you be a friend of mine! I’ll be the same.

They join hands for the final line – then separate as Soloist 3 comes between them, singing:

Soloist 3: As I go through my years with many passing fears I've never seen my guiding light, The clouds in front of me won't ever let me see And I'm so weary of the night

Soloist 3: I've tried so many times to read between the lines But the words keep turning round And a thousand fears are ringing in my ears And I'm so weary of the sound -

Soloists 1, 2 & 3: So give me Peace enough, Peace enough, peace enough! So give me peace enough for peace of mind, Everything coming up sunshine. (Repeat x 1)

Lights come up in the auditorium as 4 x dancers take their places centre stage, and the rest of the cast members, dressed in white T-shirts with ‘UN Day 2045’ + a UN Logo appear in all the doorways, singing and clapping their hands to the upbeat tempo:

Chorus: Come into my joy, Come into my pain

Come - you be a friend of mine

I'll be the same. (Repeat x 1)

The cast move down the aisles towards the stage as the dancers create a series of tableaus. All sing majestically:

Chorus: PEACE DAY PEACE DAY WE ALL SAY ! HAPPY WORLD, HAPPY DAY !

WEAR A LEAF AND SHOW THE WAY CELEBRATING THIS PEACE DAY!

The music switches back into fast tempo: the dancers start a fast, festive dance with streamers and the rest of the cast wave their arms and sing in the aisles, crazily enthusiastic:

Chorus: Peace Day Peace Day we all say Happy world, holiday, Wear a leaf and show the way Celebrating this Peace Day!

Peace Day, Peace Day - sing and dance It will be a big romance

People of the world as one Peace Day, Peace Day has begun.

Celebrations, jubilations

Laughter, shouting - lots of fun. Singing dancing - take your partner Celebrations have begun.

Celebrations, jubilations

Laughter shouting - join the fun!

Smiling dancing - grab a partner

Happiness for everyone!

Peace Enough for all mankind

Healthy body, happy mind

Faith and love, the world as onePeace Day, Peace Day has begun.

Come into my joy, Come into my pain

Come - you be a friend of mine

I'll be the same! (Repeat x 2)

The cast reach the stage on the final verse and the lights go down in the auditorium. Under the UN Logo on the Screen, the title “UN DAY – 2045” comes up. The dancers moves to a climactic tableau; the rest of the cast join hands around them singing the final lines. They hold for a moment as the audience applauds, then they break and embrace each other, wishing each other “Happy Peace Day!”

All Happy Peace Day! Happy Peace Day!

Into this mass of hugging youth, the Storyteller enters in a flowing cloak, carrying a large Storybook.

Youth 1 Hey Look! It’s the Storyteller!!

They’re thrilled to see her and gather round wishing her: “Happy Peace Day!” She returns the greeting:

S-teller Happy Peace Day, Everyone - !

Youth 2 Where’s the Guest of Honour?

P-Child I’m here! – struggling to find a way through all you wretched dancers!

ALL Happy Peace Day!

P-Child Happy Peace Day to you too, I suppose. What on earth is Peace Day anyway?

S-teller It’s UN Day

Youth 3 24th October –

Youth 4 The day the UN Charter was signed into Law!

Youth 5 One Hundred Years ago today!

P-Child You mean that rotten apology for an institution is still around??

S-teller Yes - and much improved since you were last around it!

P-Child How?

Youth 1 Well – that’s the story we’re telling you today, sir!

Youth 2 I’m playing you!

P-child Good Luck! They tell me I was a bit famous?!

S-Teller You are! We and the UN have achieved a great deal while you were sleeping – much of it inspired by you! Tell him, guys: tell him some of the things we’ve done….

Youth 1 Well - we pretty much have peace in our world today.

Youth 4 No deaths in wars at all last year!

Youth 5 The last nuclear weapon was dismantled at the UN Disarmament facility six years ago!

Youth 6 Pretty much every national government subscribes to the Earth Systems Governance regulations of the UN.

P-child “Earth Systems Governance”? What’s that?

S-teller Basically what you and I were begging for all those years ago!

Youth 2 A system of laws to protect people and the planet supervised by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court and enforced by the UN’s Global Peace Force.

Youth 7 We have laws to protect the biosphere: forests, rivers, oceans, atmosphere!

Youth 8 Everything!

P-Child Coo!

Youth 1 The climate emergency was declared over when Net Zero emissions was achieved ten years ahead of schedule in 2040!

Youth 9 The green sustainable economy has pretty much replaced the fossil-fuel economy.

Youth 10 And there’s health, education, shelter and decent food for pretty much everyone!

P-child Only a hundred years after the UN first promised them!

S-teller Better late than never!

Youth 1 And you, sir, were the inspiration that made it happen

P-child I don’t believe that.

Youth 2 You were! You’d better get used to it: you’re a bit of a world hero now;

P-child So the Secretary-General’s Centenary Goals were achieved after all?

S-teller You remember them?

P-child I don’t – but the papers the nurses gave me are talking about little else!

Youth 11

Thanks to a heck of a lot of hard work by the UN

Youth 12 – and “We the people….”

Youth 8 – and We – the Young People!

S-teller And You!

P-child Dear God, what have you done? Made me into a saint, or something?

S-teller That would have been impossible. But a global treasure - an inspiration? Yes – that you are! That’s why these young people are telling your story today. Would you like that?

P-Child Do I have a choice?

Youth(together with the Storyteller) No!

P-Child Go on, then! Some of the things you say are beginning to make sense…. This lady here looks vaguely familiar, and I do remember having a lot of angst about the UN!

S-teller Well – Angst no longer. The UN is just fine! You’ve woken up into a brand new world.

MUSIC starts and the lights transition into a paradise of dappled colours across the stage, and the screen fills with images of virgin rainforest teeming with life.

Song 2: If you close your eyes [Instrumental only]

Now if you close your eyes - you can be what you want And if you close your mind - you can feel deep in your soul.

Don't you see, it's your destiny?

Don't you see it was meant to be?

It's happening everywhere

People waking up

Together facing a great new dawn

Reaching out for love

Do you believe in miracles? Have faith in things unseen?

Take a good look around you now No - No! It's not a dream!

So open up your eyes and fly beyond the skies And open up your mind - you can see beyond your dreams And open up your heart

Feel fire inside your soul

Now open up your hands (Spoken) and Behold! A brand New World!

The dancers hold a tableau facing the Peace Child – who looks on, bemused. Lights dim….

Scene FOUR

The Story-teller comes downstage centre. She opens her Story-book and reads in a schoolmistressy way as the cast act out what she describes like characters in a 2-dimensional cartoon; S-teller (reading) Once upon a Time, a long time ago –When our Universe was young

Our world was a paradise made of love

According to a heavenly plan

Soon there came a light from the universe

As bright as bright could be –Making Man out of dust and earth

And leaving him to Destiny.

A pattern soon emerged of things to come, And problems Man would face:

Tribes of men – not quite the same –Would compete for food

And the best bit of land

Starting off the game called War

It began with a stone, then came a stick

Soon there was an axe and a spear

Then there came a club, an arrow and a gun! –Soon bullets were flying everywhere!

Conflict raged all over the world

Hatred and envy consumed our minds!

Tribe against tribe, friend against friend! Nobody seemed to care!

With each generation passing by Men found new ways to kill!

Battle ships and fighter planes

Killer drones and cluster bombs, Mercenaries and terrorists; Nukes that could kill all of us!

Cold wars and dirty wars, Underground and overground

In the air – out in space

WAR was set to kill the human race!

Some one had to say –

Stage Lights cut to black out. Single spot stays on the Girl downstage centre:

Youth 1

Stop!!

The Storyteller sits by the Peace Child, Stage Right

Scene FIVE

The Girl (Youth 1), in a hijab, is confronting another youth in military fatigues who is trying to get her to take the gun he is offering her:

Youth 5 Come on! This is the big push! What we have all been training for! We have to go for it!

Youth 1 You may have to go for it. I want no part of a massacre of civilians!

Youth 5 Really?! Even when they have stolen out land?! C’mon: why did you come to all those trainings then

Youth 1 We were in a relationship, remember?! I wanted to find out what made you tick?!

Youth 5 You mean you were some kind of spy?! I may have to shoot you, then…

Youth 1 Go ahead – shoot me! I’d prefer to be dead than take any part in your appalling plan.

Youth 5 It’s divine retribution!

Youth 1 It’s criminal folly is what it is. It will set the movement back by decades: You will all be arrested and shot – and the occupation will become more like a prison than it is already!

Youth 5 So – you’re really not going to come with us?

Youth 1 No –

Youth 5 I will have to shoot you. You know too much….

Youth 1 I don’t think so! I’m a dual national, remember: you’d be in even more trouble than you are already if you shoot some one with an American passport.

She has been pacing up and down as he speaks – and, in a swift movement, cart-wheels towards him and relieves him of his guns. She points them at him fiercely:

Youth 1 Go! – right now!

Youth 5 Please…

Youth 1 I realise It’s embarrassing for you to be dis-armed by a woman – but face it: you’re a terrible soldier, a terrible lover and a terrible man! I want you out of my house - out of my life for ever! NOW!

She glares at him: he backs away – then turns and runs. She shoulders the guns, checks the passport in her back pocket, looks around as if to say “Goodbye” to this stage in her life, and leaves. Fade to Black Out

Scene SIX

Lights come up on a makeshift courtroom. A magistrate in a wig sits at a table facing a young man who stands before him. Three other young supporters stand behind him cheering him on. One is his girl-friend

Magistrate So to what exactly is it that you object so conscientiously?

Youth 2 Killing people, sir!

Magistrate Even if the people you are killing have killed your countrymen – your family, cousins, babies?

Youth 2 More killing won’t solve the problem – it will only make it worse. That’s why people of conscience like me must take a stand and make it stop. (His support group cheers)

Magistrate Is this a result of some weird religious conviction?

Youth 2 No sir. It is pure logic.

Magistrate You are a coward. In earlier times, I would have you taken out and shot!

Youth 2 That would make you a murderer and me an innocent victim.

Magistrate If I could, I’d throw you out of the country for good: we don’t need cowards like you! As it is, all I can do is to sentence you to 30 days in jail.

Youth 2

Thank you sir. You will understand that I would be just as thrilled to throw you out: Martin Luther King said it is just as much a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws as it is to obey just ones. Our country needs people on the judiciary who understand that!

The boy’s supporters laugh, clap and cheer loudly. The magistrate bangs his gavel.

Magistrate Take him down. Court is adjourned.

Scene SEVEN

EXIT - Black Out

A T-shaped structure of tall bars is wheeled down-stage centre, representing 2 x prison cells side by side. In the one on the right, Youth 2 is standing holding the bars, reflecting. In the one on the left, the Girl is sitting at the back, apparently asleep, but actually listening intently. Music starts, softly…

Youth 2 Am I a coward? So many of my friends have died in this stupid war, I feel I should have died with them. But a big part of me feels that they died because they had killed others – and if we go on with this mad tit-for-tat, the violence will never stop! But does that make me a Coward? What am I? Who am I?

Song 3: I Who am I? [click on the Blue Button marked “Classical”]

Youth 2 (singing)

Chorus (offstage, joining)

Youth 2 (singing)

I – who am I, What is this world, Why am I here?

I – what am I? What is my cause, What must I be?

Is there a reason for living, And having this place of our own What power conceived me? Abandoned me to the unknown?

We, who are we? What is this place? Why are we here?

We, who are we to be so lost And all alone?

Is there a reason for living And having this place of our own What power conceived me? Abandoned me to the unknown?

I – who am I, What is this world,

Why am I here?

Youth 1 (walking forward and leaning on her bars) You’re not a coward? (Music changes – the intro to World) You’re very brave! Our world does not have time for wars and violence any more: we have too many other problems – poverty, the climate emergency, the destruction and pollution of our biosphere – all problems that we have to solve together. No country can solve those problems on their own. We have to learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we shall die together as fools.

