By Eddie Zipperer.
Product Code: D98000
One-act Play
Comedy
Cast size: 4 to 7m., 3w., 3 either gender (2 nonspeaking roles).
This title can be licensed and sold throughout the World.
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Don't Fear the Reaper follows a day in the life of the Grim Reaper—the day he gets fired. On his first gig of the morning, he's spotted on the doorstep of a young married couple. The husband and wife each decide that it must be the other one's time, and through a series of passive-aggressive strategies they each attempt to lure their partner onto the doorstep, until they learn the important lesson that throwing one's spouse to the Reaper isn't the American way. Next on the Reaper's list is Steve. Steve's soul seems like a routine reaping at first, but ultimately presents a problem unseen for 40,000 years. In his mediocrity, Steve has reached a perfect balance on the scale of good and evil and must choose his own fate on The Fating Game, where God and Satan vie for his soul. As day turns to night, the Reaper meets with God in His office and learns that—due to certain people ending up in the wrong afterlife—it is time to turn over his scythe to the new Reaper, Jeremy (formerly the grim reaper of insects). Insisting that people should be able to die with a little compassion and sympathy, the Reaper steals the scythe and goes rogue. Cornered by God, Satan, Jeremy and his wife, the Reaper is forced to decide whether he should go quietly or take the world down with him.
Don't Fear the Reaper is a hilarious spoof of a day in the life of Death himself. It offers the opportunity for lots of set changes, or very little, depending on how you set the play.
Leif Ronning, New York Mills High School, New York Mills, Minn.