2. 2
CHARACTERS
(Distinguished, handsome.)
Elliot Drummond: 40 year old songwriter. Had a few minor hits, 20 years ago, but now faces old
age, having never really made it big. He never married, nor had children, and does not believe in
happy-ever-after love, but instead, he is convinced that serial monogamy is the most practical
realistic view of romance. He is patient, deeply passionate about expressing his views about love
through song, and a bit sullen and jaded when it comes to openly confessing affections to another.
He’d rather communicate his true feelings through song and innuendo, jokes, sarcasm, irony, or
parable. In this way, Elliot appears very friendly and playful, but behind it is a rather sophisticated
defense strategy, developed to protect him against rejection. If everything is an object lesson and an
intellectual exposition about love, he avoids personal feelings of inadequacy and rejection. This is
romance for Elliot: an immediate, in the present moment, exploration of boundaries and limitations
between his ideals of beauty and truth and a woman’s ideals of the same. He has learned to throw out
feelers to test a woman’s compatibility with him, without it taking any rejection too personally. He
achieves this by realizing that compatibility is rare, and that his relationship with songwriting can
take the place of all the possible romances that did not pan out.
(Elegant, beautiful, nice figure)
Sophia Beecham: 38 year old songwriter, who never had any major hits except commercial jingle
for “Twinkle Toasties,” breakfast cereal. “Put a twinkle in your smile with Twinkle Toasties in your
bowl.”
She still wants to have a radio hit, but has responded to an online ad from Elliot, looking for
a collaborator to work on a romantic musical comedy. She figures that since she can’t make it on the
radio, she’ll try to make it on the stage. She, like Elliot, has avoided marriage and children, in
preference of a single life, waiting for “the one.” She has had lovers, and things always led to
fighting/make-up sex with her, and so she has chosen a solitary life, where, also like Elliot, she lives
out her romantic issues songwriting. Sophia is friendly, but guarded, more so than Elliot. There is a
poise, elegance, and grace to her presence, which all help to portray her as a strong independent
woman, not needing a man to complete her.
However, behind her appearance of confidence and strength, there lies a woman exasperated
by the illusion of romance. She is a hopeless romantic, like Elliot, and, like Elliot, she has sifted
through many of romance’s false promises, and arrived at the realization that love is not “forever,” in
the way love stories portray. She tests boundaries, like Elliot, looking for the next romance, in life’s
serial monogamy game. She, like Elliot, would like to find “The One,” forever after, but thinks more
practically, to avoid any further pain from the forever-after illusion, by enjoying the game of seeking
“The One,” in preference of actually finding “The One.”
3. 3
She enjoys being pursued as much as Elliot enjoys pursuing, but she, like Elliot, doesn’t see
it going to any place permanent or more satisfying, than the chase itself, after experiencing so many
relationships, which only lead to fights and make-up sex or just fights and mild friendship.
Sophia knows that she is attractive, and realizes that that is why men are more interested in
sex with her than a complex romantic relationship, with sharing and growth. She knows all about the
natural impulse of man to reproduce and his proclivity for variety of mates. She learned this through
studying the natural man, as well as through her own experiences with men.
Sophia hopes that as she gets older, and her beauty fades, she will have a better chance of
meeting a man who wants to share more with her than her body.
4. 4
Treatment
Lose It All
(Outline)
Lose It All: Overture (Orchestral)
Act I: Scene 1
I. Elliot playing “Lose It All” for Sophia in his seashore cottage.
II. In cottage, they discuss, masterpieces, McDonalds.
III. Lose It All reprise, as they look out the bay window.
IV. Sophia conceals her song about the sailor.
V. Discuss the nature of a songwriter.
VI. (Solo) Sophia sings: “You watch By The Night,” at the bay window.
(Music Fades)
Act I Scene II
I.(Solo) Scene opens with “Think of Me” music.
II. Sophia is 20 years younger, singing ”Think of Me” outside the door of a
house, where her boyfriend is cheating on her with another girl.
III. Scene flashes back up to the present, with Elliot and Sophia discussing the
“Think of Me” subject matter.
IV. They debate, nature us, marriage.
V. Elliot talks about what real romance should be.
VI. Elliot sings, “Hi, Honey I’m Home.”
VII. Sophia counters with her views about marriage, and they battle it out.
(Solo) After much discourse on marriage , Elliot Sings: “If I Let You In.”
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(End Scene)
Overture Music: Lose It All (Verse Section)
Act I: Scene III
V. Open with flashback scene, with a 20 year old Elliot in a bathrobe,
singing, “Even in the Morning.” As his lover, Sandra Sands, sleeps in the
bed across the room.
II. Sandra begins scene by replying to Elliot’s comment on romance, which
is implied but not spoken in scene.
III. They discuss relationships and marriage.
IV. (Duet) Elliot satirizes Sandra’s view of looking on the bright side too
much with the song “Looking on the Bright Side” (Duet with Sandra)
V. More discussion on love and marriage.
VI. Solo: Sandra sings, “It Use to be so simple
End Scene
Lose It All Reprise (Chorus Section)
Romantic Orchestration
Act II: Scene I
I. Open with music from intro to “ Moonlit Knife”, with a 20 year old
Sophia standing in a white wedding gown, holding a knife outside in
the moonlight, with her prospective husband kissing another woman
in a distant gazebo.
II. Solo: A young Sophia sings, “Moonlit Knife.”
III. Advance into the future 20 years, to Elliot’s cottage, with Elliot and
Sophia discussing subject matter of her song.
IV. Elliot discusses how he lost his childhood best friend, because he had
sex with her.
V. Solo: Elliot sings, “Never In Love”.
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(Overture Reprise: Lose It All (Scene Change)
At Elliot’s cottage, Elliot and Sophia banter about rebellion, freedom and romance.
Sophia talks about the strategy of keeping a man by never confessing to him that
she loves him and sings, “Everyday She’s There.”
Subtext: Sophia is singing it to Elliot, and not about a past relationship. The
message in the song is about her and him.
Overture Reprise Lose It All (Chorus)
(Indicate year advance somehow)--(maybe place on stage
a dramatic one minute sequence where time passing is represented by the passing of
many moons, or scenery behind a fake window?)
Two years later, in Elliot’s studio Sophia confesses her secret thoughts about Elliot
and sings, “When I’m Alone.”
Elliot’s response to Sophia’s confessional song when he sings “the Night is My
Cathedral.”
Elliot then, reveals the song that he was working on when they first met, “Lose
It All.” He sings it.
Elliot gives his definition of real romance.
Sophia, as an aside to the audience, sings “I Just Want To Be Close To You.”
(Curtain Close)
(End of Part I)
(Intermission)
Part II
Act III: Scene 1
Constance Butters calls Elliot at his cottage, and they discuss Constance,
alienation, and Elliot decides to go visit her.
Act III: Scene II
Oscar Dent comes over to Sophia’s flat, and they realize that they always fight, and
7. 7
so Oscar leaves. Sophia sings, “I Don’t Want to Fight.”
Act III: Scene III
Orchestra plays instrumental of “Just Had to See” (Brittany’s Lament Melody) to
open scene. At Elliot’s cottage, Elliot and Sophia reveal that they had seen
old lovers the night before and discuss why they did it. They sing a duet,
“Just had to See”
Act III: Scene IV
Solo: Elliot’s kitchen: Sophia and Elliot arguing, leading up to Sophia singing. “Make
Me Wrong.”
Solo: Elliot is apologetic and sings, “I Don’t Want to Fight.”
Overture Reprise
Lose it All Intro.
Act III: Scene V
Final Scene
Elliot and Sophia gazing out the bay window of Elliot’s cottage.
Elliot says he has more to share with Sophia and sings, “A Tale of a Sultry Sea.”
Sophia and Elliot sing a final duet, “Lose It All” Duet.
Final image, Elliot holding Sophia with, Lose It All full-orchestration in the
background.