Youth 2

Martin Luther King said that –

Youth 1 I know…. (she sings)

Song 4: WORLD

[click here for Score] [click here for Song - instrumental]

World – look at the way we are Look at the things we do Look at the words we say Life! – look at the way we live Look at the love we had Look at the things we’ve made

Gone, gone are all those lovely days Gone are all the peaceful ways

All that’s left is old and grey

And our world is fading Our world is dying – today!

Youth 2

Youth 1

Youth 1 & 2 (singing)

NO! -

(singing) Can’t you see the tide is changing? Don’t you know that truth is fading? People coming out from under Slowly rising to the thunder

YES! -

(singing) Listen to the shouting people Broken churches, broken steeple There’s no one for them to follow Every one’s a God tomorrow

Can’t you see the world is dying? Repentant people all are crying Law and order has been drowned Chaos rules and has been crowned!

World – look at the way we are Look at the things we do Look at the games we play Life! – look at the way we live Look at the things we build Look at the love we’ve killed

Gone, gone are all those lovely days Gone are all the peaceful ways

All that’s left is old and grey

And our world is fading

Our world is dying – today!

Youth 2 So you too are a conscientious objector – ?

Youth 1 Not just to war: to the whole way the world is heading. I don’t want to be a silent witness to the slow death of our planet! I want to live! I want everyone to have a full life! – not die in some stupid war our governments have dreamed up for us to fight for them!

Youth 2 What did your parents say when you told them you were a CO?

Youth 1 They were proud of me. Why? Weren’t your’s?

Youth 2 My dad was furious – my Mum? Surprised! But my girl-friend was thrilled ….

Youth 1 My boyfriend tried to shoot me!

Youth 2 Ex-boyfriend, perhaps?!

Youth 1 Very Ex! It’s weird, isn’t it: one day, you can be sitting in an office doing your work, or in a classroom teaching kids, or texting on your mobile phone. The next day, you’re out in a field, toting a gun, killing people! Getting ready to be killed yourself. What’s that about?

Youth 2 Madness!! War is so last century?

Youth 1 Isn’t it? Here we are – all connected by the internet – all watching the same programmes streamed by Amazon and Netflix -

Youth 2 - all beautifully translated into our own languages….

Youth 1 Exactly! – and yet some of us think it’s perfectly fine to pick up a gun and shoot some one to whom you might have sent an email the day before?

Youth 2 Like me?!

Youth 1 Oh my god! Are you my enemy!?

Youth 2 Yes. Sorry! But it’s crazy, isn’t it: if I picked up a gun and shot you in a bar, I would be arrested and jailed for the rest of my life! But if my government engaged me as a soldier, and I shot you on their orders, I’d be greeted as a hero – and paid for it.

Youth 1 Why?! Why is it that, alone in our world, governments reserve the right to go out and kill millions of people and no one has any power to stop them. Corporations many times the size of most governments don’t have that right

Youth 2 Not since the British East India Company.

Youth 1 And the drug cartels!

Youth 2 But nations – they’re the reason we have wars, aren’t they? Nations and Religions!

Youth 1 I have dual nationality – but I have no loyalty to either: my loyalty is to the planet –and to every living thing that lives on it with me. What about you? (music starts)

Youth 2 I agree – but we all need to belong: I belong to my family, my football team, my friends, my country and my faiths! I have two! My mother is Jewish, my father Christian – and both lead me to believe that there is a God who didn’t put us on this earth to destroy it.

Youth 1 I have that same faith. I was born a muslim and I believe that human beings are basically good. I know that, if we love each other, we can sort things out. That’s what I believe…

Song 5: I BELIEVE [click on the Blue Button marked “Gospel”]

Youth 2 (singing) If the sun lost it's shine – and the trees started to die! I guess I’d still be full of hope – and yes, I know the reason why!

Youth 1 (singing) If the wind grew too old, and the seas started to dry Yes I would still be full of love – don’t ask – don’t ask me why!

Youth 2 (singing) I still believe in God I still believe in us His people! And if you really want to know I still believe in this His land

Youth 1 (singing) So don’t turn your head away – don’t give up on who you are Just keep loving more each day – and the world will shine for you!

Youth 2 (singing) I guess it’s all in the mind – what you feel is what you see So within your heart just sing these words Come sing – come sing with me!

Youth 1 & 2 (singing) We believe in God We believe in us His people! And if you really want to know We still believe in this His land

Youth 1 & 2 & Chorus We believe in God We believe in us His people! And if you really want to know I believe Yes! We believe I believe Yes! We believe We believe in this His land!

Youth 1 I believe in you!

Youth 2 I believe in you!

Youth 1 Shall we be peacemakers?

Youth 2 I think we should: for Peacemakers are the Children of God

Youth 1 Who said that?

Youth 2 Jesus Christ!

Youth 1 Good enough for me!

They join hands around the bars, smiling.

Entr’Acte

Fade to Black Out

Spotlight comes up on the Storyteller and the Peace Child in his wheel-chair on the side of stage:

P-Child Are they supposed to be you and me?

S-teller Yes! – is any of it coming back to you?

P-Child She doesn’t look the least bit like you. And I never knew my mother was Jewish?!

S-teller It was one of the first things you told me. She was lovely!

P-Child How awful that I don’t remember….

S-teller Maybe this will jog your memory: as soon as we got out of jail, you took me to see her!

She gets up and walks off stage, taking off her cloak.

Scene EIGHT

Fade to Black Out

A follow-spot comes up on the Boy and Girl entering down the aisle. The youth, dressed as a family group of older people fill the stage with glasses in their hands – as though at a cocktail party. A backdrop of roofs and a distant desert landscape fills the screen at the back of stage.

Youth 1 (catching his arm, stopping him on the stair) I can’t do this!

Youth 2 ‘Course you can! They’re going to love you!

Youth 1 They’re going to hate me! We’ve killed so many of your people…

Youth 2 - and we’ve killed so many of your’s. Look: do you want to be a peace-maker or not?

Youth 1 Of course, Yes!

Youth 2 Then at some point, you have to meet the enemy: like right about now!

Youth 1 What about your girl-friend: won’t she want to come too?

Youth 2 She can’t: she’s a teacher. And I’ve discussed our whole plan with her. She’s 100% behind me on this. She’s a peace-maker! She will hate you if you bug out on me!

Youth 1 Come on, then – let’s get it over with…..

They go up the stairs on to the stage and mingle with the crowd. The Story-teller, wearing a scarlet jacket, hat and long cigarette holder, plays the role of the Boy’s mother. She spots them and comes forward, silencing the chatter:

Mother Ah look! Our Guests of honour have arrived. Darling! (she plants a kiss on her son’s cheek and warmly shakes the hand of the Girl) Welcome! You have something to tell us, I think? Some kind of a plan?

Youth 2 We do – yes!

Youth 1 As you know, we are both conscientious objectors. Sorry if that offends some of you!

Several of the guests guffaw and heckle them

Youth 2 We want the Law – not War – to settle any disputes between us.

Youth 1 And, as the United Nations was set up to “… save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” We want to help it do that.

Youth 2 It hasn’t done a very good job -

Youth 1 Yet!

Youth 2 So – we want to go to New York, to the United Nations – and appeal to all the UN Member States to follow their consciences as we have done and abolish war.

Guest Just like that?!

Youth 2 Yes.

Guest You’re mad! Life isn’t like that!

Guest You’re a coward! You’d let her people over-run our country….

Guest - killing our children, killing your mother?

Guest If I held a gun to your mother’s head right now –

Guest - or your girl-friend’s –

Guest - and said I was going to pull the trigger, what would you say? “Go ahead?!”

Youth 2 Look – it’s not like….

Girl-friend War is different. There will always be murders – and murderers must be punished as you would be if you murdered me or his mother. But not governments. War gives governments the right to murder millions. And that’s not right. (Music starts) I teach children – and I try to teach them to follow their consciences and do what’s right…

Song 6: Please Listen to Me

[click here for Vocal.] [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals]

Girl Friend

Please listen to me! Heed the words that I say We live in one world so our home is the same

Youth 1 The same sun is our fire, the same clouds give us rain

Youth 2

All 3

So whatever you desire our future’s the same

Say not that you’re righteous - nor that you are true!

Say not that I’m red – nor that you are blue

Say only we are Friends! – and we want to live in peace

In this here our world, Let all wars cease!

Youth 1 So open your eyes, take the truth as it stands

We have but one earth so we must share the land

The same moon is our lantern, the same sky is our roof

So whatever your reasons, come follow the truth

All 3

Say not that you’re Christian, nor Muslim nor Jew

Say not that you’re Buddhist, nor that you’re Hindu Say only we are Friends! – and we want to live in peace

In this here our world, Let all wars cease!

Girl-friend For where would we go if this world we destroy? We have but one home, this world, to enjoy!

The same earth fills our hunger, and we all breathe the air

So change your desires, this world we must share.

All three

Say not that you’re rich, nor that you are poor

Say not that you’re less, nor that you are more!

Say only we are friends – and we want to live in Peace

In this here our world, let all wars cease!

In this here our world, let all wars cease!

Stoney silence as the song ends. Only the Mother claps.

Mother John F Kennedy said something similar, I think?!

Girl-friend Indeed – his speech at American University…

Guest I still think you’re throwing our country under a bus by doing this.

Guest The UN is no friend of our’s.

Guest Remember the old Roman saying: “If you want Peace – prepare for War!”

Youth 1 NO! If you want Peace – Prepare for Peace!

Youth 2 That’s what we’re doing here! That’s what we have to do for our generation – (going over and putting his arm around his girl-friend) – and what we want to teach our children.

Guest (Moving away) I’ve had enough of this…

Guest I can’t stand to be in the same room as these people… (leaving)

Guest These Cowards! (leaving)

Guest These traitors! (leaving)

Girl-friend (shouting after them) You’re so wrong!! It takes huge courage to do what they’re doing!

Mother It does indeed. (watching the last of them go) Good riddance to all of them! (turning back to the two of them) Look! I spoke to Archie last night – and he’s going to set up everything.

Youth 1 Who’s Archie?

Youth 2

One of Mum’s old boy-friends….

Mother Let’s NOT go there: Archie will set up everything for you. He’s got a friend in BedfordStuyvesant whose kids have fled the nest – so he’ll put you up in his big old house. And he has friends who can fix everything at the UN, TV stations – everything. You’re booked on the morning flight tomorrow – so, you’re all set!

Youth 2 Thanks, Mum –

Mother Here are your tickets. (She hands them an envelope) Go do it!

Youth 1 (to the Girl-friend) You’re sure you’re OK with this?

Girl-friend Of course! I couldn’t do this with him! Your pictures are all over my classroom: my kids are praying for your success.

Youth 1 Thank you. (They hug)

Mother (hugging her too, then standing back, looking at them) You’re going to kill ‘em, you guys! I know you will!

Youth 2 Poor choice of words, Mum – but thanks anyway!

Youth 1 We’ll do our best.

Scene NINE

EXIT - Black Out

At the back of stage, the Story-teller exchanges her hat and jacket for Archie’s loud check blazer, trilby hat and moustache. The Manhattan skyline appears on the screen. She walks forward, a mobile phone glued to her ear, issuing orders in an Irish-American accent. A nervous assistant hovers behind her.

Archie You tell that son-uv-a-bitch my client will not get out of bed for a penny less than 2 mill. You got that. Fine! I’ll wait to hear from you….

Assistant Sir, your 10 o’clock is here.

Archie Ah! The Peace Children! (the Boy and the Girl walk on and he shakes their hands –rather too firmly) Great to meet you finally! And don’t you look just like your Mum?! Wish I’d been your Dad…. (to the Girl) So – you must be the girl friend?

Youth 1 No – I’m the enemy!

Archie You mean – you’re not in a relationship?

Youth 2 No –

Archie Ah – pity. (to the assistant) – You’ll have to adjust that Press Release. (She goes out)

Youth 2 What Press Release?

