Winner of the Readers' Theatre Playwriting Competition, CT
A One-Act Comedy
by Robert SchroederKaren, 45, had longed to escape to the city, where she now lives with her husband and their
children, Dan, 21, and Joan, 17. Karen’s mother Amelia, 71, has lived in her rural town all her life, and loves it.Dan and Joan have enjoyed being at Grandma’s every chance they get. But Karen, caught up in a constant whirl of fashionable urban activity, no longer wants to feel obliged to spend so much time at her mother’s. Her husband agrees, preferring the city.
Amelia wants to stay in her own home until she dies, and pass along the business her late husband had founded to her grandson.
On the contrary, Karen and her husband have decided it’s time for Amelia to sell the business and her home to the highest cash bidder, paying for her move into a life-care facility. Karen and her husband see their son’s ambition, and Amelia’s wanting to live out her life at home, as too financially risky to themselves..
Agendas thus in conflict, Karen, Dan and Joan arrive at Grandma’s on an autumn Sunday. Karen proposes a carefully-prepared plan which would turn Amelia’s and Dan’s family loyalty to Karen’s personal advantage.