Curtain Close
8. 8
Fine
Lose it All
SETTING
40 year old songwriter, Elliot Drummond and 38 year old songwriter Sophia
Beecham are at a baby grand piano, in Elliot’s sea shore, New England, Martha’s Vineyard
cottage. Elliot sits behind the piano and Sophia stands near him looking at the score of the
song he is showing her.
It is “Lose It All.” Elliot is singing and playing. Sophia keeps the beat by nodding her head
up and down. The cottage is quaint, with modest furniture, a few paintings and a large bay
window, facing the ocean, as a center focal point of the back wall of the room.
TIME PERIOD
(Sometime in the 20th
century)
Lose It All
ACT I
SCENE 1
Book
(Before Opening Overture)
Before the beginning overture starts, a quick scene where, in silence a songwriter sits, at a piano
(center stage with spot), and standing next to him, a female songwriter. The one sitting places a
songbook up on the piano and begins to play the opening chords to “Lose it All.”
Then cross-cut fade to Elliot sitting at the piano (with Sophia standing next to him) playing
the opening chords to Lose It All.
Then cut-cross away to a center stage with iridescent image of a large bay window,
overlooking a bay, with a lighthouse in the distance. All else on stage is dark. At this point, the Lose
9. 9
It All overture music swells up, composed of four to eight crucial songs from the main musical
repertoire.
DIALOGUE:
Act I: Scene I
Setting: Elliot sits behind his baby grand piano with Sophia to his right, looking down at Elliot’s
score of “Lose It All,” as he plays.
Elliot: Singing and playing: “When we first met, I tried so hard to make this love work. You
know I took you out, and wrote you notes, and showed you secrets untold…”
SOPHIA: Heartfelt: “You know, that is really terrific. I feel like I’m listening to a real musical
theatre tune.”
ELLIOT: “Thank you. I want it to be the title song to this romantic musical comedy.”
SOPHIA: “And this is the musical comedy that your ad, “looking for a collaborator,” was all
about?” (matter of fact, manner.)
ELLIOT: “One and the same.”
SOPHIA: “Well, if all the songs turn out this good, you might really have something here.”
ELLIOT: “A hit?”
SOPHIA: “Who can say? Sure. A hit… who can say… so many variables that must fall into
place for that.”
ELLIOT: “Starting with excellent writing, I am betting.”
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SOPHIA: “I think that is a safe bet.”
SOPHIA: “You ever write throw-away songs you’ll never use?”
ELLIOT: “Rarely, if never.”
SOPHIA: “Why not?”
ELLIOT: “I only follow through with a song if I think it has the potential to be a hit.”
SOPHIA: “A masterpiece?”
ELLIOT: “That’s the general idea. Why waste time mass producing mediocrity?”
SOPHIA: (Sarcastically) “But isn’t that what it’s all about: High volume, high sales, high profit,
medium to low quality?”
ELLIOT: (Laughing) “Ah, corporate life!”
SOPHIA: “Singing: “I do things the company way, the company way…” (From: How to
Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.)
ELLIOT: “That’s right, why sell a fillet mignon masterpiece, when you can mass produce Big
Macs for one million times the profit?”
SOPHIA: “And, one million times the heart burn?”
ELLIOT: “Heartburn to go?”
SOPHIA: “I think they, now, include a small packet of Rolaids with every burger.”
(Both: Laughter, and then they both suddenly, look at the McDonald’s bay on top of the baby
grand piano and then at the McDonald’s bag next to Sophia’s purse, at the table, next to the front
door.)
Then, they look at each other, shocked.
11. 11
ELLIOT: Pointing at the bag on top of the piano, “McDonald’s, it’s not food, but it’s a great food
substitute.”
SOPHIA: “Ah, yes ketchup, my favorite USDA approved vegetable.
ELLIOT: “I suppose the road to masterpiece is sometimes paved with Chicken McNuggets.”
SOPHIA: “And don’t forget, Happy Meals?”
ELLIOT: “Happy for the cow?”
SOPHIA: “I don’t think the cow is consulted too often about its Happy Meal fate.”
ELLIOT: Silent staring at the “Lose It All” score.
SOPHIA: “Elliot?”
ELLIOT: Keeps staring at the scene.
SOPHIA: What is it Elliot?”
ELLIOT: “I’m just thinking about this musical, now.”
SOPHIA: “Oh should we get to work?”
ELLIOT: “Well, that too, but I was just regretting that I had not begun this earlier in life…you,
know youth is wasted on the young, and all that.”
SOPHIA: “If only I knew then what I know now…”
ELLIOT: “We’re not getting any younger.”
SOPHIA: “Six and one half dozen of the other”
ELLIOT: A stitch in time saves nine.”
SOPHIA: slight pause…”Are we working on the musical now?”
ELLIOT: “Not really, or maybe, or I really couldn’t tell you.”
12. 12
SOPHIA: “We’ve both be writing all day, you know, you here at your cottage, and me at my
home in Edgartown. We’re probably both song drunk.”
ELLIOT: “My favorite intoxicant.”
SOPHIA: “Music?”
ELLIOT: “With words?”
Both: Stare out toward the large bay window at the center wall, in silence.
Reprise: “Lose It All” music, as they gaze out toward the light house off the coast. They both
walk over to the window with music in the background:
SOPHIA: Breaking their silence, Elliot: “I was once very in love with a sailor who sailed the sea
all year.” (She speaks hypocritically and forlorn.)
ELLIOT: Stares at her intently, listening. “Tell me more.”
SOPHIA: “It’s a tale I avoid recalling.”
ELLIOT: “Aren’t they all,” says with a sigh.
Both: Silence between them.
ELLIOT: “So, how’s it go?”
SOPHIA: “How’s what go?”
ELLIOT: “The song?”
SOPHIA: “What song?”
ELLIOT: “The song you are pretending not to have written?”
SOPHIA: Aghast, looking sharply at Elliot: “What makes you think I wrote a song about my
sailor?”
13. 13
ELLIOT: “You’re a songwriter, yes?”
SOPHIA: “Yes, but everything is not a song just because I am a songwriter. How
presumptuous!”
SOPHIA: (She turns away in disgust.)
ELLIOT: “You keep secrets?”
SOPHIA: “Something’s are not meant for public exposition.”
ELLIOT: “Is that a fact?”
SOPHIA: “Yes!” (defiantly.)
ELLIOT: “What’s the song called?” (impishly)
SOPHIA: (Irate) “Elliot, There is no song!”
ELLIOT: “You mean you haven’t written it, yet?”
SOPHIA: “You really are something. You think you are being clever and bad, but you are,
actually, just rude.
ELLIOT: “Strike a nerve?”
SOPHIA: (Raises her arms and walks away.)
ELLIOT: “Oh, don’t act so provincial. You songwriters act so innocent when your personal life is
exposed. Everything is a story about somebody else.”
SOPHIA: “Back off, you’re a songwriter.”
ELLIOT: “That’s how I know. As long as everything is a song, nobody knows if it is the real you
or just another pithy insight about human nature. Nobody knows if the song is a social
commentary or a personal confession.”
14. 14
SOPHIA: “Were you raised Catholic?”
ELLIOT: I’m recovering, give me some time.”
SOPHIA: “So writers hide behind their writing and actors hide behind their roles, and professors
behind their textbooks.., so what, all, the world’s a stage.”
ELLIOT: “Now, the song?” slyly.
SOPHIA: “I don’t think I want to play it after all of this, Dr. Freud.”
ELLIOT: “Play what?” ironically.
SOPHIA: “You ought to be shot, and I’ll write a song about that.”
ELLIOT: “I’d buy it.”
SOPHIA: Moving over to the piano (Hypocritically) “I once knew this sailor…
Song #1: You Watch By The Night.
Lights dim; spot on the piano and a soft blue spotlight shines on the bay window, with a
light house burning upon the other shore across the bay. Sophia sings: “You Watch By
The Night.” Toward the end of the song, a five piece chord ensemble, dressed in all
black, appears in front of the bay window, on either side of the lighthouse, singing, “He
would not appear…”.