Archie You didn’t know?!! You guys are big news here: there’s a UN Committee called Youth, Peace and Security or some such – and they’ve put you up to speak to the Security Council on Tuesday. And we’ve got you booked on all the Morning TV shows, a lecture at Columbia and a spot at a Peace Rock Festival in Central Park on Saturday.

Youth 1 Busy week!

Archie Very busy – but this is just the start! I’ve got an outfit interested in a 1-hour documentary about you; a publisher interested in a book – with a nationwide book tour built in. All sorts of clubs and museums want to book you for PAs at receptions and the like…

Youth 1 PAs?

Youth 2 Personal Appearances.

A big UN Logo fills the screen, as Chairs and Tables are set out in a Horseshoe format. The Storyteller exchanges Archie’s hat, jacket and moustache for an emerald green bolero jacket and a black wig to become the UN’s first female Secretary-General(S-G). Seven cast members put on suit jackets and sit at the Horseshoe Table as the boy and the girl come and sit, facing each other. They are somewhat awe-struck by their surroundings. The S-G calls the meeting to order by banging his gavel, softly:

S-G

Good Morning everyone: we have a packed agenda this morning, but first – it gives me great pleasure to welcome delegates from the Youth, Peace and Security group of our Peace-Building operation whom, as you remember, this Security Council authorised under Resolution 2250 to promote 5 x pillars for youth in conflict resolution and peace-building: participation, protection, prevention, partnerships and reintegration. To these, as I understand, you want to add a 6th pillar: conscientious objection. Why?

Youth 1 I want to live. (She stands and walks to the centre of the horseshoe. The boy joins her)

Youth 2 Where-ever we are in the world, whatever our nationality or creed: we all want to live!

Song 7: I Want to Live

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals] [click here for Song - instrumental]

Youth 1

Youth 2

Youth 1 & 2 (joining hands)

I want to live, I want to live

The right to live my life I want to search far and wide

Have the right to wonder why I want to fly through the air

Like a bird in the sky, I want the chance to show the world What I am before I die.

I want to be, I want to see

A world that’s good and free I want a home, someone to love To share their life with me I want to have and to hold A child of my own I want to live, I want to love The right to grow old..

We want to live, we want to live

The right to live our lives

We want to search far and wide

Have the right to wonder why We want to fly through the air

Like birds in the sky, We want the chance to show the world What we are before we die. We want to live

Diplomat 1 This is all very touching – but we have more pressing matters on our agenda this morning

Youth 1 What could be more pressing than Peace?!

Youth 2 We have a 3-point plan that we want you, the UN’s member governments, to deliver to “We the Peoples….” before the UN’s Centenary in 2045.

S-G Members: I plead your indulgence. Hear the young people out….

The diplomats are restive – but they concede with bad grace.

Youth 1

Point 1: We want you to eliminate every nuclear weapon in the world.

Youth 2 They could destroy all life on earth. They serve no military purpose – and no nuclear war is winnable. We don’t want our children or grand-children to live in a world that has them.

Youth 1 Point 2: We want every UN member government to give up its right to declare war and use that as an excuse for killing people.

Youth 2 We want you to take any disputes you have to the International Court of Justice

Youth 1 And we want all of you to agree to be bound by the decisions of that Court, as the UK and 87 other UN member states have so agreed.

Youth 1 Point 2: no veto.

Diplomat (Guffaws) No Veto?!!

Youth 2 How can it be right that 5 members – two of which are essentially ruled by one man –to be able to veto the wishes of every other UN Member State?

Youth 1 Two men veto-ing the wishes of 8 Billion! It’s insane!

Diplomats (shake their heads at each other, and agree) This is ridiculous!

A few of the cast members are watching from the audience. One comes up on stage, saying – in French:

Youth 7 Pas ridicule du tout! J'aime bien mon pays mais je ne comprends pas pourquoi mon pays a le droit d'imposer ses exigences à tous les autres membres de l'ONU

Diplomat Parce que ca c’est ce que la charte de cette organisation nous donne!

Youth 1

What’s he saying?

S-G He’s saying that it’s ridiculous for France to be able to veto the wishes of every other UN member state. To which his government’s representative says that this is what the UN Charter gave his country.

Youth 8 (in Russian) Я согласен!! (I agree!)

Youth 9 Me too! – I’m an American

Youth 10 (in Mandarin) 我也是！你如何捍卫近一百年前根据当今地球上绝大多数公民的愿 望制定的宪章？

Youth 1

What’s he say?

Diplomat He says that your views should over-ride a UN Charter drawn up nearly 100 years ago!

Diplomat Outrageous!

Diplomat Well – I’m sorry kids. Them’s the rules in this place. If you don’t like ‘em, go found yourselves another United Nations some place else!

Youth 2 If this is how you operate, we might just have to!

Diplomat Good luck with that! Now can we get back to our Agenda?

Youth 1 Can you not afford us the courtesy of a response to our proposals?

Diplomat We afforded you the courtesy of listening to them.

Diplomat That’s the only courtesy you’ll get from us today. Now get out…

Youth 2 This is outrageous: You are supposed to be drafting a Declaration for Future Generations but you cannot give us a decent answer to the requests of this generation.

S-G Please – I think you’re time is up.

Youth 1 But you haven’t given us an answer!

Diplomat Call Security – get these kids out of here!

Diplomat Mr Secretary-General – we cannot have non-members invading our space like this.

Diplomat It’s a threat to our security….

Youth 2 NO! You are a threat to OUR security: Please! – agree to set up some kind of a Task Force to look into our recommendations and work out how they might be passed into Law.

A siren starts wailing – and a couple of blue-uniformed security agents come on

Diplomat Will you please escort these young intruders out of the building.

S-G (slamming her gavel) Session adjourned. (She goes over to the kids as they are leaving.) I’m so sorry. Your presentation was excellent. I will be in touch….

The kids leave; the chairs and tables are dismantled.

Scene ELEVEN

The UN logo fades on the screen at the back and the Story-teller sheds her cloak and dons her loud check jacket, trilby and moustache to come on down stage centre as Archie. The youth come on behind him:

Archie Wonderful, wonderful! Couldn’t be better.

Youth 1 Why?! They threw us out!

Archie I know!! The bastards threw you out! Now you really are the story! Have you listened to any of these stations? – you’re top of every newscast. They all get the same syndicated news. Late nite, morning, mid-morning – everyone wants you on their shows! Get ready to be very, very busy people the next few days!

Youth 2 But what do we have to do?

Youth 1 What should we say?

Archie Just be yourselves: tell the truth – then you don’t have to make up anything! You’ll be fine – but remember: what happened in the UN was only seen by a handful of people. What happens in those studios will be seen by MILLIONS!

Youth 2 No pressure, then?!

Arm chairs, a coffee tables and a desk for a Talk show TV sets are set up behind him as he talks. He hovers as the kids are interviewed by an elaborately dressed talk male show host. Then he disappears:

T-Host 1 So – why did they throw you out?

Youth 1 We asked for governments not to give up their right to murder people.

Youth 2 And they represent governments –

Youth 1 So I guess they thought we were being a bit rude!

T-Host 1 Rude to ask them NOT to murder you? But governments do murder people all the time, don’t they?

Youth 1 They do in our part of the world, yes!

T-Host 1 And you feel the UN should stop that?

Youth 2 The UN was set up in the name of “We the Peoples…” – not “We the Governments…” – so yes! I think when we the peoples make that kind of request, the UN should listen….

Youth 1 I don’t know what your viewers think, but I doubt that many of them brought kids into the world to see them killed by wars and violence…

T-Host 1 Amen to that!

Youth 2 People call us cowards for being conscientious objectors – but I would hope that any one with a conscience would object to a government claiming the right to murder, maim and mine a country – just because they can.

Youth 1 My conscience goes further: Scientists tell us that, if we go on as we are, we only have 5 to 10 years before the Climate Emergency makes life all but impossible for most people on the planet. My conscience requires me to do everything in my power to stop that.

Youth 2 Killing people is bad enough; killing a whole planet is unconscionable!!

Entr’Acte

Spotlight comes up instantly on the Storyteller and the Peace Child in his wheel-chair:

S-teller You’re not remembering any of this?

P-Child Nothing! You were very good!

S-teller So were you.

P-child Were we famous?

S-teller At that moment? Yes - after a fashion…

P-child But what did we actually DO?

S-teller We told the truth – from our hearts

P-child And that was enough?

S-teller No. Watch – and see what we did next…

Scene ELEVEN (contd.)

Black Out

The Talk show TV set is reversed with the Arm chairs set up on the other side of the coffee table. A different female chat show host asks the questions. Archie comes back and hovers at the end.

T-Host 2 What do you conscientious objectors actually achieve? I mean, if some one invades your country, you fight back, don’t you? If you don’t – you become slaves to the invader?!

Youth 2 The trick is to get everyone to conscientiously object: then you don’t have invaders!

T-Host 2 How do you get that to happen?

Youth 1

By having a UN that works: a system that forces governments to settle their disputes and arguments through courts of law not armies and the blood of its children…

Youth 2 We have so many problems that we have to solve together – climate change, the running down of resources, inequality, pollution – terrible, terrible problems that no one country can solve on its own. Corporations operate across countries and continents: we have to get governments to do the same. If we don’t, we probably won’t survive as a species….

Youth 1 C’mon! Don’t get all gloomy on us! We’re doing it, right?

Youth 2 We’re doing our best….

T-Host 2 So how did you guys meet?

Youth 1 We met in jail!

Youth 2 In adjacent cells. Feeling sorry for ourselves.

Youth 1 You didn’t sound that sorry for yourself to me?!

Youth 2 I cheered up a whole lot after I met you…

T-Host 2 I have to ask. The question that everyone’s asking: are you two in a relationship.

Youth 1 No! He’s got a girl friend…

Youth 2 And she had a boy-friend –

Youth 1 But he tried to shoot me. So I dumped him.

Youth 2 We’ve only known each other a few days –

Youth 1 But we’re good friends: we see eye-to-eye on most things

Youth 2 She’s a bit weird – but we all have to do a better job of getting on with weird strangers!

Youth 1 Like that Irish guy said: “Every stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet!”

T-Host 2 Who said that?

Youth 2 William Butler Yeats.

T-Host 2 Well no strangers here! Give them a big round, my friends! Thanks for watching!

Canned applause as the host shakes their hands, and Archie comes forward – thanking the host, and then joining his clients, the Boy and Girl.

Archie Brilliant job, kids! Now – I have good news and bad news.

Youth 2 Good news first, please:

Archie Your friend, the UN Secretary-General is going to introduce at the Concert tomorrow.

Youth 1 She’s not our friend.

Archie She is now – you’re doing her job for her, better than she can.

Youth 1 Well thanks! But what’s the bad news?

Archie Apparently, the organisers have booked some Russian band – and they’re worried there’s going to be some protests.

Scene TWELVE

The Story-teller, as the S-G in the black wig and Emerald Bolero jacket, watches from the wings as one of the cast, as the compere for the Peace Concert, introduces the first song:

Youth 6 WELCOME!! – EVERYONE!!! (canned “YES!”)

Are you ready to ROCK for PEACE?!! (canned “YES!”)

Well, shout your protest at what is still perhaps the greatest obstacle to peace! (ROCK Music kicks in!)

Song 8: It’s a Military Industrial Complex [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals]

Youth 4 It’s a military industrial complex, Isn’t it sad, the world is quite mad! A fashionable national contest, The biggest the best, The East and the West!

Youth 5 Indestructible immovable object The ego at large, a tragical farce! Uncontrollable horrible shambles –Such a sorrowful sight, everyone’s right!

Youths 4 & 5 + Chorus Oh! what a hopeless case it is, No one really cares.

Oh! what a crazy world this is –No one can win this race! –

(because) The bigger they build The faster they go The greater the bang Spells the end of man – !

