PANIC CORD [ON HOLD !]

OPENING ACT

00. "BATTER UP, BOYS !"

      SHE wanted the world to make sense. A rhyme or reason to define the chaos that ensnared them all. A rationale for why a man would decide to play god and bring about the riot of war. Spent lifetimes making sure no blood was spilt, save her own when she would cut her thumb upon paper. A god: but wittier, prettier and much more volatile. Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often even funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all. A macabre desire to end the anarchy yet fuel it within herself almost consumed her and the glamorisation of a forth-coming mundane finality, snippets of twisted mortality cursing her own future ― and bleeding into her past. Little girls love playing games, except they're never truly games. The dolls are people, the floor an empire, really, shouldn't she have just grown up? The girl didn't want to be inferior, or less. She was not like any of the other wide eyed people who told the truth too easily, bled too freely, and gave their adoration away like it's gift-worthy. And so a girl joined the riot: the fight for freedom. She swapped niceties for things lacking, and stepped forwards with grace and gritted teeth. A young girl became a martyr: yet she did not die for any bodies sins (yet), she lived for them.

Sometimes, gods make mistakes. I have known one that did. He sent a girl into a battle she did not understand, gave her a crown and an empire that she was willing to hold ― but to gods, planets are play things, aren't they? Chess pieces neglected and forgotten. She had been playing forever with silver needle and thread, and so, a god decided to spare her the pain, because let's set the game away to another day. She had nearly pricked herself: and so he gave her a plastic crown in exchange for a real one. Games are not games to little girls, just as candy is more than that to little boys. She is not candy, she left holes in hearts rather than in teeth ― or a doll to toss around: between forests and wine and suburbs and grape juice, between bitter battlefields and gunshots and bloodbaths. Little girls are not little girls to anybody save adults. Of course, all little girls grow up. I have known many that did. The grown ups may have left her but she is her own best friend, and better off for it. Crowns may be plastic but the responsibilities are gold, silver, bronze. Her skin became her battle armour and her lips laced with poison. Didn't the adults want her to grow up? Well, here she is! Old. A girl who has no time for petty games. She's played her own long ago. And now she knew there wasn't a thing worse than being absolutely nothing. She wanted to feel something: for a girl's most dangerous moment is when she pulls the gun from her own throat and points it at the world.

THE ACTORS
  ― MORE THAN PRETTY FACES
ACT ONE & TWO

madelaine petsch OR rosie bea caldwell as clara fitzgerald
daisy ridley as jean atkinson