(Curtain closes)
15. 15
Act I Scene II
Song #2: Think of Me
Scene opens with Think of Me playing Motown. A house cross section with two
lovers, inside, and a young Sophia singing just outside the house front door, “Think of
Me.” (Full Motown arrangement with 3 black Motown, back-up female singers).
Scene shifts to Elliot’s sea shore cottage, with Elliot and Sophia. Sophia is sitting on
the couch relating to Elliot, who is standing in his small kitchen pouring a drink, the
story which compelled her to write, “Think of Me.”
ELLIOT: “And so, he burned you and you wrote that song?”
SOPHIA: “Well, first I dumped him, then, I wrote it…just to lay it all out for myself.”
ELLIOT: “Lay it out for Sophia on the songwriter inside you.”
SOPHIA: “It’s not clear, as you might agree.” (as an aside)
ELLIOT: “And you think all men are that way, treacherous, cheating, deceptive, manipulative
schemers?”
SOPHIA: (Silent for a few moments, “Sophia:… You mean all men?” (Skeptically)
ELLIOT: “All men.”
SOPHIA: Thinking, silently again. …”Yep.”
ELLIOT: “Notice I’m not arguing.” (whimsically)
SOPHIA: “You are not to be trusted either, I suppose?” (Triumphantly)
ELLIOT: “No I can be trusted as far as I say I’m not to be trusted.”
SOPHIA: “Just that far and no further.”
16. 16
ELLIOT: “At least that, far… trust me.”
SOPHIA: “Trust you, now, or before you reached the end of your trust?” (innocently)
ELLIOT: Scratches his head, looks away… “probably.”
SOPHIA: “If you mean I can trust that you are untrustworthy, you can believe that I trust you on
this.”
ELLIOT: I’m not sure I trust you about any of this, now.” (exasperated)
SOPHIA: Turns away, crosses arms.
ELLIOT: (Quietly)“I’ve always been suspicious of complexity. The simplest answer… Occam’s
Razor, you remember?”
SOPHIA: “And what had led you to this?”
ELLIOT: “This conversation.”
SOPHIA: “This is not complex; it’s tongue twisting, no more.”
ELLIOT: “I bet you’ve written some really sophisticated songs, haven’t you?” (knowingly)
SOPHIA: “Very.”
ELLIOT: Walks away and turns quickly after silence, “I liked your song.” Can we put it in the
musical?”
SOPHIA: “I like this conversation better than the last. Yes, I want to put it in.”
ELLIOT: “However, the female back-up singers might be pushing it.”
SOPHIA: “You’re just jealous because my Motown flare is more three dimensionally Motown than
yours.” (sassily)
ELLIOT: “Hmmm… three dimensionally Motown, sounds like a bad Barry Gordy act, with a young
17. 17
Michael Jackson singing lead.”
SOPHIA: (Laughs, pauses) “You know Elliot, you are fun to work with. I’m glad I answered the ad.
Maybe we will strike a hit together.”
ELLIOT: “I’m betting on it… (looks away) You really love Motown, don’t you?”
SOPHIA: “Love it,” (silence tenderly) “What do you love?”
ELLIOT: “I love what I mock, generally.”
SOPHIA: “Don’t you ever say things directly?”
ELLIOT: “Mockingly,” Don’t you ever say things directly?” (Laughs)
SOPHIA: “Yeah, like you love me. You don’t even know me.”
ELLIOT: “I thought that I’d begin a pattern of flattery soon… you know, just in case we have eight
children together.”
Both: Laugh…Then double take to each other with a worried, then smiling face, then looking away
with worried face, again.
ELLIOT: “Say, let’s get back to your cheating Motown song.”
SOPHIA: “He cheated. I found out. I dropped him. What more is there to tell?”
ELLIOT: “Why did he cheat?”
SOPHIA: “Because, because…”stuttering.
ELLIOT: (Finishing her sentence) …”because all men are clever, deceitful, lying, philanderers, and
there is no way to win their loyalty, unless you castrate them with a good old fashioned emasculating
marriage, right?”
SOPHIA: “More Freud…how infantile.”
18. 18
ELLIOT: “Oh, you’re already starting the masculine regression with me?” (feigned concern)
SOPHIA: “Just to control you, mo more.” (with sexual dominance in tone)
SOPHIA: “Anyway, I never said all men are lying cheats, you did.”
ELLIOT: “No, there may be some who are loyal, but there is quite a caveat to that.”
SOPHIA: “I’m all ears.”
ELLIOT: “Well, men who have become somehow, sexually impotent, injured, or just too old to
chase women tend to be much more loyal than the younger, more healthy and attractive men.”
SOPHIA: (Disbelievingly)”So you are saying that any healthy attractive young man will want to
play the field, ever is he is happily married.”
ELLIOT: “Pretty much.”
SOPHIA: (Turns away in disgust: “That’s insane! You can’t prove that! What about moral teachings
that guide and refine a man, so he will respect the commitment he has made to his wife?”
ELLIOT: “Oh that’s pretty powerful training, but no match for an ancient reproductive system which
screams out at him:. Variety of mates!” (with British accent)
SOPHIA: “Nonsense, an attractive wife can hold the attention of her husband.”
ELLIOT: “Even super models get dropped after two years. It’s natural to get bored of even a pin-up
girl-friend, and I’m not suppose to reveal this to anyone, (hand to one side of his mouth)but the
power of a woman’s personality has been really over, trumped up. It’s just no match for nature’s
cycle of men getting sexually disinterested in the women they have already had a successful
conquest over.”
SOPHIA: “Honeymoon before the marriage, you mean?”
19. 19
ELLIOT: “Before, during and after… divorce makes things fresh again.”
SOPHIA: “You do realize that you are a very sick puppy, you know?”
ELLIOT: “I never thought of myself as a puppy?”
SOPHIA: “So, no matter how beautiful a man’s wife is, no matter how much Catholic Catechism
training he has, he is going to cheat, if he is young, attractive and healthy, and the right woman and
situation; arise?”
ELLIOT: “Did you actually say arise?”
SOPHIA: “Pig!”, (walks away.)
ELLIOT: “Look, Sophia, this has nothing to do with morality or what is right or wrong. It is simply
an observation of nature, of which man is part.”
SOPHIA: “Yes, but you seem to overlook the higher nature of man, his virtue and moral strength.”
ELLIOT: “I really don’t think morals enter into active hormones. However, morals are a great last
saving face for those who are no longer in the game of mating. Morals give the washed-up
something respectable to hold onto.”
SOPHIA: “You are deplorable.”
ELLIOT: “Don’t act so puritanical, if the right guy walked into this room, you’d be putty; don’t fool
yourself otherwise.”
SOPHIA: “I have morals.”
ELLIOT: “Fluid morals, or rigid morals. Don’t you think it really depends upon his bank account
and bicep size?”
SOPHIA: “Ok, that’s far enough!” (with conviction)
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ELLIOT: “Ok, ok, Sophia, I’ll back off.” (tenderly)
ELLIOT: “I just never bought into these illusions everybody has about loyalty and fidelity because
when you study the statistics, you don’t find it anywhere, except in the one’s disqualified to even
compete.”
SOPHIA: “I suspect you may be right, I just don’t want to talk about it anymore. I do know this. I
write about it in my songs, as you do, but I just don’t want to talk about it, if you know what I
mean.”
ELLIOT: “Am I supposed to drop the subject because you find it unpleasant, Sophia?”
SOPHIA: “Yes.”
ELLIOT: Silent… looking around… “Can we talk about it, now?”
SOPHIA: “Yes, I’m ready again.” (impishly).
ELLIOT: “Have you ever been married?”
SOPHIA: “No.”
ELLIOT: “Why not?”
SOPHIA: “Just haven’t met the right guy, yet.”
ELLIOT: “An honest one?”
SOPHIA: “Yes.”
ELLIOT: “Honesty, then compromises, then fights, then more compromises, and lots of tolerance,
and then what…dishonesty.”
SOPHIA: “Not always.” (defensively).
ELLIOT: “Always?”
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SOPHIA: “Not.”
