PARADE DAY – TWO ACT DRAMA ABOUT ROSWELL, YEARS LATER
Things could not be worse for east coast pharmaceutical sales Edward Laurens. His life is a disaster – the wife’s left him and he knows he’s going to lose his job.
Edward’s idea to cope, or avoid it all, is drive across the country on route to Californian to his annual sales meetings. And between the east and west coasts, maybe he find himself. That’s a glorious notion.
Alone and wandering through New Mexico the past week, Edward runs his life through his head until he’s so utterly depressed he’s at the end of it. And then he stops at the Flying Saucer Diner in Roswell, New Mexico.
Edward doesn’t know Roswell celebrates its notoriety as the place where a flying saucer crashed years ago, or so the town proclaims through years of hype and cheesy promotion.
His luck could not get any worse; it’s the day of the town’s annual flying saucer parade. He walks into the diner and meets the owner, Buddy. Buddy is the last living eyewitness to the infamous crash. Buddy hates everything about the town’s zany celebration and the parade, and takes Edward to be “one” of them – a crazy UFO fanatic.
The town’s mayor wants Buddy to ride down Main Street in the parade, but Buddy refuses. The town sees him as a stubborn and bitter old man. What no one understands is that he’s no longer sure what did happen that day of the crash. He’s angry that at the end of his life, all he’s become is the last living witness and nothing more.
Then Edward meets Buddy’s waitress, Katie. She ‘s an intriguing small town girl with a string of bad relationships that have not diminished her big dreams – if she knew what they were. She is desperate to leave, desperate to find love, desperate to be loved. There is a spark between the withdrawn Edward and Katie that pushes them both to attempt to try to change their lives.
The play is fleshed out with the comings and goings of various characters that wander into the diner, each with different agendas, from weirdness to cruelty.
In PARADE DAY, the crash, aliens, and the ridiculous circus that envelops the town, become a metaphor about drift and detachment from one another, and our need to be understood. The play brings Buddy, Edward, and Katie to the lines they have drawn in the dirt, opening the door to the possibility for them all to step back across.
Read about award winning playwright Terry Roueche. Other plays (Roots and Wings – award winning one act drama) by Terry.
Author: Terry Roueche
Genre: Drama about Roswell
Type: Two act play, full length romantic comedy drama
Cast: Main characters 3M 1F, Smaller characters, some of which can be played by the same actors: 3M 3F
Ages of the actors: Cast of adults ages 20 to 70
Suitable for: All ages but meant for adults
Length: 1.5 to 2 hours
Set: Flying Saucer Diner, Roswell, New Mexico
Level of difficulty: 7/10 – lovely comedy drama romance with a touch of sci fi written by one of our best selling award winning authors.
Read a Sample of the Script
Cost is $7 for this editor’s choice play script
Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Parade Day
Copyright © August 2016 Terry Roueche and Off The Wall Play Publishers
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Starline 117 – Science fiction stage play. A man is found sitting in the airport, waiting for a flight that will never arrive.
Great Land – a journey of discovery as two people travel to Graceland in search of the King
Aldous remembers – a drama romance about losing your memories including those of the people you love