It’s a military industrial complex, Isn’t it sad, the world is quite mad! A fashionable national contest, Uncontrollable horrible shambles –

Such a sorrowful sight, everyone’s right!

Riotous applause – which the Compere calms down, introducing the next guest:

Youth 6 Thank you!! THANK YOU!!! It’s now my great privilege to introduce to you the world’s top diplomat – our peace-maker-in-chief! The UN Secretary General!!

S-G (Coming forward to huge cheers) Thank you! Thank you for having me! This, to me, is what peace looks like – hundreds of people, all ages, all backgrounds, all faiths and cultures – having fun, eating, drinking and dancing together in a Festival! You should make us elders do this more often! I want you to meet two people who caused a bit of a stir at the United Nations the other day: I hope you will give them a better welcome than some of my members did across the street! (laughter)

The boy and the girl come on to cheers and shake the S-G’s hand. She leaves and watches from the wings.

Youth 1 What do we want?

All Peace!

Youth 2 When do we want it?

ALL NOW!

Youth 1 Of course! And that was my message to the UN. “I want to live…”

Youth 2 And we can’t “LIVE” through a nuclear war. So – NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT Please!! TODAY – not tomorrow or next week, or next year: NOW!!

The audience clap and cheer.

Youth 1 Yes! Please! I got an old UNICEF postcard with a kid on it who’s being asked by her daddy: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And the kid replies: “ALIVE if possible!” That’s all any of us want, isn’t it? To grow up, live a full life – have enough food, have fun, have friends!

Youth 2 Isn’t that what we all want (canned “YES!” – louder! “YESS!!”)

Youth 2 So sing it with me! (The rock up-tempo music kicks off)

Song 9: I Want to Live II – Up Tempo

[click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals] [click here for Song - instrumental]

I want to live, I want to live

The right to live my life I want to search far and wide

Have the right to wonder why I want to fly through the air

Like a bird in the sky, I want the chance to see the world What I am before I die.

Youth 2 (with the modulation) Spanish! Quiero vivir!

Youth 1 (2nd modulation) French! Moi - je veux vivre!

Youth 2 (3rd modulation) Russian! я хочу жить (Ya hachu zhit!)

Youth 1 (4th modulation) Mandarin Chinese! 我想生活 (Wo< xia<ng she=nghuo> )

Youth 2 (Final modulation) English! – for the last time!! I want to be, I want to see

A world that’s good and free I want a home, someone to love

To share their life with me I want to have and to hold

A child of my own I want to live, I want to love I want to live – I - WANT - TO - LIVE!!

Youth 6 Wasn’t that great! Thank you guys! And thank you for your work! You’re the best! Our next band was put together by a Russian – but it’s a P5 Band. Now the P5 are all the countries that have the right to VETO decisions at the UN: so he’s got British, French, American, Chinese and Russian members. What ever you feel about those governments, they make a great sound. Please! Give ‘em a warm New York welcome. (Applause, and some Boos)

Youth 8 Thank you, Спасибо (spasibo) Yes! My P5 band is multi-national – and yes: our politicians do some wrong things…. But they do their shit, I do mine. They do their’s with guns – we do our’s with guitars and drums. Yes! I want to live! All of us want to live – but me, I want more. More for all of us! I want us all to be happy. Really happy! In my language: “Mwi zhelayem shastya vam!“ In English: “I WISH YOU HAPPINESS!!” (Music)

Song 10: We wish you happiness [click here for Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals]

Mwi zhelayem shastya vam

Shastya vetom meeryeh balshom

Kak sontse pa ootram

Poost anaw za khaw deet vdawm

Mwi zhelayem shastya vam

Ee anaw dolzhnaw bweet takeem

Kawg da twee shastleev sam

Shastya paw delee zdroo geem!

In a world with trouble all around Looking for a rainbow that can’t be found Waiting for some good news now, News that never comes!

Try to make your life much easier

Don’t forget the good things that we share!

Life will always bring you down

But don’t be overcome!

We want you to be happy now

Happy in this big world of ours

With every morning sun

C’mon and now just sing with us!

We want you to be happy now

Happy for the rest of your life!

C’mon and share all that you love

Give yourself the Happiness you need!

In the world there’s always pain and war Looking for a place to call our home!

To find the tenderness I need

That’s where I’ll belong

Let us find a way – I know we can

To take us to a place where everyone

Can find joy and happiness

By singing just this song!

We want you to be happy now

Happy in this big world of ours

With every morning sun

C’mon and now just sing with us!

Mwi zhelayem shastya vam

Ee anaw dolzhnaw bweet takeem

Kawg da twee shastleev sam

Shastya paw delee zdroo geem! (Everyone joins in the final chorus)

The audience clap and cheer as the lights go down in the auditorium; the instruments and drum kit is cleared from the stage, and the Boy, Girl and band members stand in the middle of the stage congratulating each other

Youth 6 Guys! You were so great! Brilliant. A landmark event. THANK YOU!!

S-G A landmark event indeed.

Youth 6 Thank you so much for coming, your excellency!

S-G Please! It was my pleasure – and these are the “Excellencies” you should congratulate!

Youth 1 So – what do we do now?

Youth 2 Now that little sugar rush is over…?

S-G That’s what I want to discuss with you. How many people saw this show this afternoon?

Youth 6 Two – three million: probably a few more when the clips go up on Youtube!

S-G So – now, like me, you have joined the ranks of powerless global celebrities.

Youth 9 C’mon! You’re the world’s top diplomat!! Hardly a powerless position?!

S-G I’m just an elderly Secretary – with 193 bosses. You, on the other hand, have all your lives in front of you. And no bosses at all except yourselves. So – will you help me?

All (together and severally) Of course!

S-G (humbly grateful) Thank you. Thank you all so much! I will be in touch… (she Exits)

Youth 7 I love her! Don’t you love her?!

All Yes – of course; she’s lovely!

Youth 1 Do you think we can work together to help the UN?

Youth 8 Probably not. Youth have massive egos too.

Youth 10 But we can try.

Youth 8 We must try!

Youth 7 We can’t do a worse job than the guys that are there at the moment!

Youth 3 I guess it gets a whole lot harder once you get into the belly of the beast.

Youth 2 It can’t be that hard to say “No!” to war?

Youth 5 No to destroying all life on the planet

Youth 6 I guess not! See you soon, guys – and thanks! They hug – and exit, leaving the Boy and Girl alone, centre stage.

Scene THIRTEEN

Some stage hands bring on a bench. The Boy and the Girl sit happily. He takes her hand:

Youth 2 What a week?!

Youth 1 Have you told your mum?

Youth 2 She messages me every five minutes – and, if not her, its my girl friend asking for more photos on Instagram!

Youth 1 Sweet! But – “Powerless global celebrities…” Is that what we’ve become?

Youth 2 We have to be more than that.

Youth 1 SHE has to be more than that.

Youth 2 I wonder what she has in mind…

Youth 1 With wanting to meet us?

Youth 2 I don’t know. She’s a clever woman – I bet she’s up to something…

Youth 1 What do you have in mind?

Youth 2 You – most of the time…

Youth 1 What - ?

Youth 2 Sorry – I didn’t mean… that kind of leaked out. But I can’t help it. You are a wonderful, wonderful person: powerful, self-assured, funny, courageous…. Beautiful! I’m so lucky to be doing all this with you….

Youth 1 I’m so lucky to be doing all this with you. So what’s the problem? You want to fall into bed with me?

Youth 2 No! – yes! Oh – I don’t know….

Youth 1 What about your girl friend?

Youth 2 She’s not here. You are! Here beside me through – all this!! I feel like I’m at the top of a very tall tree – and the only thing I have to hang on to is you – and my love for you…

Youth 1 And I’ll always be there for you too – hanging on to you for dear life ‘cos if you weren’t there, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this…. Good friends, eh? And think of your girl-friend, putting up photographs in her classroom of you and me at the UN, on stage today – on the TV shows. That’s important too. I love her every bit as much as you do.

Youth 2 I know – that’s what makes you so great. (music starts)

Youth 1 You’re pretty great yourself… (she stands, and comes forward, singing)

Youth 1

Youth 2

Youth 1

Youth 2

Youth 1 & 2

Youth 1

Youth 1

Youth 2

Youth 1 & 2

Song 11: Reach Out

Reach out for a star!

Come out from where you are Show me what you can do Believe in me, I believe in you

Reach out for your dream It’s not as hard as it may seem Together we can make it through Together – me and you!

Wake up - open your eyes, This is our world, our paradise.

Reach out, don’t be afraid Come on now, we” find a way There’s a whole new world for us to see There’s a universe in you and me.

Reach out, put your hand in mine! Oh see! – see how we shine! Together – we’ll make it through, Together me and you!

Don’t be shy, just be yourself! You are your greatest wealth!

Reach out for a star!

Come out from where you are

Show me what you can do Believe in me, I believe in you!

Show me what you can do Believe in me, I believe in you!

They fold themselves in each other’s arms in a hug as the song ends. BLACK OUT

I N t E R M I S S I O N

A c t t W O

Scene FOURTEEN

A dingy UN storeroom out in Brooklyn. Trestle Tables are set out with 15 chairs – a few old cardboard boxes with UN logos stencilled on the side. A grubby UN logo comes up on the screen at the back. The Boy and the Girl come in – looking around, perplexed:

Youth 1 What is this place?

Youth 2 A storage depot – like she told us!

Youth 1 Where’s everyone else?

Youth 2 Coming. We’re early! What’s the matter? You seem a little peaky this morning…

Youth 1 I’m sorry: I’m not used to this level of excitement.

Youth 2 It might be about to get a whole lot more stressful…

Youth 1 Don’t worry! I’m fine! (She wanders apart – he looks after her, longingly….)

A door opens at the back. In walks the S-G followed by the Peace Child in the role of a UN Ambassador + the 10 other youth cast members. The S-G takes her place at the chair at the centre – the youth, joined by the Boy and Girl, mill about behind her. She calls the meeting to order.

S-G

Welcome to the Inaugural Meeting of the UN Youth Security Council. Nobody will call it that: officially, you are the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Board to the Declaration for Future Generations agreed at the Summit of the Future last year. But I want you to be much more than that: as you know, I was greatly impressed by the P5 Rock Band that performed at our Peace Festival last weekend. I was also deeply moved by the presentation of our two conscientious objector friends to the Security Council last month, and the reason I called you all here today was a remark made by one of them on a TV interview. I quote: “My conscience goes further: I rebel against governments who rape, plunder and destroy the environment and cause a climate emergency that will make it impossible for our kids to have any kind of a life in the future.” My conscience is right there with your’s – in an agony of rebellion!

In 20 years time, the UN will be 100 years old and in your presentation, you it was talked about making it a “Centenary Goal” to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Well –we’ve been talking a lot about Centenary Goals – for the UN and for our World for, if things go on as they are, we’ll be lucky to survive to see its Bicentenary. So, together, I want you to help me create a “To Do List” to be done by 2045. I call them: “The UN Centenary Goals for Future Generations” – and I would go so far as to say that the future survival of life on this planet depends on our being able to achieve them.

But first – let’s introduce ourselves – and take our places at this mocked-up Security Council table: We have our 2 x COs; we then have our P5 representatives: China, France, Russia, UK and USA; we have representatives of Africa, India, Latin America and the Arab States; and finally, we have a representative of the UN’s Council for Indigenous People who also represents the Small Islands Developing States group.

The UN Ambassador places country cards in front of each chairs with the names of the places the SG reads out. The youth identified move to stand behind the chairs indicated. It is all very formal.

S-G We also have the Member State Ambassador who generously convened this meeting. His country has done almost more research on the state of Life on our planet than any other – anyway, on your behalf, I thank him. He will introduce himself.

UN Amb. Thank you, Madam Secretary-General and may I say how happy I am to be here with you today. My only official role is to take notes from your meetings, and to circulate them for your approval.

