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Scarecrows Will Never See the Sunset

DRAMA

Scarecrows
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Memories of a tragic past take center stage in this non-linear tale set in the rural South. Scarecrows Will Never See the Sunset follows the disintegration of the Legend family after the sudden discovery of oil on the farm they sold in the wake of a family tragedy. Youngest son Bo comes home to face what’s left of his family: a father and brother who suspect him of unspeakable things and the daughter he abandoned. As he travels through his memories, he reflects on his life, the people he hurt, and the mistakes that haunt him most. This homecoming is Bo’s last chance to find absolution, but first he’ll have to figure out which is thicker: blood or oil.


SYNOPSIS


A play told out of sequence through the eyes of Bo Legend, a man trying to discern how he came to such a low point in his life. Raised as a farmer and now forced into the oil business as the boom hits Smackover, Arkansas, Bo Legend has come home to face what’s left of his family– his father and brother who suspect him of unspeakable things and his daughter he abandoned just days after her birth. As Bo shuffles through the memories of a life of rebellion and self-isolation, he recalls the people and moments that haunt him the most— the first meeting with his eventual wife Lily, the “accidental” death of the man to whom she was married, their courtship and disintegration, and finally, the struggle to make things right in the eyes of those who once loved him unconditionally. This showdown with his remaining family members is Bo’s last chance to find absolution in a world he can’t seem to find his place. Inevitably, Bo will face death at the hands of the family he once tried to protect.

QUOTE


Compelling... Scarecrows plays out like a big, lusty Southern Gothic drama.

–Nashville Scene


Characters:

John Legend is the patriarch of the Legend family, a practical man and a farmer who now must make the choice to adapt or die as the oil industry and its towering oil derricks begin to replace the fields of crops he toiled over for years to provide for his family.

Mama Legend is a dedicated wife and loving mother– forgiving and loyal to a fault– who believes in one thing: there is nothing more important that family.

John “Bear” Legend IV is the oldest son and the workhorse of the Legend whose physical prowess is often underestimated by his simple nature.

Bo Legend is the stubborn, hot-headed, and handsome middle child of Legend family who never recovered from a childhood accident that caused the death of his younger sister and now wrestles with the inevitable changes that come to his small town.

Werlyn “Thorn” Bradshaw, Jr. is the loud, privileged, oldest son of the Bradshaw family who has been charged by his family with running the newly acquired oil fields that were just recently Legend farming land.

Lily Umpstead Bradshaw is the young wife of Thorn Bradshaw, a lonely woman who hitched herself to a man in hopes of escaping the suffocating monotony of small town North Carolina but instead winds up even more lost in the backwoods of Arkansas without any identity beyond being the wife of a oilman with a terrible inferiority complex.

Setting: The early 20th century in the city and area around Smackover, Arkansas.

Performance Royalties for AMATEUR and EDUCATIONAL Groups, please fill out an application for your personalized quote. 

Performance Royalties for PROFESSIONAL Theaters will be quoted as a box office percentage, with a minimum guarantee based on ticket prices and theater particulars. Please fill out an application for your personalized quote.

Authorized Materials must be purchased from Stage Rights as a part of your licensing agreement (see Materials). 

Billing responsibilities, pertinent copyright information, and playwrights' biographies are available in the show rider that comes with your license agreement.

“With the occasional sound of oil drilling in the background, Scarecrows plays out like the big, lusty Southern Gothic drama it consciously aspires to be, with its Tennessee Williams-like dramatis personae and the biblically inspired undertones of a John Steinback novel. It’s an engrossing script, with larger-than-life characters and the sort of compelling moments that might typify a well-hyped TV teleplay. It’s not soap opera, exactly, but playwright Michael cannily works a similar cliffhanger technique, keeping us guessing scene to scene as his flawed rural folk rip into each other, driven often by nothing but raw emotion." –Nashville Scene

“We often think of legacy as something to be cherished, lovingly passed down from generation to generation. But in the case of Darren V. Michael’s new play Scarecrows Will Never See the Sunset, legacy becomes dark and menacing— bathed in oil and blood.” –Tennessean

Authorized Materials must be purchased from Stage Rights as a part of your licensing agreement. Your materials will be sent to you digitally by your Licensing Representative. 

The Authorized Materials/Production Package for  Scarecrows Will Never See The Sunset are all fulfilled digitally and consist of: 

Acting Edition

Stage Manager Script