Writing/Work Samples
An Excerpt from Tapes, by Cherrye J. Davis
Workshop/Reading Produced by The Movement Theater Company, Spring 2013
The following section takes place in a Post 9/11 NYC. Throughout the play, 6 characters step into their own corner of NYC, sharing a post/911 story. There are 3 moments where they drop their individual characters and meet on the bridge. This is the second instance. The bridge is where they cipher on their gripes and their joys. They battle/share/ flirt/connect and fight over the question , “What are you made of?”.
(The audience drops into a train already in motion. It is 10 minutes before rush hour starts. Dawn pours through the windows as the lights flicker. As the light pours in, the ensemble starts.)
Elite 2 (We Forget)
Dy: We don’t talk during the morning commute; That’s the main difference, Our silence is our respect.
Fern: We don’t stop moving
Xi: What the fuck is this mountain of black ice?
Crystal: We love our politicians
Cedric: Fuck a Bloomberg
Crystal: Just kidding,We hate our politicians.
Ines: We don’t drive.
Fern: We don’t use our inside voices.
Dy: Fuck NYU.
Cedric: I don’t know how to stay in on Friday Night.
Dy: And, Fuck a Columbia, too.
Xi: We don’t wear shit with I, Hearts, or New York on It Curly: I left for Florida September 12th for fear
Crystal: We don’t watch documentaries in September. Dy: We leave, but never abandon the concrete.
All: We hate Times Square.
Xi: This old lady flipped me the bird in Bensonhurst. Curly: We talk about kicking terrorist ass.
Fern: I remember the blackout.
Dy: I remember the Summer of Sam.
Crystal: I don’t remember ever going to the Statue of Liberty Xi: You remember gun checks at the Tunnel?
Cedric: I remember giving blood after Katrina.
Curly: I remember every single year.
Ines-I remember, for sure.
Dy-I just don’t talk about it.
Xi-We just don’t talk about that kind of shit.
Dy-We breathe about it
Fern-It oozes like sweat out of my pores
Ines- It runs down my legs
Crystal-It comes out on wax
Curly-In my bodega coffee
Dy-It comes out eventually, all on its’ own.
Ines-So stop asking how I’m doin’
Xi : How YOU doin.
Ines: So....I just don’t try
Curly: I just don’t
Crystal: That’s how I do
Curly: We just don’t
Fern: We don’t sleep with eyes closed.
Dy: We sleep through sirens
Cedric: I may have cried 7 years after the fact, but I remember All: That’s what we do
Fern: We forget how to drive
Cedric: We forget the cost of a ride
Dy: We forget our invincibility.
Cedric: We forget the cost.
Crystal: We forget construction.
Curly: But we never forget the smell of any of it. Xi: We remember like a motherfucker.
Light Shift. The ensemble jolts as the train loudly screeches into the station. The doors open, the ensemble exits. Dy exits last. As he steps off to exit, the threshold of the train doors becomes a window ledge.
Norah and James, An Excerpt from Tapes, by Cherrye J. Davis
Workshop/Reading Produced by The Movement Theater Company, Spring 2013
Park Avenue, Midtown. Nora and James speak to the audience. There is construction.
James: When the 1st beam fell, it hit a telephone wire
Immediately slicing it down the middle,
And sparks rained down.
Nora: When the 1st cloud swept through Wall Street
I thought it was over.
James: When the 1st scream entered my ears….
I’ll never forget
Nora When the 1st plane hit, I took a break from looking down
And looked straight up.
James: When the 1st fireball fell through the sky
I thought it was
Both: Beautiful
Nora: Like a comet.
James: Like a movie.
Nora Like a rocket
James: Like a roman candle
Nora Like a…(squinting, and then realizing what the fireball actually is)
James: like a star (squinting, and then realizing the fireball to be someone falling)
Nora: Like a….
James: Like a…
Nora: stone her body fell, a white shirt, scorched ash
James: I ran through the street
Breathing hard
Over the bridge
Back to Brooklyn
Nora: I coughed through the tunnels
Shoes in hand
Over hours
Back to Queens
James: Back to Normal…
Nora: Back to nothing….
