April, 2024: The play is still called missing people/missing people: An investigation of the many reputed failures of the back-to-the-land movement and/or Do you dream of cabins in the woods and/or When queer left the city and got lost on the Lost Coast*
*This play contains Clowns.
Don’t Trust Google Maps: Fly to San Francisco. Drive north for 5 hours, get through the old growth. Coming from town, you go past the new fire station & the houses, you take a right off the county road onto the dirt road split at the bottom around a crab apple tree and some mailboxes. We’re up at the top of the drive, past a couple dead Volvos with canoes on top.
- It’s 1969 and everybody’s fucking off to a cabin in the woods.
- Is it Me? Alone? Past the Edge of All Human Existence? Have I reached…The End Of The World??
- HELLO. THIS IS YOURRRRRR COMMUNITY RADIO AND WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU ABOUT YOUR MEMBERSHIP.
- A young clown tumbles onto the stage. She tries to start a fire with a book titled How To Start A Fire.
For a while, when I was twelve, I thought only lesbians got happily-ever-afters. It made a great deal of sense at the time.
- It’s 2020 and everybody’s fucking off to a cabin in the woods. Is it Me? Alone? Past the Edge of All Human Existence? Have I reached…The End Of The World??
- An absurdly, theatrically beautiful sweep of stars in the dark. Orion and the Milky Way punched in a sheet of tin.
- Three young clowns attempt to build a house with a book titled How To Build A House.
- Welcome to Passed Times Radio! Tonight: Do you remember the good old days? Followed by: the year in fish.
The rains came hard this winter for the second year in a row. The thick gloss of water settling into the hill is fissuring the earth like a half-baked cake, gaps splitting in the mud under the roots of trees which proceed to gently, softly uproot themselves over the driveway at extremely inconvenient angles.
- It’s 1905 and everybody’s fucking off to a cabin in the woods. Is it Me? Alone? Past the Edge of All Human Existence? Have I reached…The End Of The World??
“They came here like that, in that same way. A different migration. They all came in horse and buggy. Yeah. And then they were here, or in the covered wagon, as he did. And ended up here. And then, you know, we came in a school bus.”
Note: Why here? It’s an old clearcut, it’s so sunny. Everyone grows here.
- It’s the fundraising driiiiiiiiiive & this year we’re changing things up a bit! If you’ve donated already, dig a little deeper & support the MUD. Next up: Can you fix arthritis with duct tape?
When I was ten I went to summer camp on my neighbor’s homestead and we played dress-up in Chad’s enormous costume closet. Joan taught us how to promenade in a clown nose and her wife taught us to play pool and black jack. Chad died before I was born.
- It’s 1983 and everybody’s fucking off to a cabin in the woods. It’s 1849 and everybody’s fucking off to a cabin in the woods.
- Two young clowns try to put up a fence & are chased off by a lazy mother skunk.
Note: Puppets!
- Karl filling in for the Bumblebee who’s out this week. Bee, we’re all sending you and Dee our love so I uh. I hope you can hear us over the airwaves.
- Two old femme clowns wearing big sunhats try to relax side-by-side in lounge chairs but the sunbeam keeps moving.
- THIS IS A MEMBERSHIP DRRRRRRRIVE!
- Next on the air: Is it illegal to be buried under my fruit trees?
- I just want to remind folks um if we’re talking we can’t take your call so if you just call back as soon as we finish talking thank you for understanding we’re all doing our best – i’m gonna run over there right now to the phones and –
Last summer I unearthed a rock wall in my mother’s garden that she tells me was made by a man I never knew who built it for her when I was born and held me and laughed. He died before I recognized him.
Note: A world of queer women. Queer as the self at odds with the world and queer as I fuck women and queer as not cis and queer as PTSD and queer as just real strange. With chainsaws.
We lived in the empty spaces after the clearcuts, and there was so much freedom there
- Do You Dream of Cabins In The Woods?
- This next hour is set aside for uh. for family and friends of – to call in and share their memories. Ah – and if you want to donate to help pay off the medical bills there is an account at the credit union.
- One old clown lifts her face to the sun on her lounge chair. The second chair is vacant, with a big old sun hat on the seat.
How wrong does a social movement have to go to make it a failure? How many people need to survive to make it a success?
How do you know?