UN Amb. But – unofficially – the Secretary-General has asked me to introduce you to the State of our Planet – this is the planet that you and Future Generations will inherit from us and on which you will have to figure out how to live. And – gathering all the scientific research we can find, the direction of travel is not promising. Full Disclosure: I have 7 grand-children – and I am worried for them. If you turn your chairs around to face the screen, you will see why.

A short video, set to a reprise of the first 2 x Verses of the song, WORLD, is shown on the screen. It takes the viewers into an Earth Situation Room – which shows key indicators on the State of Life on the Planet: HUMAN POPULATION and ECONOMY rocketing upwards; PEACE and INEQUALITY indicators getting worse – and the BIOSPHERE / NATURAL RESOURCES showing dangerous depletion. Each Indicator is illustrated with images of the reality being described. The video ends with the Doomsday Clock clicking every closer to Midnight – Earth Overshoot Day getting earlier every year – and Six of the Nine Planetary Boundaries now breached.

Song 12: WORLD

[click here for Score] [click here for Song - instrumental] World – look at the way we are Look at the things we do Look at the words we say Life! – look at the way we live Look at the love we had Look at the things we’ve made Gone, gone are all those lovely days Gone are all the peaceful ways All that’s left is old and grey And our world is fading Our world is dying – today!

There is a collective intake of breath as it ends. The youth turn their chairs around to face the Ambassdor

UN Amb. My first question to you is: how much of this did you know already?

Youth 2 Not very much. (the other youth nod in agreement…)

Youth 5 I mean – we knew the planet is in a bad way, but not that bad.

Youth 7 Is our world really dying?

Youth 1 What are “Planetary Boundaries”?

S-G You’ve never heard of them? They’re the boundaries which, if we over-reach them, life on earth becomes impossible.

Youth 4 And we’ve breached SIX of them already?!

UN Amb. What this illustrates is perhaps my greatest concern: you are some of the besteducated young people on the planet, and yet – in all your schooling – you were never taught the information you need to secure the Future of Life on Earth. That is unconscionable!

S-G So – Top of our Centenary TO DO List: Educate our youth about the State of the Planet!

Youth 9 What else is on your To Do list?

S-G Some simple things that we have promising to do for most of the last 100 years:

UN Amb Education and Health for all;

S-G Food and Shelter for all

UN Amb. Universal access to the Internet as a Human Right…. All the things that are in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Pact for the Future that you know about.

S-G But we have to go further – and that’s where you come in.

UN Amb. As you said so rightly in your presentation: we have to get rid of the Veto.

S-G The entire UN system breaks down because of it.

Youth 6 And you want to move from Breakdown to Breakthrough!

S-G That’s what my predecessor said – but sadly, he couldn’t make it happen.

Youth 9 What makes you think that we can?

UN Amb. Well - the Declaration for Future Generations fails to call for nuclear disarmament.

Youth 1 We did.

S-G You did. That’s why we think you might be able to break through!

UN Amb. Nuclear weapons must be eliminated from the face of the Earth by 2045: Future Generations will never be safe as long as they exist.

S-G And Climate Change: carbon emissions are increasing. Governments are still subsidising fossil fuel use – and the oil companies are spending billions prospecting for new sources of oil and gas. That has to stop!

UN Amb. We must criminalise the production, sale and use of all fossil fuel products by 2045.

S-G Turn back the Doomsday Clock – end Earth Overshoot – stabilise population – narrow inequalities – reduce consumption….

UN Amb - and create steady-state no-growth, sustainable green economies!

S-G We’re losing you aren’t we? You have no idea what any of this means?!

Youth 12 It’s what my ancestors have been telling us for centuries: we are a cancer upon the earth

Youth 9 The detail is certainly new to us! (they all nod)

Youth 4 It’s pretty darn depressing. (they all nod)

Youth 6 So - what do you expect us to do about it?

S-G That’s for you to decide. We’re going to leave you now to reflect on what we’ve told you.

UN Amb. I’m sorry the conditions are not more salubrious – but there is a kitchen out back with hot and cold running coffee, tea and biscuits, sandwiches and so on.

S-G And a bank of computers linked to all the information we’ve shared with you.

UN Amb. Let us know where you get to by the end of the day.

Youth (severally) Sure – yeah! Whatever; thanks! We’ll try etc. S-G & UN Ambassador EXIT

The youth are silent for a long time – none wanting to make the first move. The Boy and the Girl were placed either side of the Secretary-General – so, eventually, the Girl moves to the S-G’s seat and speaks:

Youth 1 Let’s get started! I have just one thought: if the UN S-G really is the most powerful diplomat on the planet and she can’t do anything about all this, how does she expect a bunch of kids in a run-down warehouse in Brooklyn to succeed where she failed?!

Youth 7 She must be pretty desperate!

Youth 8 And desperation is not a good place to be if you’re a diplomat!

Youth 11 I feel sorry for her. (others nod in agreement)

Youth 10 Sorry is one thing; support is quite another. I’m afraid I cannot be any part of this Advisory Group – or Youth Security Council – whatever it is?!

Youth 8 Neither can I.

Youth 2 Why not?

Youth 8 It’s not officially sanctioned!

Youth 10 If my government found out that I was meeting behind closed doors to plot the abolition of the veto – and the elimination of nuclear weapons – without official sanction, I would be arrested as a traitor.

Youth 8 - and probably shot. Especially if I was hanging out with Conscientious Objectors!

Youth 1 You’re just going to leave?

Youth 10 We don’t have a choice.

Youth 2 You do: nuclear disarmament and abolition of the Veto are the right thing to do.

Youth 1 Walking out on this opportunity is the wrong thing to do!

Youth 9 Well – if they’re going, I will too.

Youth 1 Until your governments give you the official sanction!?

Youth 8,9,10 Yes! (the Boy and the Girl look crest-fallen; music starts, gentle piano…) I’m Sorry

Youth 2 You don’t want to live?

Youth 1 - to be Happy?!

Youth 8 It’s impossible for us.

Youth 10 Peace is fine in rock ‘n roll but not in the real world!

Youth 8 I’m sorry….

The Russian and Chinese youth lead on the song; the American joins them, along with the Arab.

Song 13: I’m Sorry [click here for Score] [click here for Song - with vocals] [click here for Song - Instrumental]

I'm sorry – I wish I could But we can't, it's not right We're not allowed to change our ways To undo what’s been agreed!

Forgive us, you may be right It all may happen some future time But we are helpless on our own To undo what has been signed -

It's an impossible dream One we'd love to share!

An impossible dream But one beyond our sphere!

We’re sorry, what can we do? If only we were free - free like you It seems so simple, it could be done To move a mountain, to move a sun!

Powerless though we are To change a world that's upside down You know we’d love to be at your side, And believe - believe like you -

The Impossible Dream!

One we long to share!

An Impossible Dream(spoken) If only we could dare..... They EXIT

They all leave together as the song ends – waving sadly at their friends. The African is uncertain –he half-heartedly joins the song, and thinks about leaving with the others. Then he comes back.

Youth 1 (looking at him) Thank you!

Youth 11 I don’t want to be part of a generation that stands idly by watching the slow death of our planet!

Youth 1 You think they’re resigned to the death of life on our planet?

Youth 3 I don’t think they want to be, but that’s what their governments force them to be!

Youth 12 They’re certainly not acting on behalf of Future Generations!

Youth 4 If those indicators are right, all Life on Earth will be gone!

Youth 6 In our lifetimes!

Youth 4 What do our governments think they are doing – ignoring the UN’s warnings?

Youth 12 They have bigger fish to fry!

Youth 3 Imperial ambitions!

Youth 6 Full Spectrum Dominance!

Youth 1 But their leaders have children – grand-children! They must care if they live or die?!

Youth 11 Don’t bet on it!

Youth 3 But what – realistically – can we do?

Youth 7 We can create a heck of a stink is what we can do!

Youth 4 Spread manure down the Champs Elysées?!

Youth 7 Exactly. Down Piccadilly too!

Youth 3 We have to challenge our governments!

Youth 2 We did!

Youth 1 They didn’t want to listen to us…

Youth 2 They threw us out, remember!

Youth 6 So what does the Secretary-General and her Ambassador friend think we might be able to do to help now?

Silence – they look at each other

Youth 1 Love each other?

Youth 11 Trust each other!

Youth 12 Respect each other’s cultures, religions, faiths and values!

Youth 2 Peace!

Youth 1 We have shared values, don’t we?

Youth 12 “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness….”

Youth 7 “Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité!”

Youth 4 Selflessness and Integrity!

Youth 6 What does that mean?

Youth 1 Caring for others before yourself, and always telling the truth. The Nolan Principles, right?

Youth 4 How do you know about the Nolan Principles?

Youth 1 I read about this stuff! You Brits have come up with some good ideas in your time!

Youth 4 We do! It’s just a shame we don’t have politicians who live by them!

Youth 3 They’re all nice ideas, but they all melt like mountain dew when they come face-toface with raw power!

Youth 1 So – What?! – Do we just give up and go home?

Youth 7 What else can we do?

Youth 11 Try to get some kind of authorisation from the Leavers’ Governments so that they can come back?

Youth 6 Let’s appoint you two to go tell the Secretary General what happened and see what she suggests?

Youth 2 Sounds like a plan.

Youth 12 We’ll never give up.

Youth 4 Like my dad said: “The People! – UNITED – WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!”

Youth 6 But the People were never given a chance to Unite Nations!

Youth 11 We left that to governments!

Youth 12 And – to date, yes! They failed us. The future is in our hands now!

Youth 3 Yes! Remember what Gandhi said: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always.”

Youth 1 Thank you!

They leave; the door opens; light spills out. The Door Closes. The Boy and the Girl, alone, watch them go. She puts her hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

Youth 1 I feel such a failure.

Youth 2 Don’t – we tried. Bit of a car crash of a meeting, though, wasn’t it!?

Youth 1 It’s over, isn’t it? “Peace?!” - nice idea, but it doesn’t survive any encounter with reality…

Youth 2 I refuse to believe that!

Youth 1 It’s TRUE!! Look at what just happened! This whole initiative blew up before our eyes! Get real!!

Youth 2 We still have each other – that’s real!

Youth 1 It’s right about all we have!

Youth 2 For me – that’s enough!

She turns to him, surprised. She pulls him to her, falling into his arms, clinging to him for dear life, burying her sobs on his shoulder. Then she pulls back – looking at him.

Youth 1 It’s more than enough. Take me. Love me. Hold me. We are Peace! He laughs. They kiss. Slow Fade to Black Out

Entr’Acte

Spotlight comes up on the Storyteller and the Peace Child in his wheel-chair, watching them:

P-Child Am I to assume that that is when our relationship ceased to be purely platonic?!

S-teller That is a correct assumption…

P-child Was it a happy relationship?

S-teller Very – you were a great lover!

P-Child I’m glad to hear it! But, remind me: was it a quickie One-night-stand or something longer.

S-teller Oh it went on and on: you were insatiable! But it was very secret, until it wasn’t;

P-child Interesting! But – forgive me – the story seems to have reached the kind of impasse that a spot of sex on the side between the two principals isn’t going to solve anything?

S-teller You’d be surprised.

P-child So – what happened?

S-teller Events, dear boy, Events! It helps that we were born in interesting times…

P-Child Please! Stop with the old clichés! You’ll quote Lenin at me in a minute: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

S-teller That was one of those weeks. But that’s so good: the synapses of your brain dredging up your favourite old clichés ….

P-Child I always was a bit of a Leninist, wasn’t I?

S-teller More Lennon-ist!

P-Child Ah yes! The Beatles! I remember: “All you need is Love!”

They smile.

Scene FIFTEEN

Fade to Black Out

The view of the East River from the Secretary-General’s 38th Floor office fills the screen. A Desk is brought on – and the Secretary-General bustles in, followed by the Boy and the Girl

S-G This is ridiculous! Of course, they have authorisation! It was on their visa papers, signed off by their Missions.

