May I borrow your shoes, please?

© 2008 Alicia Harding

At the go, all the Neos ask an audience member, “May I borrow your shoes, please?” Neo 1 (in this case, Alicia) sits center stage and carefull unties and removes his/her shoes. Neos keep asking the audience until they feel that the resource is tapped out. If there are not enough shoes, Neos will take off their shoe(s). Ideally, there will be at least 10 shoes, but more is awesome. All available shoes will be placed in a pile stage right. Neo 1 arranges the shoes in a rectangle against the stage right wall, just big enough for him/her to sit cross-legged inside. After all the shoes are gathered, other Neos will take a seat.

Neo 1 continues making the rectangle and says:

I learned this trick from a little girl
with a long braid and a unicorn dress.
She was so different that she sometimes disappeared.

Neo 1 sits inside the shoe rectangle with his/her back to the audience.

She did this to make an imaginary space
in her grandma’s living room.
Where she became invisible
because no one was paying attention.

(beat)

Curtain.*

*For the rest of the show, whenever Neo 1 is not in a play, he/she sits in the shoe rectangle with his/her back to the audience. At the end of the show, audience members have to come on stage to collect their shoes.

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