James: I slept
Nora: I spent…
James: I lied
Nora I slept for 3 days, blinds closed
James: I didn’t actually sleep nights, I sat in my closet with my cell-phone light
Nora: No light
James: I could only see black
Nora Opened my eyes 2am one night
James: I didn’t want to open the door
Nora: and I could only hallucinate fireballs
James: the fear of collapse wouldn’t let me
Nora: fireballs cutting through night
James: And then the battery died on my light
Nora: like a meteor shower off the ceiling
James: I opened the door to my closet, and winced at the sun
Nora: I lay watching, waiting for the end
James: I couldn’t wait another day for the end…..
James: I started going to meetings
Nora: There were these meetings I went to, thought they were stupid
James: She was there
Nora: I didn’t want to be
Both: It was October 1st, 2001
Nora: The world was scared
James: Her gaze made me scared
Nora: but I wasn’t
James: She wasn’t
Nora: He began to talk about a fireball
James: There was this fireball
Nora: this fireball slicing through the air
James: with limbs and hair on fire
Nora The same I see every night
James: but different somehow
Nora: How did he know…?
James: I know these memories are cancerous, multiplying in horror over and under
Nora: He knew
James: But it was beautiful, you know, before it…she
Nora: she collapsed like a rag doll into the ground.
James: But, here’s the thing…
Nora: *mimicking his voice and fascination*, Here’s the thing…
James: while she was in flight…she was a phoenix.
Nora: He knew.
James: You know, its’ Yugen
Nora: He rambled about something called Yugen
James: Like, the way a cherry blossom is before bloom, perfect right in the blossom
Nora: Perfect in its potential because, in a day….wilted; gorgeous, unstilted,
like A child before puberty
James: a 15 year old dreaming
Nora: not yet broken
James: Dreaming of being a DJ….
(She looks at him skeptically, then smiles. They catch eyes for the first time)
Nora: An MC…
James: You know how it feels right before the clock
Nora: Right before the shake
James: Right before the drop
Nora: like the heat before the break
James: Like nothing else is there
Nora: Fuck it all, who cares
James: It’s you
Nora: It’s the rhythm
James: and nothing else
Nora: just so much potential
James: I miss that like..
Nora: I want that back..
James: I’m tired…
Nora: I got you
Both: I love that…
James: it’s the potential that’s mesmerizing
Nora: The potential is imminent
James: before, it’s the first second of laughter
Nora: but after, it’s a body, falling from the rafters.
James: I said it….
Nora: He said it was beautiful
Both: Before it hit the ground
(Pause)
James: and She knew..
Nora It was….beautiful.
James: I knew I should feel horrible
Nora: I mean, a body aflame is terrible
James: But somehow
Nora: I saw it
James: I knew
Nora I knew too
James: ugly, lost life once it hit the ground
Nora: But right before
James: potential
Nora I see
James Potential.
Nora: From the 1st breath in the morning
James: potential
Nora From the 1st scream
James: Potential
Nora: From the first glance
(They catch eyes again)
James: I know
She: it may be ugly once it lands
James: probably a disaster
Nora: possibly painful
James: But for now
Nora: As we breathe
James: as we step
Nora: the fire is in the air
James: falling
Nora: and it is
James; (looking to her)...beautiful
Nora: yeah...beautiful.
Her, An Excerpt from Sold!,
Originally Produced through Playwrights Horizons Theater School, NYC, 2007
8 Women appear from darkness. They Speak.
My Name is
Glory
Patience
Joy
Fire
Spirit
Flow
Embrace
Inspire
Hi
I also go by the name of xx, half of your xy
Aka coppershell
Filled with warm apple pie
The name I go by is
She
Her
Sistah
Miss
Your daughter
Your mother
Your last breath
Your first kiss
Hello, nice to meet you, I’m not sure, have we met?