Youth 1 They didn’t seem to think so…

S-G I shouldn’t have told them I think of you as a shadow Security Council.

Youth 2 But – if member states throw us out of the real one, a Shadow one is the only kind we can be a part of.

S-G Exactly. But we must get them to come back. So – from now on, you are the Youth Advisory Board to the A-S-G for Future Generations. Don’t MENTION Security Council.

Youth 1 Got it.

S-G But I have an idea for how to make you stronger: I want you to meet the leaders of our Global Compact!

Youth 2 Global Compact?

S-G The UN’s Business Leaders Advisory Group.

Youth 1 Business?! Why would we want to work with them?!

Youth 2 They pull the strings of most of your member governments!

S-G That’s why they are powerful! Business funds the governments that fund the UN!

Youth 1 But they also fund the Military Industrial Complex.

Youth 2 They’re only interested in profits at the end of the next quarter!

Youth 1 Not future generations!?

S-G Look – I don’t want you to get off on the wrong foot here: I know it’s fashionable to demonise business for their reckless pursuit of profit and consumption. But the best

of them are really interested in sustainability – meeting the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Youth 2 Well a whole heck of a lot of them have massively compromised the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Youth 1

Youth 2

Exhibit ONE: the fossil fuel industry!

Exhibit TWO: the Arms Industry!

S-G That’s only a tiny minority of them. I’ve invited them to meet you here today – so please: keep an open mind.

Youth 1 Well – “Every stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet?!”

Youth 2 Show ‘em in:

A male and a female business leader come on stage and the S-G introduces them:

S-G Jack – Gail: meet the leaders of our Future Generations Youth Advisory Group

Jack Very pleased to meet you!

Gail You’re quite the celebrities! Congratulations on your work!

Youth 1 So what is the Global Compact exactly?

Gail Well – as you said in one of your interviews, business and industry is far more united across borders than governments.

Jack Nationality is never an issue for us.

Gail When we walk into a meeting, we expect to see many nationalities at the table.

Jack So we feel that business can do a whole lot more to unite peoples and nations than they are doing at the moment.

Gail Because – at base, we don’t have a global climate problem or a global resource problem,

Jack We have a Global Governance problem.

Gail We simply are not setting the right global regulations to deliver the solutions;

Jack And we don’t have the global institutions to enforce those regulations even if we had them.

Youth 2 That’s exactly what we said!

S-G That’s why I wanted you guys to meet.

Jack I believe we can do a whole lot more to promote sustainability and save life on the planet!

Youth 2 How?

Gail Technology: look at that Centenary TO DO list the S-G gave you: technology can help her achieve most of those goals at a fraction of the price in a fraction of the time.

Youth 1 Why don’t you then?

Jack Political will. Governments!

Gail But also, people aren’t ready to embrace the technology.

S-G They don’t trust it – because they don’t trust the governments that try to regulate it!

Gail If I was to tell you that the UN would be better run by Amazon or Netflix, and that AI could negotiate Peace in the Middle East tomorrow, you’d laugh at me.

Jack But it would be true. Technology can also feed the world; clean up the oceans; restore the rain forests and – yes! – halt and reverse climate change!

Gail As soon as we bridge the digital divide and get every member of the human family online, we can hold global referenda all day long.

Youth 2 With 8 billion people?

Jack 8 – 10 – 20 Billion people. No limits.

Youth 1 So – we could actually have governance of the people, by the people, for the people!

Gail We have that technology!

Jack Easy-peasy!

Youth 2 So how can we help you do it?

Jack I’ve no idea?!

Gail But we figured, if you were interested, we could talk about it?!

Youth 1 Of course, we’re interested. But it would worry us that you’re more interested in profit than doing good for the planet?

Gail Fair point: we wouldn’t be here if our businesses lost money. But we wouldn’t be here either if we destroyed the planetary resources that allow us to make our products.

Jack And we wouldn’t be here if we destroyed all our workers and customers in a nuclear war.

Gail What we need is a generation of people that shares our common sense approach.

Jack By which we mean: a passion for sustainable consumption and peace.

Gail War is terrible for business.

Jack Everything shuts down;

Gail Factories are bombed – power stations are blown up!

Jack Whole countries just grind to a halt!

The Phone rings on the S-G’s desk. She picks it up and listens:

S-G That’s terrible! Really! – Of course. I’ll come right away. (She puts down the phone and turns to them – ashen-faced): It appears a NATO country has been invaded. NATO has called for a general mobilisation.

Gail Oh no!

Youth 1 We haven’t got time for this.

S-G Too right, we haven’t!

Scene SIXTEEN

Black Out

Music Starts – shrill and piercing. Lights come up in a dark, swirling turmoil of colour; industrial processes appear on the screen at the back. A voice – as though from the grave – speaks over:

Voice-Over “… starting off that game called WAR!”

The Cast enter in black body stockings – with fluorescent painted skeletons and skulls – dancing hysterically to illustrate the lyrics. Two soloists dressed as army officers, one male, one female, enter down stage Left and Right, and sing:

Song 14: Inventions [click here for Score]

Make a wheel, then spinning it round It may carry the world

Make a fire – yes building it high till It burns to the ground

Make a blade and call it a spade

To dig through the earth

Creatures of Invention – yes we are Man!

Heading for destruction with our own hands

Nothing can stop us

We’ll make our own star dust

Nothing can stop us…

The Boy and the Girl enter, in white clothes – trying to stop the dance; instead they are caught up in it – thrown back and forth by the dancers like they are part of the great game of war. The S-G also tries to stop them but is also caught up in the frenzy, unable to stop the music or the dance.

So spin that wheel, faster and faster

It will carry us far

Stoke up that fire, yes higher and higher

Till it burns to the sky

Make a bow, put in an arrow

Let it fly through the world

Voice-Over “… each generation passing by Found new ways to KILL!”

We are Creatures of Invention – yes we are Man!

Heading for destruction with our own hands

The wheels are all turning

The fires are all burning

We’re living for warring

Warring, warring, warring…

As the song ends, the Cast exit quickly to get changed out of their body stockings back into their normal clothes. The Boy and the Girl are left on stage as the two soloists / Army Officers pull Callup papers from their pockets and start brandishing them

Officer 1 Join up, Join up!

Officer 2 Your country needs you!!

Officer 1 Do your bit for your country, sonny!

Officer 2 You too! We have women in the military now, darling!!

Officer 1 No Exceptions – Join up! Join up!

Officer 1 & 2 Today!!

One by one – the cast come back on in their normal clothes to be harassed by the Recruiting Officers trying to get them to sign up. The Boy and the girl try to stop them but they all have

hunted, resigned looks on their faces. They know they don’t have a choice but to die. The Boy and the Girl plead with them

Youth 1 How can you?!

Youth 2 This is Madness!

Officer 1 C’mon, dearie! Everyone’s doing it!

Officer 2 You don’t want to be left behind?

Officer 1 It’s going to be so much FUN!

Officer 2 Join up! Join Up!

Youth 1 No! – you absolutely cannot do this?!

Youth 2 This is a denial of every value you believe in.

Officer 1 Oh my God! A couple of Conschies!

Officer 2 Give them each a feather and let’s move on!

Officer 1 We don’t need any COWARDS in the ranks

Officer 2 We’ve got enough to get started….!

Music starts. The introduction to WAR. The Recruiting Officers form the cast up into a troop, getting them to stand to “ATTEN- SHUN!” They hand out military jackets and guns and get them marching on the spot. The Boy and the girl look on in horror as they start to sing. Scenes of war in the trenches – and the sound of cannon fire and bombs – fill the screen at the back.

Song 15: WAR!

We’ll fight our way to distant hills, A bloody battle have We’ll raise our guns and kill them all]

We’ll raise our countries flag!

The troop separates – five to stage right; five to stage left. They point their guns at each other. The boy and the girl run down between them, begging them: “NO! – NO!! Don’t do it!” They sing on, relentlessly.

We’ll kill our brothers, kill our friends, Kill each other till the end!

We’ll kill our women, Children too, Kill them all until we’re through Kill them all until we’re through.

God save our land, long live our flag, On to the war we go – praise to our dead But who says we’re right, who says we’re wrong Honour and pride – to this we belong!

The Boy and the Girl move round, one to each side, pleading with them to stop. The troop are oblivious of them. The troops kneel, take aim – and unleash a volley of gun-fire; each troop goes down, writhing in agony. The Boy and the Girl watch in horror as the soldiers rise up from the ground, singing:

Oh come and save us! Oh come and save us!

Oh come and save us from what we do!

Our world is through!

But who can save us! But who can save us? But who can save us from what we do?

Officer 1 (sings) God – where are you?

Youth 2 Happy now?!

Officer 1 Piss off!

Officer 2 For God’s sake leave us alone – and let us fight in Peace! They all lie down, dying dramatically. The Boy and the Girl take a final look at them and hurry off stage. BLACK OUT

Scene SEVENTEEN

Back in the Secretary-General’s office. The S-G sits at her desk, looking crest-fallen. Jack and Gail pace about, harrumphing at the insanity of it all:

S-G Well that didn’t solve anything?!

Gail Tens of thousands dead

Jack Billions of dollars-worth of infrastructure rubble;

Gail Millions of children and families traumatised and starving!

S-G - and now they expect us to go in and pick up all the pieces. With no Money!!

Gail I wish we could do more to help!

Jack What about that Youth Advisory Group?

Gail They seemed gutsy young people…

S-G We can’t put this whole mess on their young shoulders. It’s not fair!

Youth 2 (coming in) Fair or not – here we are!

Youth 1 We’ve got a Centenary TO DO list to get done!

S-G Ah! The Centenary TO DO list: I’d forgotten all about that.

Youth 2 We hadn’t.

Youth 1 And we’ve got the whole team back together – and we want to talk to you.

Youth 2 There’s nothing like a futile war to generate good new ideas;

Youth 1 And we’ve got a ton of them.

Youth 2 Many of them inspired by Jack and Gail here –

Youth 1 - who, we all agree, are an essential part of the team!

S-G When do you want to meet?

Youth 1 Right now if you can.

Youth 2 Look – we’re all online!

The screen fills with the faces of the Youth Security Council.

Youth 2 Hi Guys! We’re back with Madam Secretary General! (They all wave!)

S-G Wait! – I must get our friend the Ambassador on this call: he’ll want to be here!

She busies herself with the phone on her desk. The Boy gives her the Zoom link on his phone:

Youth 2 Here’s the link….

Youth 1 Meanwhile guys: meet Jack and Gail from the Global Compact –

Youth 2 - who we’ve been telling you so much about.

Youth 8 (from the screen) Great to meet you!

Youth 6 (from the screen) Youth and Business: the winning combination!!

Gail I’d like to think so!

Jack It’s great to finally meet you guys;

Gail What have you got in mind?

Youth 10 We use Technology to Unite Peoples…

Youth 12 But we talk about “People” – without the “S.” My Ancestors always told us, we are ONE PEOPLE. Different tribes, different colours, different languages. But ONE PEOPLE!

Youth 1 One human family.

Youth 9 And we love each other;

Youth 7 With a Grande Passion!

Youth 4 Forget Nation states! They’re so last century!

Youth 1 (to Jack and Gail) As you told us, with technology, we can create government by the People, of the People, for the People

Youth 11 United People!

Jack And, er – in light of what just happened, how were you planning to do this?!

Youth 5 We have no clue!

Youth 6 That’s what we want to ask you?!

Gail Ah – right. Got it!

S-G Here’s the Ambassador…

UN Amb. I got the last bit of that – about nations being so last century! I can see why you would feel that. But they may take a bit of convincing to put themselves out of business.

Youth 3 We don’t want to put them out of business!

Youth 4 They can perform a very useful function – organising the schools and health service

Youth 5 Building roads and infrastructure!

Youth 7 Cleaning the streets and emptying the trash….

Youth 8 But they mustn’t have the power to make wars that kill thousands of young people.