ELLIOT: “Always.”
SOPHIA: “Not.”
ELLIOT: “Not always.”
SOPHIA: “Always,” (catches herself, disturbed).
ELLIOT: Laughs
SOPHIA: “Clever, Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “That’s my job. Captivate and conquest.”
SOPHIA: “Good thing marriage is more than that.” (assertively).
ELLIOT: “Ah, yes.” (sarcastically, with his hand painting a broad stroke above,).”Imagine day in
and day out, with the same person…the predictability, of it all, the incalculable familiarity. You’d
almost have to have brain damage to keep it fresh and alive. This is where a marriage becomes a
business, with a business contract signed at the beginning of the partnership.
SOPHIA: “But that is what living together is all about, tolerance, compromise, and sometimes, yes
boredom. But, what about the good stuff, the accountability, the comfort, the dependability?”
ELLIOT: “Sounds like life insurance, not romance.”
SOPHIA: “But that’s the reality of living with somebody.”
ELLIOT: “That’s why I have always say: “If you love somebody don’t live with them.”
ELLIOT: “I know Hollywood filled us all up with a lot of hopes and dreams about wonderful
marriage can be, and how noble men and women can act. And it’s all true, as long as the financiers
are footing the bill for your Hollywood romance. But the reality of marital stresses and nature’s
22. 22
design, allow for the few, if any to sustain what is, classically called romance?... madly in love all
the time, can’t take your eyes off of each other, rebellious, I need to be with you romance! It only
lasts for a few years, at most. Meanwhile, the marriage drags on without it… (pauses)… “men
honest…?”
Song # 3:
Light dim: soft pink light on Sophia, blue on Elliot at the piano. He sings: “Anything
For Your Love.”
Act I: Scene III
SOPHIA: “So, are you a typical man? ... going from one girl to the next.. at least in your mind?”
ELLIOT: “Well, actually, I spend most of my time here at the piano, writing about how I would go
from girl to girl if I were not writing about it.”
SOPHIA: “Very funny, Elliot. So, you are a coward and would rather write about romances than
having, them?”
ELLIOT: “No. I’ve had many and plan to have more.”
SOPHIA: “And all this writing?”
ELLIOT: “Just resting… reflecting a bit.”
SOPHIA: “And then what?”
ELLIOT: “Sell my reflections for top dollar. That’s why you are here… to help with that.”
SOPHIA: “How romantic?” (sarcastically).
ELLIOT: “Making money can be romantic, too. You know the Beatles were wrong: money does buy
23. 23
love, and the goods and services to keep it going.”
SOPHIA: “Throwing money at me never made me love a man more.”
ELLIOT: “Did it make you love anybody less?”
SOPHIA: “Yes.”
ELLIOT: You’re lying.”
SOPHIA: “No, I’m not.”
ELLIOT: “Like a rug.”
SOPHIA: “You don’t know about me. You’re just spouting off, again.”
ELLIOT: “I know human nature.”
SOPHIA: “You only see what you look for.”
ELLIOT: “And a few things I didn’t look for, as well.
SOPHIA: (Stares at Elliot, intrigued).
SOPHIA: “So, you’re not dating?”
ELLIOT: “I’ve never really dated, I’m either in a relationship or alone, but I don’t look for
relationships. I’m open to them, but I just keep busy until one appears.”
SOPHIA: “You write music instead of date?”
ELLIOT: “I’m either alone writing songs about being in a relationship or in relationship writing
songs about how I want to be alone.
SOPHIA: “We always want what we don’t have.”
ELLIOT: “And we don’t always want what we do have.”
SOPHIA: “Until it’s gone.”
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ELLIOT: “Then the tears fall like rain…”
Song # 4:
Elliot sings, “Under My Umbrella,” next to a street lamp in the dark, with an umbrella
and the sound of rain. (Center stage.)
SOPHIA: “Are all of your songs about how relationships don’t work? Don’t you have any about it
working out?”
ELLIOT: Stops to think for a long time, scratching his chin… “I suppose I do, but who cares about
that kind of song? Nobody can relate to that.”
SOPHIA: “Rubbish. Plenty of people have great romances and relationships.”
ELLIOT: “I only know of two in the history of the world and they killed each other towards the
end.” (cynically).
SOPHIA: “Man I’d hate to meet the bitch that screwed you over!”
ELLIOT: “Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of romance… the hunt, the seductions, the conquests,
the betrayals…”
SOPHIA: (Cutting Elliot off) “What about the hopes, the trust, the support, the passion?” (she says
with passion).
ELLIOT: “Oh, those things,” says trivially, I’d squeeze them between the rejecting fights, and
jealousies.”
SOPHIA: “Never a good word for love, eh?” (sassily)
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ELLIOT: “The good word is the revelation of the travesty of romance, the full spectrum of good and
bad.”
SOPHIA: “But, I don’t hear you talking about the good very much.”
ELLIOT: “I think Disney covered all of that pretty well already, not to mention a hundred million
wedding vows sprawled across the history of marriage.”
SOPHIA: “So, it’s your job to balance out the good with the failures of romance?”
ELLIOT: “Nicely put.”
SOPHIA: “It’s no wonder you’re not married.”
ELLIOT: “When I’m in a romance, I want out, and when I am alone, I want a romance…I’m just not
marriage material.”
SOPHIA: “You love your freedom more than romance and commitment, don’t you.”
ELLIOT: “I thought freedom is romance. Isn’t that the whole point of love… freedom…or did that
ideal die with the invention of marriage.?”
SOPHIA: “Wow, you really hate marriage.”
ELLIOT: “No, I hate what marriage does to romance. Remember Wuthering Love Story, Heights
and Helen of Troy? Love is suppose to be forbidden, and dangerous, and not, “Hi honey, I’m home,
what’s for dinner?”
SOPHIA: “I would agree with some of that… but a little safety is nice too. Security can be romantic,
as well as comfortable.”
ELLIOT: “While we’re at it, stocks and life insurance could be thrown into your little security pile,
as well.” (ironically).
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SOPHIA: “You know what I mean, romantic softness.” (she coos).
ELLIOT: “Sex!”
SOPHIA: “Not just sex, companionship and protection.”
ELLIOT: “Yes, I think protection is a good idea… what, with all of these unwanted pregnancies.”
SOPHIA: “Stop it, Elliot. (scolding) “you know, love.” (warmly).
ELLIOT: “Ok, Sophia, let’s say you’re right. Let’s pretend that love is this lasting commitment that
works if you meet the right person. And, theoretically, it might happen. But, in reality, man is
designed to crave variety, constant newness, novelty, stimulation, and that just doesn’t fit into your
romantic bubble.”
SOPHIA: “But man is also designed to crave security, predictability, routine, dependability,
constancy, and companionship. So, romance is as natural as the failure of romance.” (triumphantly).
ELLIOT: (softly and childlike) “I was just highlighting the failure part to keep your soft and secure
world balanced.”
SOPHIA: “Why point out all the bad Elliot? Why not dwell on the glories of romance?”
ELLIOT: (Diplomatically) “Are you married?”
SOPHIA: “No.”
ELLIOT: “Why not?”
SOPHIA: “I told you, I just haven’t met the right guy, yet.”
ELLIOT: “You’re how old?”
SOPHIA: “Elliot, how brazen!” (appalled)
ELLIOT: “Just trying to make a point.”
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SOPHIA: “At somebody else’s expense, thank you!”
ELLIOT: “Look Sophia, marriage, does not foster fidelity like you think. It’s all a lie. Married men
naturally, become bored of their wives and fight like tigers to convince themselves that they are
attracted to them for as long as they can. But nature always wins, and in their minds or in reality,
they stray. It’s natural. There is nothing a woman can do about it…except increase his brain damage
by brainwashing him to want only her, with any number of new sex positions, personality tricks, or
appeals to his fear of loneliness and rejection. It’s a dismal affair, this romance stuff.” (As an aside.)
SOPHIA: “And, unmarried couples are any different?”