My name is woman, I don’t think you know me yet,
Because if you did, I promise that you
Wouldn’t begin to move your tongue to say what you do
I go by the name glory
Some call me divine
My mama named me glory
And my daughter will don me time
And I’m pretty sure
Coulda swore
That my name was all mine
Cause, that glory sits hard at the base of my spine
It lets me walk through Bedstuy
On a cold December day
With my nose held high
Let my hips just sway.
It lets me hear that snake hiss hard
slip under the radar low
Feel the venom and fury rise up my throat
Spit, smile and let it go
Cause I KNOW
He doesn’t know
He doesn’t have a clue
That my glory radiates from my ribs
And he should let his too.
I wish this brotha knew
I was
Patience, personified
You tell me why
would I love you with all heart
even though you make me cry
how I could carry my feelings
my past, your drama, and you
with only the hope of a future.
Daily, this is what I do.
Patience keeps me alive
When I’m tired of you
1 footprint in the sand
This patience carries me through
This patience forgives your missteps
Never giving you away
This patience will run out
But lucky for you, that day is not today
I wish I could only say
I am full of
Joy
Be it Allah
Be it Jesus, Mary, Paul
Come Buddha, come Messiah
Come creator, call it all.
This gift pours out into a river of nirvana
Climbs the golden steps, and rains down “Sana Sana colita de rana..”
Joy in my breath wakes me when I just don’t wanna
That Joy is the faith that says “girl, you’re gonna
Try harder,
Dig further,
Care deeper,
Don’t weep”.
This Joy is the heart I give and I keep
Wow. This power within is so deep
It’s called
Fire
A higher power named me fire
And every woman before me fanned my desire
For life, Measured in heat
Burning through fear
It’s the passion I harbor
When you come near.
It’s the heart to climb mountains
It’s the flame to take off and just go
It’s the need to feel important
And do what makes that so.
It’s the ability to dash onto Broadway
In 4 inch heels and in 3 seconds, 2 steps
Sweep up that dropped lip gloss
That it took 6 months to find before being
Annihilated by a M15 bus.
That’s passion
For beauty
And body
And MAC
That fire makes me brave and breathes at my back
And gives me pride in my white, my red, and my black
That’s called
Spirit
I smile sweetly
Without frustration or care
My spirit keeps me high
Floating by on cool air
Sometimes blowing gentle
Othertimes a fierce gust
My spirit busts through adversity
It’s the backbone I lay my trust
I have no choice, I must
Let my spirit go and just
Flow
To get busy
Get low on the mic
Flow
To spit game
To the guy YOU really like
Flow
To feel good
In a headscarf and some sweats
Flow
To be that girl on the block you can never forget
Flow
To pull a b on a paper I didn’t even do
Flow
To do me, cause I can’t do you
Flow
Lets me accept defeat
Flow
Guilts watery eyes
Flow
Lets my sobs flow down
Into full blown cries
Flow gives me confidence
Don’t need whats, hows, or whys.
My word is my cool
Is my flow is my rise
My flow is a
Embrace.
The way the holidays kiss your nose
The way water flows over skin
And sand surrounds your toes.
The way grandma’s turnip green soup
Slips down and warms your heart
The way a simple embrace from a mother’s arms
Can offer a needed new start
It’s my embrace that cures illness
Clothes the needy and heals the globe
I, xx, came into this world alone
And this touch is all I know
it sets my world aglow,
And that touch must
Inspire
Change in the name of an O
In a youthful election of a president from Chicago
Change to be better, more efficient, more fair
Change to change the state of our wildlife and our air
It’s the shift of Shiva, creation and destruction
That makes it so I can be
Without destruction there’s no progress
And that inspires me
to destroy racism, annihilate hate,
end discrimination, fight fear
and create joy, birth love,
Inspire justice
And it starts here.
Hello, nice to meet you, I’m not sure, have we met?
My name is woman, and if you don’t know me yet
Know, they call me
Glory
Patience
Joy
Fire
Spirit
Flow
Embrace
Inspire
XX
Woman
Goddess
Girl if you prefer
Athena
Osun
Celia
Rosa
Or for short,
Just
Her.