Youth 9 Or allow people to do things that will destroy the biosphere for future generations.

S-G Seems fair.

Youth 2 It’s the only way we can think to achieve your Centenary Goals.

Youth 1 Curtail the powers of Nation States….

Youth 3 Harness technology

Youth 10 And Artificial Intelligence

Youth 7 Large Language models – that can do the work of a thousand diplomats in a few seconds!

UN Amb. That could save us a fortune!

Youth 5 When can we meet again.

S-G I’m sure our friend, the Ambassador, can find the funds to re-assemble you. And I can get you the visas to authorise as members of the Youth Advisory Group on our Declaration for Future Generations.

Youth Great!

Youth 11

But we need you, Jack and Gail and you, Ambassador, there with us.

UN Amb. When?

Youth 1 As soon as possible.

Youth 2 Young people need hope after this World War catastrophe!

UN Amb. OK – I’ll arrange it.

Scene EIGHTEEN

We’re back in the dingy UN storeroom in Brooklyn. The Trestle Tables are set out with 15 chairs – a few old card-board boxes with UN logos stencilled on the side lie around the side of stage. The grubby UN logo comes up on the screen as the Boy and the Girl come in through the door at the back, followed by the rest of the cast, Jack, Gail, the S-G and the UN Ambassador. The S-G calls the meeting to order.

Jack What an awful place!

Gail We can’t have you meeting in a dump like this!

S-G Sad Place: sad news.

UN Amb As expected, the Member States have no appetite to hear another presentation.

Youth 3 So – why did you bring us all here?

S-G Because we’d like to see it –

S-G Because we’d like to see it –

Youth 3 What?

S-G Your presentation!

Gail (with Jack) So would we!

UN Amb - and we’d like to work with you all to see how it may be made more palatable.

Youth 8 OK – so this is how we see it: there are two kinds of government in our world:

Youth 10 Dictatorships – which are quite good at controlling people

Youth 11 - and Democracies – which are no good at controlling people but give people the feeling that they are controlling their government.

Youth 9 Neither has proved much good at looking after our small, fragile planet.

Youth 5 The Dictatorships don’t care much about the Biosphere;

Youth 4 - and neither do the democracies because the Biosphere doesn’t have a vote…

Youth 7 So we all go our merry way, eating, shopping, flying around as though our world was one big Adventure Playground with infinite resources for our pleasure….

Youth 1 And the other big problem is, some people are really bad.

Youth 2 They didn’t subscribe to the Ten Commandments – or any laws – human or divine!

Youth 12 And, sadly, it’s often the baddest people who get into positions of great power.

Youth 10 And those are the people who stop your Centenary TO DO List getting done.

Youth 3 So – having just murdered tens of thousands of people in an utterly pointless war, we want to ask all governments…

The swirling musical introduction sweeps the cast up into a tableau from which they break forth, singing:

Song 16: SUPERMAN

Where you gonna run to – Superman?!

Where you gonna hide?!

Where will be your land?!

What you gotta say now – Superman?!

Who’ll be the fool in your masterplan?!

What you gonna do now – Superman?!

What have you done to God’s Promised Land?!

What have you done with this beautiful world?! Where is your guiding star?!

What have you done with this God-given grace?!

Who do you think you are?!

Yes who do you think you are?!

We’ll wake up one morning and the world will be gone With all of our beautiful dreams

We had so many chances but we threw them away

And now we’ve sold our souls to the Devil’s course

How did we lose control?!

And how we gonna pay the toll?!

Where you gonna run to - Superman?!

Where you gonna hide?!

Where will be your land?!

What you gotta say now – Superman?! Who’ll be the fool in your masterplan?!

What you gonna do now – Superman?!

What have you done to God’s Promised Land?!

Where you gonna run to - Superman?! Superman.

BLACK OUT

Spotlight comes up on the Storyteller and the Peace Child in his wheel-chair, watching them: P-Child Curtail the power of Nation States, eh?! That’s a bit bold, isn’t it?

S-teller Well – they had been doing a terrible job of looking after our planet.

P-Child That’s as maybe – but they had all the power – the armies and the money!

S-teller Yes – but we had the people.

P-child How would that help if they just shot you?!

S-teller Watch and see! You were a big part of the solution….

P-child I cannot imagine how?

Scene NINETEEN

The dingy UN storeroom in Brooklyn is transformed: gone are the old card-board boxes and the Trestle Tables are set to the side of stage. In the centre are low colourful tables with bean bags around them – like a 21st Century social media company. The UN logo on the screen is rainbow coloured - and there is a piano and a drum-kit in the corner. The Girl and Gail come in, chatting.

Gail I think we’ve just about finished the plan. You guys worked really hard!

Youth 1 Thanks!

Gail You really are a brilliant team – and your leadership was superb!

Youth 1 Thanks very much.

Gail The challenge now is to get traction with the social media promotion…

Youth 1 That’s not the only challenge I’m facing at the moment….

Gail What do you mean?

Youth 1 I think I’m pregnant.

Gail What?! – but I thought…

Youth 1 That we were just friends? Yes! We were until I felt lonely and defeated and…. –

Gail - but that’s WONDERFUL!! What a commitment to future generations! I’m so happy for you!

Youth 1 I would be too – except that he’s got a girl friend who’s a teacher and who has a class full of kids who think I’m an angel peace-maker, and a mum who thinks I’m Little Miss Perfect. They’re not going to be pleased when they find out that I’m carrying his child.

Gail What does he feel about it?

Youth 1 He doesn’t know. I haven’t had the test results yet – and I want to hold off telling him for as long as possible.

Gail I understand…

Youth 1 I just had to tell someone in case, you know –

Gail You start getting the morning thing… I’m honoured you told me.

The others start coming in. Gail puts her arm around the Girl’s shoulder, whispering:

Gail Your secret’s safe with me.

Jack Morning everyone: Brainstorming session – How do we get governments to agree to give up their right to murder people?

Youth 2 And their right to destroy our planet’s Biosphere?

Youth 7 “Answers on a post-card please by close of business today…” !!

Youth 11 Guys – we’ve got to get a bigger team on this.

Youth 5 Social media in a hundred languages…

Youth 10 Tik-tok videos for every age group…

Youth 3 You know how it’s done.

Youth 6 We just need a bigger team working on it.

Jack (pointing at the audience) Why don’t you ask them?

Youth 1 THEM?!!!

Youth 2 What do they know?

Gail As much as you. Possibly more because (looking at them) most of them look a bit older….

Jack You wanted to involve “We the people…” Well look: there’s a bunch of ‘em!

Youth 7 (approaching the audience) Might you guys have any ideas of how we might do this? (Audience mumble something not very clear – probably!)

Youth 3 What’s that?

Youth 6 Do you think there’s any one left awake out there?

Youth 9 Ask them?!

Youth 4 Do you guys want to LIVE?! (Repeat the question until the audience answers loudly: YES!)

Youth 8 Do you guys want to BE HAPPY?! (Again, get the audience to answer even louder: YES!)

Youth 2 OKAY!! So let’s talk about it!

The lights go up around the auditorium as the cast go down amongst the audience to get their ideas. For about 5-6 minutes, the cast chat to the audience, gathering their ideas, taking notes on the question – which is displayed on the big screen:

“How do we get Governments to give up their right to kill People and the Planet?”

The cast members can tease and lead the audience with questions like: “What do you think of the UN?” “Are nation states so last century?” and “How do you think we’re going to get back to the happy ending we started with?” Hopefully, at least one audience member will volunteer a question about Greta Thunberg – and her SchoolStrike4Climate. Even if they don’t, a cast member must shout: “Greta Thunberg, ladies and gentlemen!! What do we feel about a School Strike…?” “Get that out on Social Media: JOIN STUDENT STRIKE FOR RIGHT TO ADDRESS THE UN!!”

Music starts – as a world map appears on the screen – criss-crossed by thousands of tiny line as social media spreads their message across the world and tiny red dots appear as students in different countries sign up for the strike. The cast keep working the audience as the screen dissolves into the familiar video.

Song 17: WE ARE THE WORLD

[if we can get permission. If not, use the Peace Child song: We want this world to survive forever] There comes a time When we heed a certain call When the world must come together as one

There are people dying

Oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life

The greatest gift of all

We can't go on

Pretending day-by-day

That someone, somewhere soon make a change

We're all a part of God's great big family

And the truth, you know, love is all we need

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving

There's a choice we're making

We're saving our own lives

It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

The cast gets the audience to sing along with the chorus. A couple of them go back up on stage as the song fades and dissolves back into the world map. Gail and Jack are watching, worried.

Youth 12 (to the audience) WE are the world! Not some pohdunk, stuck-up government that thinks it knows what’s good for us.

Youth 6 (to the audience) And it’s true we’ll make a better day for future generations!

Youth 2 (to Jack) So how are we doing?

Jack Not great – less than one per cent response rate.

Youth 6 We’ve got to push them more

Gail So tell ‘em!

Youth 2 (to audience) Hey guys! This strike is from school, not from learning: the strike is the chance for all of us to learn about the tragic State of the Planet – and how to save it!

Gail We’ll get that out on social media –

Jack – with the S-G’s messages

Youth 12 (to the audience) That’s the UN’s Centenary Goal ONE!

Youth (to the audience - severally) Are you up for that?

Youth 2 Stand up if you’re up for that?!

The second chorus of the song appears on screen – louder this time. The youth on stage and in the audience, urge everyone to stand and wave their hands from side-to-side, singing along with the chorus

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving There's a choice we're making

We're saving our own lives

It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

Cut sound as the screens cuts to the map. A few more red dots spread across the map, as the youth try different ways to whip up the audience.

Youth 4 What about a Tax Strike?!

Youth 3 Don’t give money to a government that uses it to buy guns and bombs to kill your children

Youth 9 C’mon kids! Your parents love you!

Youth 1 You can twist your parents’ arms to do that for you?!

Youth 2 For your future!

Youth 7 And c’mon all of you: why are you not all out on strike?

Youth 11 No More School?!! What’s not to like??

Youth 5 Anyone here from overseas? (listen and shout out the countries)

Youth 8 Come up on stage and help us!

Youth 9

Anyone here from out of town?! (listen and shout out the cities)

Youth 10 You come up on stage and help us too!

The stage gets crowded with audience and cast members – as they discuss how best to get the message out to more people. The mele can go on for some minutes – with cast members coming forward and shouting questions and ideas to the audience:

Youth 3 This guy asks ‘Are we for real?’ Are we for real?!

Cast & Audience shout back: YES!!

Youth 10 This lady asks: “Can we see your plan?” Can she see our Plan?

Youth 1 No – because we want to discuss our plan with our governments

Youth 2 - so it becomes their plan too.

Youth 1 Then it can become your plan as well!

Youth 4 That’s why we have to get to the UN

Gail And guys – we’re getting there: 30% of the world’s student population has joined the strike!

Jack - and government treasuries are reporting significant take-up on the Tax Strike!

Youth 5 We’re doing it, guys!

Youth 9 We ARE the World!!

All sing: We are the children

We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving There's a choice we're making

We're saving our own lives

It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

They repeat the chorus – and, as it ends, Jack is on his phone. He holds up his hand for silence.

Jack Tomorrow, 14.00 hours – United Nations General Assembly chamber – the Governments of the world will receive the Youth Advisory Board’s plan!

The stage erupts in claps and cheers and hugs – until Jack stops them again:

Jack IF! - if we call off the strikes today….

Youth 2 It’s a deal guys, isn’t it??!

More claps and cheers and hugs as the cast escort the audience members back to their seats. The House lights go down as the audience member get back to their seats.

Entr’Acte

Spotlight comes up on the Storyteller and the Peace Child in his wheel-chair, watching them:

P-Child When did you get around to telling me you were carrying my child?

S-teller Well… (long pause) – I didn’t. I just didn’t find the right moment. We were so busy, and I had so many other things on my mind – and then…

P-Child Then what?