ELLIOT: “No, they are not, but at least they have an easier option than divorce to get out of it when
the romance turns into an economic partnership, on just “for the kids!”
SOPHIA: (In denial) “Men just cheat because they want to. There is nothing natural about it.”
ELLIOT: “I disagree. Not only is it a natural cycle for a healthy and attractive male to become bored
of his wife, after about 2 years, it is also forbidden to cheat, which makes it even more attractive!
Remember, the apple that is forbidden is the most attractive apple. Combine these two things and,
voila! You have a recipe for cheating… or at least really wayward thoughts!”
SOPHIA: “And you are saying that the single man will simply move on when this cycle runs its
course? But will he ever experience the deeper ecstasy of commitment and history with one
woman?”
ELLIOT: “Ecstasies or false comfort and dead security…it’s all up for debate, don’t you think?”
SOPHIA: “The only debate I see is your over emphasis of sex in romance.”
ELLIOT: “Spoken like a true woman… always wishing men wanted them for their personalities and
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minds, instead of their performance ability and equipment.” (heavy sigh at the end).
SOPHIA: “Not all men are shallow.”
ELLIOT: “Ah, to the contrary, my dear. All men are so shallow, but you’ll never know it, because
you like, many women, believe the words they say and ignore their behavior.”
SOPHIA: (Staring at him intently. Elliot has struck a nerve).
ELLIOT: “Women parade around with their little Bo Peep diplomas, pretending that all men are,
deep, sensitive, caretakers, paragon’s of virtue, that have been tainted by bad people, and bad
situations, wanting to return home to become the religious icon of masculinity, that Little House on
The Prairie revealed to the world.”
SOPHIA: “Don’t twist my thoughts, Elliot. Many men do come home each night to their wife and
kids.”
ELLIOT: “Fewer than you think, Sophia. And the ones that do, grow weary very quickly of the game
called marriage, where their wild, free, uninhibited romantic side is too often, negotiated in the
compromise of filial duties to spouse and child. If his wife is too sexual, she is a whore, if he she is
too puritanical, he stays in the garage to avoid her nagging virtue, or joins a club to get out of the
house more often, and, the really bad husbands just don’t come home at all, and start a series of
affairs to spice up a boring concubine bliss. (makes a quote sign) Like I said, a man has to be pretty
sick, ugly, or old to give up the chase in preference for a captive prey.”
SOPHIA: “Can’t he chase his wife?”
ELLIOT: “And he does, and that is what I call fight, make-up sex, fight, make-up sex,… it’s just an
abysmal way to spend one’s life.”
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SOPHIA: “But there are skilled wives who know how to make a man feel free, and yet domesticated
enough to love his married life.”
ELLIOT: “Open marriage?”
SOPHIA: “No, closed, but well tended.”
ELLIOT: “Never seen or heard of this working. Variety of mates always kicks in you know… men,
the more women the merrier, always spreading his seed.., or at least fantasizing he could.”
SOPHIA: “Your modern man is a tragic character.”
ELLIOT: “Indeed, he is, but he is not modern. Nothing has changed between men and women. It is
just that more of the details are in public view these days.”
SOPHIA: “What about the healthy attractive man that is cloistered away in a Monastery? He won’t
cheat.”
ELLIOT: “What’s to cheat on there? And, what are the odds of such a vital sexually active man
living in a Monastery?”
SOPHIA: “It could happen.”
ELLIOT: “Didn’t you see From Here To Eternity?” Doing it on the beach, no less!”
SOPHIA: “So, Elliot, it appears you’ve given up on relationships.” (exasperated)
ELLIOT: “I’m dating 88 keys.” (points to the piano)
(Both laugh, relieving a lot of tension from their debate.)
SOPHIA: “88 keys to your heart, how romantic.” (coquettishly)
ELLIOT: “More romantic than my lecture on The Birds and the Bees?”
SOPHIA: “Entirely.”
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ELLIOT: “88 Keys To My Heart… sounds like a bad Nashville country song.”
SOPHIA: “Why don’t you write it?”
ELLIOT: “You write it.” (playfully)
SOPHIA: “No, you.”
ELLIOT: “No you.”
SOPHIA: “You.”
ELLIOT: “You.”
SOPHIA: “You.”
ELLIOT: “You.”
Both laugh
SOPHIA: “But Elliot, you haven’t talked about what it’s all about. I mean your version of romance.”
ELLIOT: “What’s that?” (inquisitively)
SOPHIA: “What about the real touch of a woman, being wanted, the attention of somebody who
desires you even if it’s not forever?”
ELLIOT: “A woman’s touch comes and goes, but think Sophia:” (plays the first chord of If I Let You
In) is here to stay.”
SOPHIA: “But when the right woman appears would you ask her to stay…”
(tenderly) “if you are like me, Elliot, all your words are futile exercises. You’re a hopeless romantic
and you’ll always look for the one who will stay forever, in spite of all you say… I see right through
you…” (her voice trails off and Elliot begins singing and playing, “If I Let You In.”
Song # 5:
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(Sophia stands near, and Elliot sings it to her. Soft Blue Spot).
(End Scene)
Overture Reprise: Lose It All (Verse Section)
Act I: Scene IV (Flash back)
Song #6: “Even In The Morning” “Even In The Morning,” sung by a young Elliot, in a bathrobe,
looking out the window, as his lover sleeps nearby, the morning after love making. Same scene, the
young Elliot gets confronted by his young lover.
SANDRA: “So, you’re saying that romance is a hopeless proposition? Then why are you here, just
for the sex?”
ELLIOT: (Looks away and scratches his thin beard thinking)
SANDRA: “ Elliot, Elliot!”
ELLIOT: “Honey, I love you, you know that. I just don’t believe in happily ever after romance, that’s
all.”
SANDRA: “What about marriage?”
ELLIOT: “I think a few guys who couldn’t keep a girl decided, they would force her to sign a
32. 32
contract as a way of eliminating competition.”
SANDRA: “Why would any women go for such a thing?” (defiantly)
ELLIOT: “Furs, diamonds, houses, cars, vanity, lust, happily ever after sentimentalism…pick your
choice.”
SANDRA: “I happen to know two people that have been happily married for over 60 years.”
(triumphantly).
ELLIOT: “And how are you defining happy, Sandra?”
SANDRA: “You know happy, everybody knows what happy means?”
ELLIOT: “Indulge me.”
SANDRA: “Oh, Elliot happy, come on, happy, smiles, laughter, fulfillment, what’s wrong with
you?”
ELLIOT: “Are we talking about happiness or a day at the circus?”
SOPHIA: “You like to be difficult don’t you? You are trying to create distance between us.”
ELLIOT: “No, I’m just being me. The distance that it may create is simply the byproduct of me with
you. Why do I always have to change me to be liked by you, unless you and me are difficult
together?”
SANDRA: “And you’re just freeing the difficult of us by being difficult?”
ELLIOT: “Difficult to say.” (perplexed)
SANDRA: “You’re not happy are you, Elliot? You were happy when you woke up with me, but
something has happened since then.”
ELLIOT: “Sandra, I am just weary of this.”
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SANDRA: “Of what?”
ELLIOT: “Of this, this! (Points to the floor.) These situations where there is so much expectation, so
much weight to carry.”
SANDRA: “But I’ve asked nothing of you this morning. All I said was I wish this moment would
last forever. I didn’t say it would. It was just, well, you know, rhetorical. And, then, you launched out
into a crucifixion of romance and marriage.”
ELLIOT: “You struck a nerve.”
SANDRA: “About marriage?”
ELLIOT: “Look, Sandra, I’m not saying people can’t remain married. I’m only pointing out that it
becomes predictable, boring and routine. Both people have to compromise too much of themselves
to keep the illusion alive. Spontaneity becomes rare, and eventually, straying unless they destroy
their sexual vitality, takes over. You just don’t want to think beyond how good you feel this
morning.”
SANDRA: “Why should I. Why should I destroy good moments? Life has so few, I’m finding. And
why do you destroy them? Why can’t you just cherish what’s good while you have it. We all know
things get bad, but why must you push it, Elliot?”
