SCENE: ANNE, Frankie Avonlea's wife has walked in on a conversation between JAKE BULLET and CAROL HINGLE on the arm of her "hot new commodity" LANCE BOYLE. This sparks a discussion amongst the quartet.
LANCE
Anne’s already put in calls to some of her director and producer friends. She’s sure that once tonight is over, I’ll be bigger than Tom Cruise!
CAROL
Not much of an accomplishment considering he isn’t over six foot.
ANNE
Jake, who is this woman and what is she doing here? Her face doesn’t ring a bell.
JAKE
Oh! Uh... this is my... third cousin on my great-uncle—twice-removed’s side.
CAROL
Carol. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Avonlea.
Carol extends her hand, Anne reluctantly shakes it.
ANNE
Likewise, I’m sure. And please, do call me... Ms. Condeh.
CAROL
I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve admired your work over the last few years. President of the board of the Shakespeare Renaissance Drama Festival. Co-founder of the Rising Star Children’s Theater School, you must be so proud of Frankie!
ANNE
What? Oh, yes. Of course, Frankie.
CAROL
And with all that, you still have the time to take an unknown talent under your wing and mold him into another great performer like Frankie!
LANCE
Excuse me, but let’s get something straight here. I am not like Frankie Avonlea. Frankie Avonlea did not spend his formative years getting taunted and teased by troglodyte jocks—whose idea of a good time was going out onto a field covered in padding and helmets, cracking their skulls together, all the while chasing after an inflated, oval-shaped piece of pigskin—just because he dreamed of being on the stage. Frankie Avonlea did not wait tables at an all-night deli so that he could afford to take the masters’ acting and musical theater classes at Julliard. And Frankie Avonlea did not appear in fifteen off-off Broadway shows. Frankie Avonlea was just a cute kid who happened to have been thrust into the limelight by a lazy, money-hungry father who couldn’t hold down a job mopping floors at a Greyhound bus terminal!
CAROL
That’s not true! You take it back!
CAROL
If that’s the case, then why go through all of this? Why thrust him back into a limelight he never really wanted in the first place?
Kelly enters. She observes the next few lines from the back of the room.
ANNE
You’re so naïve, my dear. Tonight isn’t just for Frankie. It’s also for me! It’s my chance to show the world that Anne Condeh, is so much more than just “Frankie Avonlea’s wife.” And when Lance here rises to the top, I’ll be the one who put him there.
LANCE
Excuse me, again. But I’ll be the one who’ll put me on top.
ANNE
How soon they forget. You may have the talent, Lance, but I have the connections! Without my influence, you might as well go back to that all-night deli you remember so fondly. Remember, my little calling bird, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know!
