About the Play
Drama. 28-35 minutes. 1 female or non-binary, 7 any gender. Suitable for middle school and older.
Premiered at Rutgers University by SHEM Productions (New Brunswick, NJ).
The author grants productions pre-approval to make cuts to meet time limits and community standards regarding profanity and obscenity for Texas UIL and other one-act competitions.
Synopsis
Five young outcasts live together in an abandoned fun park. It may not be much, but it's home—until a pair of contractors show up: Funtown has been marked for imminent demolition. Jo wants to fight, Hair wants to hack into the developers' system and Doc just wants everyone to calm down. But as the wrecking ball takes aim at everything this chosen family has built, will they come together or scatter back to their solitary lives?
"Our students chose to perform this story because the content resonated with each one of them and it provided an amazing challenge for my actors, technicians, and for myself as a director and educator. Each character and their actions in this story were so relatable to my students and created a space for them to explore and create a home within this world. The dialogue that this script holds and invokes on our audiences helped us celebrate ourselves and each other as well as created an environment to reflect on the meaning of "fighting for your home" and what a "found family" is through a variety of genres. I am so proud to have done this show not only for competition (which we received so much praise and awards from clinicians and judges in competition), but also, I am proud to have done this show for our students and community. Laura Neill's Funtown is a show that let our creativity run free and let my students perform a story with so much honesty and so much love." - Maximiliano Estudillo, director, Young Women's Leadership Academy of San Antonio (San Antonio, TX), UIL production 2022