ELLIOT: “Save time?” (innocently)
SANDRA: “Very clever, Elliot. Pathetic is what you are…pathetic!”
ELLIOT: “Pathetic, but free as a bird.”
SANDRA: “What’s more free, a wild bird without a home or a domesticated bird that is comfortable
and protected?”
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ELLIOT: “Protected by a gilded cage, or wild, with every perch as its home? You tell me.”
SANDRA: “You hated your mother, didn’t you?”
ELLIOT: “Thanks, now we know you’re majoring in psychology.”
SANDRA: “You did, didn’t you?” (pointed)
ELLIOT: “No Sandra, or should I say, “Miss Freud,” my mother taught me, from many marriages,
love evolves in cycles, and nothing lasts forever.”
SANDRA: “That’s why you’re so screwed up!”
ELLIOT: “Are you married, Sandra?”
SANDRA: “Still waiting for the right one.”
ELLIOT: “And all the wrong ones, so far, were just flukes, exceptions to the rule of a knight in
shining armor to rescue you from your loneliness? Call it nature, call it unfair, call it a lie, but
whatever you call it, doesn’t change the reality that love has seasons that begin and end.”
SANDRA: (pauses, sighs) “Love Use To Be So Simple.”
ELLIOT: “That’s why I prefer romance Sandra. It ends just before things start getting too complex.
Love should be simple. Relationships are complex. Romance and that can kind of complexity cannot
co-exist.” (pauses) Love used to be simpler for me too…”
(Sandra sings: It Use To Be So Simple)
Song #7: It Use To Be So Simple. Lose It All Reprise: Romantic Style Chorus
Scene Change Music Think of Me.
Act II: Scene I
Open with Moonlit Knife. A 20 year old Sophia is standing in the moonlight in a wedding dress, with
35. 35
a knife in her right hand. Her soon to be husband, is kissing another woman, passionately in a
gazebo across the way. Young, betrayed Sophia sings.
Song #8 Moonlit Knife
Setting: Advance into the future 20 years, at the piano in Elliot’s cottage.
ELLIOT: “And you actually planned to kill him on your wedding night?” (surprised).
SOPHIA: “Yep!” (childlike pride).
ELLIOT: “And you call me cynical?” (exasperated).
SOPHIA: “Yep!” (same childlike pride).
ELLIOT: “But you didn’t kill him,” (pause, peering timidly, with fear toward Sophia…tentatively)
did you?”
SOPHIA: “Yep!” (proud)
ELLIOT: “Maybe we should call it a day, Sophia…I wouldn’t want you to get home too late.”
SOPHIA: “Just kidding…but I wanted too!” (she smiles big).
SOPHIA: “I let the bitch have him. She’ll give him more then he deserves, with little help from me.”
ELLIOT: “I won’t argue with that.”
(Both silence).
SOPHIA: “Ever get burnt out by a girl?” (softly).
ELLIOT: “I was once burnt out by a girl that was my childhood best friend.”
SOPHIA: “What happened?”
ELLIOT: “We had sex.”
SOPHIA: “You had sex with your best friend!?” (appalled).
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ELLIOT: “No, no Sophia. It was a girl. We were both sixteen. And after we did it, we were no longer
friends… nor were we lovers.”
SOPHIA: “I’ve heard this kind of thing before. Were you ever in love with her?”
ELLIOT: “No, we were best friends and the adolescent hormones reared their ugly heads. We were
never in love, in the classical romantic sense.”
SOPHIA: “You were in lust, momentarily?”
ELLIOT: “But never in love.”
Song #9:
Never Love Scene Elliot: Lights go down and Elliot sings Never In Love. Elliot is next to
a lamppost at night, with a long black coat and nice hat.
Overture Reprise
Lose It All (Chorus)
Setting: Elliot’s sea shore cottage.
SOPHIA: “You know there is one thing you are right about, Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “Only one thing?”
SOPHIA: “At least one. You are not marriage material.”
Both: Laugh.
ELLIOT: “And you are, I suppose?” (still laughing)
SOPHIA: “More than you.”
ELLIOT: “No argument.”
37. 37
SOPHIA: “Thank you Sophia: (pauses) … I think.”
SOPHIA: “No wait, there is something that you say I agree about.”
ELLIOT: “Eh, what’s that? I’ve struck another target? Ok, what are you after, you want to go home
early, want me to buy dinner, furs, a house, come on, what are you after?”
SOPHIA: (Laughing) “Very, funny. No, you are right about romance needing to be a living free bird,
not a jailed bird.”
ELLIOT: (Listening, intently) “Continue.”
SOPHIA: “When I am in love, my mind disregards any obedience to authority or convention. In fact,
rebelling is the core of love. Risking it all on something unsure, untamable…this is love.”
ELLIOT: “Does that sound like a 50 year mortgage, 2.3 kids and 3.5 cars in the garage?”
SOPHIA: “Ok, ok, I wish marriage would stay the way it started, but that doesn’t mean there is
nothing profitable in marriage.”
ELLIOT: “Did you say profit? I want to meet the woman who leads me there.” (slaps the top of the
piano)
SOPHIA: “What I was about to say, (with annoyance) was that the rebellion I feel in romance is the
desire to be with the one I love, against all odds… even the odds of it not working out.”
ELLIOT: “Do you really calculate all the variables?”
SOPHIA: “Who could?”
ELLIOT: “Good point.”
SOPHIA: “You just have to consider that the one you love may be the one forever… for your whole
38. 38
life, I just can’t play this game you play where you anticipate the end, even before it begins.”
ELLIOT: “Ah, but, sometimes, Sophia, a relationship lasts longer if it never, (emphatically) begins.”
Spotlight on a present day, Sophia looking at Elliot at his piano, and young Sophia walks on stage in
black and to sing Everyday She’s There. It’s about Sophia’s feelings for Elliot.
Overture Reprise Lose It All, two years later in Elliot’s studio, Lose It All overture is in the
background.
Elliot: “So two, years later and we’re almost finished, Sophia. Do you think we’ve written a
Broadway hit?”
SOPHIA: “According to you this romance has run its cycle, two years. So we better have a hit,
because, you will be moving on to another collaborator soon.”
ELLIOT: (Laughs) “I didn’t think this was a romance, so it should last a lot longer.” (smiling
warmly)
SOPHIA: “Elliot?”
ELLIOT: “hmm?”
SOPHIA: “Who do you think about at night?”
ELLIOT: “What do you mean?”
SOPHIA: “Who do you think about late at night when you are all alone?”
ELLIOT: “Past romances, future possibilities.”
SOPHIA: “Do you ever think of me?”
ELLIOT: (Startled) “Sophia, we are working together or writing romantic songs, we are not in a
39. 39
romance.”
SOPHIA: “I think of you.”
ELLIOT: “You what?”
Lights dim, Sophia comes to Elliot’s side and sits next to him and begins to sing and play:
When I’m Alone
Song#11: When I’m Alone
ELLIOT: “I need to tell you something, Sophia.” (softly)
Song# 12: The Night Is My Cathedral
Elliot sings to Sophia:
The Night is My Cathedral, alone at the piano.
ELLIOT: “Sophia, remember that song I was showing you when you first arrived here, two years
ago?”
SOPHIA: “Yes, Elliot?” (lovingly)
ELLIOT: “It is finished…” (resolutely)
Elliot, alone at piano under bright white spotlight sings title song:
Song #13: Lose It All
40. 40
Elliot Sings: Lose It All
ELLIOT: “And so I am really saying Sophia, is that romance requires total loss. You can’t keep a
thing. It’s total freedom… I mean real romance. No contracts, no agreements, no promises, only
moment to moment desire to be with each other, one infinite, unfolding moment, and never knowing
where it’s going and if it will end.”
SOPHIA: “You know Elliot, I understand what you are saying. I know the risk of romance. I just like
a little commitment with my infinite moment.”
ELLIOT: (laughs) “Wouldn’t we all.”
SOPHIA: “It’s all so uncertain, isn’t it?”
