Literature
Drama: “Dancer Friends”
By Allison
(Lights up on a young girl, perhaps in her mid-teens, center stage in full pre-feis regalia: softspikes, sandals, makeup, and lugging her dress- and shoe-bags with her)
Cait: It’s not generally looked upon well by ones peers when one decides to take up Irish dancing, especially later in life, at fourteen or fifteen, when what ones friends think tends to influence ones own opinions. That being said, it’s nice to have friends who are Irish dancers.
(Enter a small group of other teenagers, all dressed in very trendy clothing, who stop down left and sneer at Cait)
Cait: Unfortunately, friends who are Irish dancers are a bit hard to come by, due to the very nature of the sport.
Boy 1: (Amongst the group) What’s in her hair?
Girl 1: I know! She looks like a...a...porcupine!
(They all laugh)
Girl 2: And she has her socks pulled up to her knees. Puh-lease, she is such a fashion crime against humanity.
(They all laugh)
Boy 1: (Calling to Cait) Hey, what’s in your hair? And why are your socks so high? Are you some kind of idiot kid or something?
Cait: (Patiently) No, I’m not...the spikes are curlers, and...(they leave. beat) That’s as far as that conversation ever tends to go.
(Enter a group of skateboarders. They walk all the way across the stage, then back up and look at Cait again)
Guy 1: Whoa. Cool hair.
(They all exit)
Cait: Well, at least that was more pleasant.
(Enter a woman with a small child. Said small child is carrying a large, sticky lollipop, waving it about. The woman double takes at Cait, then drags the child away quickly. While they are passing, the child bangs the sticky lollipop on one of Cait’s curlers. Cait sighs, annoyed. Enter another dancer, with her dress on, curlers out, socks pulled up and presumably glued, and ghillies on)
Mary: Cait, come on! we’ve got figures in a quarter of an hour, and you're still not dressed! For heaven’s sake, you’ve still got curlers in your hair! Come on! (Takes Cait’s arm and pulls her off stage)
Cait: (As she is being pulled) Fortunately, dancer friends aren’t impossible to come by.