Spread the Love: Free by Lindsay Price

This week on Spread the Love, Craig talks about Free (versions one and two), a drama by Lindsay Price.

Transcript

Welcome to Spread the Love. This week I’m talking about “Free” by Lindsay Price. “Free” comes in two versions – Version One and (you guessed it!) Version Two.

Promisetown is in dire straights. The factory is closed, the economy’s devastated, and its good citizens are barely able to feed themselves. One day two teenagers stumble upon a huge picnic filled with food of all kinds. There’s a sign beside the picnic, and the sign says, “Free Food.” But the problems are just getting started.

How does the town distribute the food? Is it finders, keepers? Is it first-come first-served? Is it distributed evenly? Is it distributed according to need? A stranger shows up and the stranger has all the answers. But are the townspeople prepared to listen?

What I love about the play is the universality of the theme. Humanity is constantly struggling with how to distribute scarce resources, and the moral of the play offers a lesson to us all.

What’s really neat about the script is that it comes in variety of casting options. Version One is set up for four men, seven women, and one either. Version Two is set up for 3 men and 9 women (it’s more girl-heavy). And, as an added bonus, both versions of the script also have smaller cast options embedded within the text.

Take a look at Free if you’re looking for a good character-driven drama that will leave your audience thinking.

That’s it for Spread the Love!