ELLIOT: “I’m certain of it.”
Aside Song: Sophia sings
Sophia: “I Just Want To Be Close To You.” ( sung as an aside)
( Curtain Close)
Intermission
Lose It All
Elliot meets old flame and then returns to Sophia
(Part II) Subplot #1 (Act III Scene I)
Elliot answers the phone. It’s Constance Butters, Elliot’s old girlfriend.
41. 41
Constance: “Elliot is that you?”
ELLIOT: “It’s me, Elliot. Who is this?”
CONSTANCE: “It’s me, Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “I thought I was Elliot.”
CONSTANCE: “Elliot, it’s me, Constance Butters.”
ELLIOT: “Constance? Wow, what a surprise. How the hell are you?”
CONSTANCE: “Oh, I’m ok. I just ran across your number, written inside an old Carpenter’s
Greatest Hits songbook.”
ELLIOT: “Oh. Yeah, great songs…Rainy Days and Mondays…”
CONSTANCE: “Always get me down.”
ELLIOT: “Man, what a summer that was. Karen Carpenter had to have been the most bummed out
singer ever.”
CONSTANCE: “Yeah, I always feel so much better when somebody is that depressed…don’t feel so
alone.”
ELLIOT: “That’s why I liked you, Constance. You wrote from your sorrow.”
CONSTANCE: “I write happier stuff now. I can’t stay in the darkness all the time?”
ELLIOT: “Sorry to hear that.” (ironically)
CONSTANCE: “Elliot.” (scolding)
ELLIOT: “So, anyway, what have you been up to?”
CONSTANCE: “Writing songs, playing tennis, committing multiple suicide.”
42. 42
ELLIOT: “Forever melancholic, and romantic.”
CONSTANCE: “Killing me softly with his song, killing me softly.” (sings)
ELLIOT: “Some things never change.”
CONSTANCE: “That’s why I called you, Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “It’s like we just talked yesterday. How’ve you been Constance?”
CONSTANCE: “Not so good, Elliot. It’s always the same with me. I set the bar too high, and fall too
short.”
ELLIOT: “You never were very good at sinking to the level of your incompetence were you?”
CONSTANCE: “Are you saying that I am a failure at failing, Elliot?” (perturbed)
ELLIOT: “No, that came out wrong. (Regaining composure). “Are you still writing songs about
that?”
CONSTANCE: “Constantly.”
ELLIOT: “And what else?”
CONSTANCE: “Emptiness.”
ELLIOT: “Same old thing. (Pausing) So, why did you call Constance? I thought you were sick of
me.”
CONSTANCE: “Elliot, I need your help.”
ELLIOT: “What is it?” (Interested)
CONSTANCE: “I need to talk with you… not over the phone.”
ELLIOT: “Are you still at the same place?”
CONSTANCE: “Yes.”
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ELLIOT: “I’ll be right over.”
CONSTANCE: “Thanks Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “Never could resist a damsel in distress.”
CONSTANCE: (knowingly) “I know.”
(Click, click, both hang up, end scene).
Lose It All
(Sophia hooks up with old flame, and then returns to Elliot)
Subplot #2: Oscar Dent
(Act III Scene II)
Young Sophia’s flat with Oscar. Sophia is watering plants.
Sophia: “You know, I don’t typically do this.”
Oscar: (Looks at Sophia, watering) “You mean just let them die?” (Aghast)
SOPHIA: “No, silly, I don’t usually allow old flames to come over to my house.”
OSCAR: “I don’t usually do this, either.”
SOPHIA: “Come over to an old flame’s house?”
OSCAR : “Watch them water plants.” (Ironically)
SOPHIA: (Changing the subject) “I know we’re both nervous Oscar. We probably shouldn’t be
doing this.”
OSCAR: “There is nothing wrong with visiting, now is there? We’re both adults, and neither of us is
44. 44
married.”
SOPHIA: “Yes, but you remember why we ended. All we did was fight. There was no let up.”
OSCAR: “But that was then; this is now. We’ve both grown. We are different. Things are different.
We don’t have to fight, anymore.”
SOPHIA: “Funny, this all sounds so familiar, all of a sudden.
OSCAR: “Sophia.” (Imploringly)
SOPHIA: “Please, Oscar, don’t push. I should have not called you. I was just lonely. It was a
mistake.”
OSCAR: “No, Sophia, why are you doing this? Things are different. We are different. Maybe you
called me over because the better part of you sees a chance for us.”
SOPHIA: “I’m afraid the worse part of me called you Oscar. You better leave!”
OSCAR: (Starts towards her and Sophia, holds up her hand and begins to sing: I Don’t Want To
Fight.
SOPHIA: “Go, Oscar. This can’t be. I guess part of me, better or worse, just had to see that for sure.
Please, go.” (Almost crying)
Lose It All
Act III Scene III
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Scene after subplots # 1 and #2
At Elliot’s cottage (Present Day)
Orchestra: Open Scene Just had to see instrumental.
Melodic Structure for song is Brittany’s Lament.
(At Elliot’s Cottage)
ELLIOT: “Hello Sophia, how was your evening last night? Did you manage to make any progress on
your songs?”
SOPHIA: “Elliot, I didn’t work on any music last night.”
ELLIOT: “Too, tired? Sometimes , a break is good…. creates a fresh perspective.”
SOPHIA: “No, Elliot, I have a confession.”
ELLIOT: “Having an especially Catholic day today?” (whimsically)
SOPHIA: “Seriously , Elliot.”
ELLIOT: “Are there funny confessions?”
SOPHIA: (Screams) “Elliot! Stop!”
ELLIOT: (Solemnly) “Ok, Sophia. What is it?”
SOPHIA: “Elliot , I know you and I have been getting closer and closer since we started working
together.”
ELLIOT: “Looks intently, listening.”
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SOPHIA: “And there has been a few nights of closeness that were closer than we had anticipated,
and I know that we have both only seen each other during this period of work. Our work together has
become our friendship, and our love for each other.”
ELLIOT: “Sophia, can I tell you something?”
SOPHIA: “No, Elliot, please, let me finish. (Pauses) Elliot, Sometimes, I think we are together by
default. Simply because there is nobody else in our lives, we have created a romance, work related
but a romance, nevertheless.”
ELLIOT: “Sophia, I need to tell you something.”
SOPHIA: (Holding up Hand) “Wait, Elliot I need to get this out. Last night, last night I didn’t write
any music because I invited an old lover to my house.
His name is Oscar, an old flame that never worked out. I don’t know why I called him in, just lonely,
I guess.
I don’t know, I suppose I am afraid of getting too close to you. Maybe I am trying to sabotage what
we have to avoid seeing it fail… for some reason I can’t accept…me.
I am just sick of losing what I create. It somehow seems easier to destroy it before it becomes too
real, too vulnerable.” (Turns Away)
ELLIOT: “Never get too close eh, Sophia. Never make the same mistake again, and again, and
again, and again.”
SOPHIA: “How close is too close, Elliot? How Close?
Song # 16:
( Song Duet, “How Close How Close?”
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ELLIOT: “I have a confession, as well, Sophia.”
SOPHIA: “I‘m not in the habit of hearing confessions.”
ELLIOT: “I knew you were a nun. Why don’t you wear your habit more often.”
SOPHIA: (Grinning) “Carry on, my pun - happy friend.”
ELLIOT: “long ago, I was very close to a woman. Her name is Constance, and I always thought,
someday, if I married anyone, it would be her.”
SOPHIA: “And you saw her last night, right?”
ELLIOT: “I guess we both share a similar hang-up. Fear of falling in love.”
ELLIOT: “I’m not so sure it’s the falling I’m afraid of. It’s the hitting the ground part that scares the
living daylights out of me…You know, the commitment part.”
SOPHIA: “Is there no hope for people like us? Are we just losers? Have we lost it all because our
ideal of love and romance doesn’t fit the real world?”
ELLIOT: “I think you’re getting closer, Sophia.”
SOPHIA: “Why do we even continue, Elliot. Even this with you and me? Why?”
