The world is now 31 plays, erm, richer?

Not sure whether I can really call it richer, although it was fun. I was actually shooting for “So bad it’s good.” Some of them are probably “So bad it’s bad,” but such is the life of first drafts.

Yes, I wrote 31 short plays!  28 riffs on Shakespeare as performed by pandas and other animals, all set in Edinburgh Zoo (home of pandas Sunshine and Sweetie) and the Wolong Nature Preserve (home of the panda kindergarten), plus three framing plays.

125 total pages, for an average of about 4 pages per play. Actually, I had several two-pagers. The longest, at 13 pages, was The Scottish Panda Play, followed by Pandaline (my riff on Cymbeline) at 9.

Thanks once again to the Bard and to my sister (who has a Kickstarter project for her panda cartoons, hint, hint) for inspiration. The cupcake references were inspired by my sister, by the way, not the Bard – the Bard does mention cakes 5 times according to Google, but no cupcakes.

So, here, for your amusement or horror as the case may be, are the titles along with my favorite lines from each. Google, Facebook and Bing are trademarks of Google, Facebook and Microsoft respectively:

1. Beginning
   “We’re cuter than Shakespeare and we bite.”
2. A Winter’s Tail
   “(Exeunt, pursued by a human.)” (Stage direction)
3. All’s Bamboo That Ends Bamboo
   “Why did I ever dream of mating with him?  No wonder we’re endangered.”
4. Pandyolanus
   “You shall never eat a cupcake ever again.”
5. Panda for Panda
   “I may not, in fact, be pregnant at all!  But if you do kill him, may I have his supply of bamboo?”
6. Titus Pandronicus
   “Oh, such horror you have visited upon my family.  You are a cruel, cruel panda.”
7. Othello, the Panda of Edinburgh
   “You’re going to eat that cupcake after those pandas have had their paws all over it?  Ewww.”
8. Troilus, Cressida and Pandarus
   “I was going to hide my status on Facebook but I guess I don’t need to now.”
9. Pandan of Athens
   “China is no place for a hippopotamus.”
10. Pandio and Pandiette
    “I’m a panda.  I’m roly-poly.  I’ll roll and I’ll, um, poll?”
11. Panda’s Labour Lost
    “France is one of the most famous countries in the world. We make the best cupcakes anywhere!”
12. The Two Noble Kinspandas
    “I had a cousin that went crazy once and we got along just fine.”
13. The Panda of Venice
    Andy: “I can’t Google on Bing.”
    Bassy: “You can’t Bing it on Bing, either.  Bing hasn’t been verbed yet.”
14. Julius Panda
    “Die, Julius Panda, die!”
15. A Midsummer Night’s Panda
    “Somebody has to play the wall.”
16. Pantony and Cleopandra
    “It’s taken me a week to die.”
17. The Merry Pandas of Wolong
    “…you are such a poor excuse for a panda that I would never mate with you in a million years.”
18. Pandacles, Panda of Tyre
    “Ten million dollars buys an awful lot of cupcakes, ma’am.”
19. Pandaline
    “You are exiled.  All of you.  Even the sleeping ones.”
20. The Tempandest
    “I shall cast a spell and divert them to Edinburgh Airport so they will be stranded here, stranded to meet my wrath.”
21. Twelfth Panda
    “I threw a cupcake to the south.
    It bounced and landed in my mouth.
    The frosting splatted on my face.
    I licked it off from every place.”
22. Middle
    “Nothing rhymes with Edinburgh.”
23. The Taming of the Panda Kindergarten
    “Throw off your panda burdens and drop them on the toes of your opressors!”
24. As You Lick It
    “But it’s not really a good day for me to be eaten.”
25. The Comedy of Pandas
    “That’s why I’m a pandologist and not a pigologist.”
26. The Two Pandas of Verona
    “What a stupid transit system!  Take me to Verona now!”
27. Panlet
    “Alas, poor cupcake, I knew it, Bearatio.”
28. King Panda
    “He’s a pandologist.  He helps keep us from going extinct.”
29. Much Ado About Pandas
    “Pandio’s been saying I was cheating on him and I’m going to sue his fur off.”
30. The Scottish Panda Play
    tie
    “You sure know how to ruin a dinner party.  And after I spent all afternoon pre-chewing the bamboo.”
    “You killed my wife and children.  You are the greediest python I have ever met!”
31. End
    “You’re a meany and I’m not going to mate with you.”

Anyway, it was fun. Even though it’s kinda late to join (but you could write 31 one-page plays in the next three days and still qualify), check out the 31 Plays 31 Days website. There’s a lot of interviews with playwrights that I’ll now finally have time to read.