S-Teller Things happened….

P-child I fell into a coma. How did that happen?!

S-teller We’re getting there –

P-chilld I had a right to know if I was having a baby…

S-teller You do – and I was longing to tell you! You know I was – it was the happiest news possible! But wait and let the story play out. Please!

P-child OK. But I feel you’re messing with my mind….

S-teller You messed with mine too – a lot these last 20 years: I can’t believe you’re back!

P-child I can’t believe you waited for me?!

Office for Future Generations to present their Plan for the implementation of my Centenary Goals.

Youth 1 Thank you, Madam Secretary-General – and thank you to all of you for coming here today to hear our Plan. The plan is NOT finished: it can only be finished when you, our governments, and all the peoples recognise it as the right thing to do. But the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step – so that single step is what we’re taking today.

Youth 2 The plan is our plan: the ideas of the 12 young people you see before you today. But it is also the work of the UN’s Global Compact of Business Leaders – whose expertise, whose knowledge of technology has helped us every step along the way. Big thanks to them!

Youth 3 Step ONE of our plan: Peace. No more wars. No more Imperial Ambitions! No more Nuclear weapons! How? Every one of you member governments must accept the jurisdiction of the UN’s International Court of Justice. And further accept that those decisions can be enforced by UN soldiers

Youth 4 - with no government retaining the right of Veto. It is unconscionable that 5 UN member governments, my own government included, cling to their right to overturn the decision of every other nation in the world just because they won a war almost a hundred years ago. Sorry guys – the veto has to go! And we’re in the General Assembly – so your veto doesn’t work here anyway!

Youth 5 And – with Peace – so much money is released for all the other things we need to do:

Youth 6 Education for all

Youth 7 Health for all

Youth 8 Food and shelter for all

Youth 9 A Clean environment for all

Youth 10 Digital Connections for all – for FREE! As a human right!

Youth 11 Jobs for all

Youth 5 With Peace – we can afford all these things for a tiny fraction of our global turn-over!

Youth 6 Our world turns over $150 trillion a year: education for all would cost 0.01% of that

Youth 7 Health for all would cost 0.08%!

Youth 8 Food and shelter requires a wholesale change, the actual costs of which would be about 1% of the global budget. We can feed the world without destroying the planet – we just have to change our eating and farming habits.

Youth 9 Free Digital Connections for every member of the human family would cost 0.05% of the global budget, and AI would allow everyone of us a stake in how our world is governed!

Youth 10 A Clean environment for all is the complicated one as the climate emergency requires us to end our addiction to Fossil Fuels. To do that – we propose Personal Carbon Budgets: PCBs – whereby, if you want to fly your private jet, you have to buy the personal carbon budget from the guy who uses an electric car, or an ox cart. That way, we keep global warming below 2 degrees, reduce consumption and incentivise sustainability.

Youth 11 Jobs for all: no kid wants to be unemployed – and in a green economy, there could be plenty of jobs for everyone. We propose that every young person be taught the skills to start up a sustainable business and then given the investment funds to do so. For research tells us that one in 5 young people have the skills to run a business and, if society is smart enough to invest in that one, pretty soon they will employ the other four.

Youth 12 We submit this plan to you on behalf of children yet unborn. Seven generations ago, my ancestors were thinking of me when they took their decisions. If our human family is to survive and prosper – we have to do that for our children, seven generations hence. We all, therefore, beg you to consider this plan.

S-G Thank you. I request members to vote YES or NO – to further consideration of this plan. Please vote now.

The Screen splits into YES and NO sides. Numbers scroll fast on each side. The NOs have a big majority.

S-G Member States have voted by a considerable majority NOT to consider this plan. Do you have any final words to say to us?

Youth 2 We do. We were expecting this: your decision is unwise because, of course, with a click on my phone, the strikes this meeting was called to end will re-start and continue until we can reach an accommodation. But this is not about putting a gun to your head and forcing you to agree to our plan: this is about “Considering” our plan! Sitting down with us to think about the children, seven generations hence: how do we ensure that they have the means to enjoy full and happy lives. [music starts] You were children once – remember that. Remember your hopes and dreams and please: work with us to make them come true.

Song 18: Child for a Day [click here for Video – English/Arabic version]

Youth Soloist

I was a child who ran full of laughter, I was a child who lived for a day

My eyes full of sunshine

My heart full of smiles, I was a child for a day -

Youth We were the children who sang in the morning We were the children who laughed at the sun Who listened to those, Who spoke with their wisdom

We were the ones we would say

We're getting older as time goes by

A little older every day

We were the children - of yesterday!

Older Youth

We are the men who worry of nothing

We are the men who fight without aim Who listen to no one yet speak of our wisdom We are the pawns in the game.

We're getting older as time goes by

A little older every day

Youth 1

ALL

Youth 2

We are the children of yesterday.

I was a child who ran full of laughter

I was a child who lived for today

My eyes full of sunshine

My heart full of smiles

I was a child for a day.

We're getting older as time goes by

A little older every day

We were the children of yesterday.

I pray your indulgence a moment further, Madam Secretary-General, to propose a Compromise Resolution? Our Advisory Group represents 12 member states and the UN Indigenous People’s Forum. Might we add to our group Member government representatives from those same countries to form an Inter-generational Committee to consider and adjust our Plan and deliver you a jointly agreed Road Map to achieve your Centenary Goals?

S-G How would you like me to do that?

Youth 1 Put our Compromise Resolution to a vote.

S-G I can do that. And you will call off your strikes in the event of a Yes vote?

Youth Of course!

S-G So – members: on the compromise proposal to set up an intergenerational committee to consider and adjust the Youth Plan to achieve the Centenary Goals: please vote now!

The Screen splits into YES and NO sides. Numbers scroll fast on each side. The YES side is almost unanimous. The Youth erupt in cheers at the vote, patting the Boy on his shoulder. He is their hero. He hugs the Girl, ridiculously happy. The S-G stands at the Podium – beaming down at them as applause echoes from around the whole General Assembly. Slow Fade to Black

Scene TWENTY-ONE

The Storyteller walks down from the Podium, taking off her wig and jacket. She puts on her cloak and goes to her Lectern, downstage Left where, sombrely, she turns the pages of her Story book:

S-Teller It was youth’s finest hour! Never before had young people won such confidence from the member states of the United Nations. Everybody recognised it as a turning point in the effort to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and conserve and repair the Biosphere for Future Generations. And yet, as so often at moments of human triumph, appalling wickedness rears its ugly head. So it did that day. A sniper, hidden in the hotel across the street from the UN Headquarters, planted a bullet in the boy’s spine as he walked across 1st Avenue to a celebration lunch….

The screen fills with the 1st Avenue exterior of the UN Headquarters as the youth walk out across the Stage. A shot rings out – the boy goes down. The youth scream and crowd around – as the Girl

Their faces appear on the screen behind her.

S-teller None of them are dead to us: their teaching and their examples live on in their writings for us for ever. My friend, the father of my child, lives on too – in a coma for all those years. But, in those years, he was, for us, the Peace Child – the inspiration we all needed to keep our spirits up in those endless, tortuous negotiations that brought us to where we are today. We never did find out who fired the shot: theories ricocheted around the UN for years – but for me, for us, the only thing that mattered was keeping alive the body of the man in the coma who made it all happen. Just by being alive, he made us stronger….

She takes off her cloak, and picks up the Scarlet Jacket as she walks across to meet the Girl and the girl-friend who wait, nervously, centre stage.

Mother What news?

Youth 1 The doctor says he’s paralysed from the neck down

Girl-friend He’ll never walk again.

Youth 1 But he’s got a strong pulse and, in time, he will come out of the coma.

Mother But no predictions as to when?

Girl-friend None.

Youth 1 You got my note?

Mother I did. What do we all feel about that?

Girl friend I am delighted for her – and him.

Youth 1 This woman is a saint! I have asked her and she’s agreed: we ‘ll raise this child together as our Child.

Mother And my grand-child. He, or she, will be a lucky child. (They hug.) Did he know?

Youth 1 He didn’t: I only got the test results this morning…. And there was no time.

Mother No matter. He wouldn’t have done what he did in that Chamber this morning had he been befuddled by your news. Thank you for not telling him.

Girl Friend But he will be thrilled when he comes round, won’t he? He will come round, won’t he?

Mother I pray so – but I’m not sure how good he’s going to be in a wheel-chair. He will be an even greater pain-in-the-ass than he was before.

Youth 1 But we will all love him.

Mother We will – God help us. We will!

Girl friend - and our child!

Mother And the child. Oh boy, will we love him. I have a feeling it’s going to be a Him, don’t you?

They hug – and the cast sing softly a reprise of Child for a Day – as images of the boy and girl from earlier in the story appear on the screen – as though plucked from the album of photographs they sent the girl friend to put up for her kids in their classroom.

Scene TWENTY-TWO

The faces on the screen dissolve into the years scrolling by to 2045. The Storyteller pushes the Peace Child in his wheel chair down stage centre. The young cast come on behind, joining them.

P-Child Well…. It’s a wonderful story. Is any of it true?

S-teller It could be – if we want it to be.

P-child Young people bringing peace to the world – constraining the power of governments to murder people… Who-ever would have believed that possible?!

Youth 1 I do sir – because I wouldn’t want to live in a world which did allow governments to murder people and destroy our environment…

Youth 2 And the greatest privilege of my life is knowing that we live in the world we enjoy today because of your courage and determination. You! - the man I’m told is my father.

P-Child It is you!? I thought you looked a bit like me!! Oh you poor sod! Not enough that you had to bear the shame of being my son – they make you act out my story! Well –you did a bloody good job! Thank you…

Youth 2 I did exactly what it said in the script. And my mothers told me every word of it was true!

P-child Never trust your mother… Mothers?! What’s that about?!

Youth 2 They both loved you! And I love what you did

S-Teller He’s very like you –

P-Child Poor sod! Well – you’ve done very well without me these last 20 years. No need for me to intrude on your life now.

Youth 2 You’re joking, aren’t you?! Never a day goes by without some one reminding me of you! “Your Dad… this!” “Your dad… that!” I can’t get out from under your shadow even if I wanted to! But I don’t want to…..

S-Teller

The story isn’t over yet.

Youth 1 It will never be over.

Youth 2 Some terrorists just blew up a dam in South India. Each side is blaming the other of course

Youth 1

Terrible floods in Guyana and some border dispute is not letting the aid convoys through.

P-child Human beings are just hopeless animals. Very, very stupid…

S-Teller But most of us have a loving heart!

P-child That! – THAT is what you have to focus on. Come here my son – and give your crippled old Dad a hug. Your mother never told me she was pregnant – but I knew: I knew you were coming – and this is a hug I’ve waited years for!

The Boy leans over and hugs his father in the wheel chair. Music starts and the cast sing and dance the final festive up-beat number.

Finale

Song

18: S I N G

!

[click here for Covid Online Video] [click here for Score] [click here for Vocal] [click here for Song - instrumental]

Sing! I do wish the world would sing! I do wish the world would say How they love to live and play How they need each other’s –

Peace! That is all we want to have, That is all we want to share

Let us live our lives in peace

Oh let us give this life a chance to –

Love! – love is all I need, Love is all I want, Love is everywhere

Peace! – Peace is all I want, Peace is all I need, Peace – everywhere!

During the instrumental interlude, Youths 1 & 2 are hoisted on the shoulders of two leading chorus members. The Girl on the other side is likewise raised up, and the chorus process out through the aisles while the dancers fill the stage with a festive finale, flanked by the solo singers.

Come into my joy! Come into my Pain! Love! – love is all I need, Come you be a friend of mine, Love is all I want,

I’ll be the same!

sw

Peace! – Peace is all I want,

Love is everywhere!

Come into my joy! Come into my pain

Peace is all I need, Come you be a friend of mine!

Peace – everywhere!

(Repeat x 2)

T H E E N D

I’ll be the same!