ELLIOT: (Thinks for a moment…) “Screening.”
SOPHIA: “Screening?”
ELLIOT: “Screening, just like Hollywood. We are screening out the lovers that, can’t play the game
we play, until we meet the one who can.”
SOPHIA: “You think romance is some kind of grand experiment where you test to see whose
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compatible, and that’s all?”
ELLIOT: “Yes.”
SOPHIA: “What about the aspects of romance you don’t know about? What about them, Elliot?”
ELLIOT: “I don’t know about them. You just said so. What’s the concern?”
SOPHIA: (Resolved) “So you just test to see, that’s all?”
ELLIOT: “Didn’t you just do that last night?”
SOPHIA: (Silent)
ELLIOT: “Isn’t that how it always is Sophia? You’re with one hoping there is somebody else better
for you, even more compatible. We hate to settle for less when we’re made of something better.”
SOPHIA: “Better than what? You think you’re better than everyone?”
ELLIOT: “That’s not what I’m saying Sophia. I mean you sense there is something better in you that
needs to come out, and you won’t settle for anybody who doesn’t tap that stuff inside. You just get
weary of getting along but not feeling. I’m so tired of feeling mediocre together. I want to feel
special, alive, vibrant together in or nothing. I’m finished with tepid romances.”
SOPHIA: “We’re both hopeless, aren’t we?”
ELLIOT: “No, just too idealistic for a practical world, never quite satisfied, always testing having to
see…”
Song #17: Duet
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(Fade to Black)
Act III Scene III (continued)
Setting: Elliot’s kitchen, Sophia and Elliot arguing leading to Make Me Wrong. (Sophia sings it)
SOPHIA: “You’re the one who brought it up!” (Yelling)
ELLIOT: “Brought it up? All I said was you are wrong on this minor point. It’s a C major chord, at
the first verse not a D major, that’s all I said.”
SOPHIA: “So I’m wrong again and once again, Elliot, The brilliant songwriter is right. Is that it!?
Angry, having arms around.”
(Song # 18 Make Me Wrong) Make Me Wrong
Begins and Sophia sings it to Elliot he broods in the Kitchen
ELLIOT: “Look, Sophia, I don’t want to fight. I’m sorry that I come off the way I do. Would you
forgive me?”
SOPHIA: Looks away.
ELLIOT: “Sophia, please… forgive me.”
SOPHIA: (She comes to his side at the piano, and he sings.)
Song #19: “Don’t want to Fight”
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“I Don’t Want to Fight”
Overture Lose It All Reprise
Act III Scene IV
(Final Scene)
At the bay window, Elliot and Sophia gazing out at the distant lighthouse.
Overture music playing softly in the background.
ELLIOT: “Well Sophia, tonight is our last night working together. The musical is finished. You are a
free woman!”
(Both Laugh)
ELLIOT: “Sophia do you think we’re any closer to each other having shared these two years as
collaborators?”
SOPHIA: “How could we not be?”
ELLIOT: “Well, you know, intimacy seems to push people away from each other, doesn’t it? It
seems the more you share, the more is at stake, the more to lose. All that history means all that
attachment and oh, I don’t know.. Lose.”
SOPHIA: “So what if you lose Elliot? So what if you and I end this collaboration. Like you always
say, it all has to end, so why hold on?”
ELLIOT: “But, it’s not just the ending that I don’t like. It’s all that I get to share. That’s the painful
part, wanting to share more.”
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SOPHIA: “You have that much more to share with me Elliot? Hasn’t our 2 year cycle completed?”
(flippantly)
ELLIOT: “That’s not what I am talking about. Not a sexual romantic cycle…”
(Cuts him off)
SOPHIA: “Then what? What are you talking about, Elliot?”
ELLIOT: (Pauses..) “Sharing, just sharing.”
“Song # 20 Tale of a Setting Sea”
Soft Blue spot on Elliot and Sophia at the bay window.
Elliot Sings
After Song…
SOPHIA: “Yes, Elliot, sharing makes people more attached and more afraid of losing what they’ve
gained. Intimacy opens wounds of not being loved and lost love. But if love can’t survive love, what
is it, anyway?”
ELLIOT: “Sophia ?”
SOPHIA: “Yes, Elliot”
ELLIOT: “Would you keep working with me?”
SOPHIA: “You want to write another one”
ELLIOT: “And another, and another.” (sweetly)
SOPHIA: “I guess, I could. I’m really not booked for oh, say the next 50 years.” (says
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hypothetically)
ELLIOT: “Next 50 years?, ( a bit amazed)
SOPHIA: “No, Elliot… what am I.. saying? I, I can’t…” (sudden shock, locked in memory).
E: “Other, plans?” (casually)
S: “No, that’s not it.” (coming back to life).
E: “Going to hold out for something better? You know somebody smoother, less difficult, more
agreeable, cuter fingers?” (holds his fingers up and twinkles them)
S: “No, I don’t need a puppy, not even a sick puppy.” (referring to an earlier comment)
E: “Then why Sophia? Why end this? We virtually have no sex life at all, live in separate homes,
keep all of our money separate, and have endless differences of opinion from everything from
romance to the uses of a dominant seventh chord; it’s perfect. How much closer could two people
get?
S: (looks away and grunts) “Bizarre.”
E: “Oh, Sophia stop playing so high and mighty. You women and your damsel in distress costume.
(exasperated) You know as well as I do, that intimacy only makes people more distant.”
S: “That’s just one part of it. It swings back to intimacy, again, and that’s what you hate to talk
about… that it’s the intimacy part that matters, not the distance in between. I am afraid it will always
be a draw with you and me, like two chess players too tired to go on, and too stubborn to stop
playing.”
E: (listening intently, sitting on the piano bench and then rising to stand nearer Sophia.)
S: (Continuing) “I need intimacy, Elliot, I need contact, real contact, not just intertwining melodies
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and harmonic chord progressions. My point is that your counterpoint is not enough.”
E: “Cute, Sophia,” softly.
S: “I need more than your version of romance, love without love… none of the bad, but none of the
good either.”
E: “Nothing to lose everything to gain, however. Whatever happened to hot passionate friendship?
Did that go out of style? Or, would you be more flattered if I seduced you more often and avoided
working on music with you? Is that what you want? I’m really good at that, Sophia … you know
avoiding hard work to jump into the sack, instead. But, you wouldn’t like yourself in the morning, or
have you forgotten how this all works? Is it really your experience that your brand of intimacy leads
to closeness?...”
S: (Cutting him off) “I don’t care.” (She yells in tears.) I’d rather have that and lose it all than have
nothing, with your wretched potential gain!”
S: (She walks away towards the door, stops and melodramatically, turns to Elliot and says:
“Goodbye, Elliot.” (she stares at him, holding back her tears.)
E: (Staring back from across the room,) “Goodbye, Sophia.” (He speaks calmly and sadly.)
Lights fade a little and Elliot sings to Sophia from across the room; The song “Sophia’s Theme.”
Scene cut-away cross fades to Sophia alone in her home, and Elliot alone in his cottage, They are
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singing “Lose It All,” as a duet from separate homes. Duet is in counterpoint style and ends lushly
and softly.
(Duet Lose it All) (Final)
(Fade To Black)
(Curtain Close)
Fine
After Final Scene and Final Overture
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After final scene and final overture, light fades, leaving a single spot on a center stage piano,
with the same unknown songwriter sitting at the piano, with the same unknown female songwriter
standing next to him, both looking at a songbook up on the piano. The, one sitting is playing the last
chorus of, “Lose It All,” and they both sing together in duet, “I just can’t stand to lose it all, again.”
End scene: Fade to black. And then sudden center stage image of the same iridescent bay
window with light house, looms center stage (from beginning of musical). Slowly, the light of the
twilight purple sky in the window dims, leaving only the pin-point light of the distant lighthouse.
Suddenly, the intro chords of “Lose It All” with verse melody begins, and soon rests on a
sustain chord, and as the chord decrescendos, so does the lighthouse beacon.
