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RED AND BLUE ALL OVER
When Roe v Wade is overturned, a life-long friendship ruptures when a Democratic legislator helps her best friend’s daughter get an abortion because her Christian conservative family won’t.
SYNOPSIS
When Roe v Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, Stacie, a newly-elected Democratic state legislator in Virginia, fights to stop the General Assembly from banning abortion. Her best friend is Pearl, a Christian conservative directing the local health clinic, who sees the question of a woman’s right to abortion as being woven into the fabric of community standards, behaviors and morality. The two friends avoid arguing about the issue; until, Pearl’s daughter gets pregnant and asks Stacie to help her get an abortion when her mother will not.
Stacie goes to a clinic with Pearl’s daughter, while protesting that they should talk to Pearl first. At the clinic, it is decided that Pearl’s daughter has a dangerous condition called an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus is not viable, and emergency surgery is needed. No one calls Pearl to tell her what is happening.
When Pearl and her husband, who is a conservative legislator working to ban abortion, learn that Stacie helped their daughter get an abortion without their knowledge, they are hurt and angry. Pearl’s husband threatens to blackmail Stacie unless she resigns from the legislature, which would be likely to result in the ban on abortion becoming law, because there is currently a tie vote on the issue. Pearl’s daughter has a photo showing that her father is a Klan member, and when he threatens Stacie, she posts it online. Now, Stacie and also Pearl’s husband are vulnerable to political attacks, and the decision on the ban on abortion hangs in the balance.
Stacie and Pearl’s positions on the abortion issue shift as Pearl’s daughter’s pregnancy pushes them apart. Finally, their friendship survives when their life experience proves to be more profound than their political ideologies.
LOGLINE
Imagine that Roe v Wade is overturned, and you're a new state legislator and your lifelong best friend is a Christian conservative - her teenage daughter is pregnant and comes to you for help getting an abortion. Yikes.
If that sounds like a scenario to explore issues dividing the Right and the Left, you won’t be disappointed with Red and Blue All Over!
Development History.
There was a reading of an earlier draft of the play at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts in Burlington, Vermont in May 2019.
The play went through the Dramatist Guild Institute Plays-in-Progress program in January 2018 with Janice Goldberg. Between September 2017 and April 2019, scenes-in-progress had readings at four playwriting events in Burlington, Vermont. In early spring of 2019, Ms. Becker worked on the play with editor Lawrence Harbison, and again in June 2019 after the reading at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts. In fall of 2018, Ms. Becker was in the Dramatist Guild Institute online class, The Architecture of Plays: Political and Cultural Plays taught by Gary Garrison, and afterward revised the play again.
SYNOPSIS
When Roe v Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, Stacie, a newly-elected Democratic state legislator in Virginia, fights to stop the General Assembly from banning abortion. Her best friend is Pearl, a Christian conservative directing the local health clinic, who sees the question of a woman’s right to abortion as being woven into the fabric of community standards, behaviors and morality. The two friends avoid arguing about the issue; until, Pearl’s daughter gets pregnant and asks Stacie to help her get an abortion when her mother will not.
Stacie goes to a clinic with Pearl’s daughter, while protesting that they should talk to Pearl first. At the clinic, it is decided that Pearl’s daughter has a dangerous condition called an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus is not viable, and emergency surgery is needed. No one calls Pearl to tell her what is happening.
When Pearl and her husband, who is a conservative legislator working to ban abortion, learn that Stacie helped their daughter get an abortion without their knowledge, they are hurt and angry. Pearl’s husband threatens to blackmail Stacie unless she resigns from the legislature, which would be likely to result in the ban on abortion becoming law, because there is currently a tie vote on the issue. Pearl’s daughter has a photo showing that her father is a Klan member, and when he threatens Stacie, she posts it online. Now, Stacie and also Pearl’s husband are vulnerable to political attacks, and the decision on the ban on abortion hangs in the balance.
Stacie and Pearl’s positions on the abortion issue shift as Pearl’s daughter’s pregnancy pushes them apart. Finally, their friendship survives when their life experience proves to be more profound than their political ideologies.
LOGLINE
Imagine that Roe v Wade is overturned, and you're a new state legislator and your lifelong best friend is a Christian conservative - her teenage daughter is pregnant and comes to you for help getting an abortion. Yikes.
If that sounds like a scenario to explore issues dividing the Right and the Left, you won’t be disappointed with Red and Blue All Over!
Development History.
There was a reading of an earlier draft of the play at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts in Burlington, Vermont in May 2019.
The play went through the Dramatist Guild Institute Plays-in-Progress program in January 2018 with Janice Goldberg. Between September 2017 and April 2019, scenes-in-progress had readings at four playwriting events in Burlington, Vermont. In early spring of 2019, Ms. Becker worked on the play with editor Lawrence Harbison, and again in June 2019 after the reading at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts. In fall of 2018, Ms. Becker was in the Dramatist Guild Institute online class, The Architecture of Plays: Political and Cultural Plays taught by Gary Garrison, and afterward revised the play again.
