THEATER OF
THRILLS AND HIGH ADVENTURE!
"The League of Fiends!"
by Richard Nathan
Before the lights come up, a voice introduces the story:
VOICE
Few know of its existence.
Those who do, tremble at its name!
Beware! Beware of...
THE LEAGUE OF FIENDS!!!
Lights come up on a meeting of the dreaded League of Fiends. Present are JASPER, ALEXI and HUGO.
The only furniture necessary are some chairs.
Jasper brings the meeting to order.
JASPER
I now call to order this meeting of the
League of Fiends! Do we have a
quorum?
ALEXI
Yeah, all three of us.
HUGO
Not much of a league.
ALEXI
Is three enough for a league?
JASPER
Gentlemen! We all know how our
membership has been decimated by
Francis Hearst, the Vanquisher!
ALEXI
We must obliterate him!
JASPER
Yes, we must. But it won't be easy
when no one has seen his face,
and lived to tell of it!
HUGO
But we have to stop him before he
reduces our membership to two!
ALEXI
Two is definitely not enough for a league!
HUGO
We'd have to call ourselves the Pair of
Fiends!
JASPER
I am as concerned about our declining
membership as the rest of you.
ALEXI
What do you propose we do about it?
JASPER
I have recruited a potential new member! I
am confident he would make a most excellent
fiend! Let me bring him in.
Jasper exits, and enters a moment later with SHERMAN KING.
JASPER
Gentlemen, meet Sherman King!
ALEXI
Mr. King, why do you feel we should
accept you into our organization?
SHERMAN
I crave power! And I am ruthless, with a
healthy
streak of sadism.
HUGO
Tell us about some of your notable past
fiendish experiences.
SHERMAN
I've been a slumlord for many years.
Recently one of my tenants, a poor old
lady, could not pay her rent, so...
HUGO
So you evicted her!
SHERMAN
No, I married her, took out a million dollar
insurance policy on her life, and injected
her with a virus! It was as painful as it was
lethal.
JASPER
Where do you see yourself as a fiend five,
ten and twenty years from now?
SHERMAN
Five years from now I plan to rule a country;
in ten years I will have conquered a second
country, and in twenty years, I plan to rule
a continent!
HUGO
A continent? Why not the world?
SHERMAN
I may be a fiend, but I'm not unreasonable. I
am willing to leave something for my fellow fiends.
JASPER
I think we can all agree that Mr. King will make
a fine addition to our ranks!
Enter FELICIA THE SHARK.
FELICIA
No, we can't all agree.
ALEXI
Felicia the Shark!
JASPER
You're not dead?
HUGO
The papers said you were killed by
Francis Hearst!
ALEXI
The Vanquisher!
FELICIA
Why don't you ask him? He's right here!
Only you know him as Sherman King.
SHERMAN
Who is this crazy dame?
FELICIA
Francis! Don't you remember me, the
woman whose car you ran off the road?
Who would have died if she hand't leapt
from her car before it burst into a fireball
of hell!
SHERMAN
Lady, I've never seen you before in my
life!
FELICIA
Never seen me before? When my mug
was plastered all over every paper in
town?
SHERMAN
What are you, a lawyer? I may have seen
you in the papers, but I sure as hell never
met you in person!
FELICIA
No, you just tried to kill me!
Felicia draws a gun and aims it at Sherman! He puts his hands up and walks slowly toward her.
SHERMAN
Hey! Take it easy! Just because we're
fiends doesn't mean we can't all be
friends.
Suddenly he slugs her and grabs her gun away. Felicia crumbles to the floor.
JASPER
He hit Felicia! No one's ever done that
before!
ALEXI
He must be Francis Hearst!
HUGO
The Vanquisher!
JASPER, ALEXI and HUGO draw their guns, and suddenly there is a firefight.
Sherman is amazingly fast. He shoots Jasper, Alexi and Hugo before they can fire a shot! For a moment, it looks like Sherman has triumphed. But Jasper isn't quite dead yet. He raises his gun and kills Sherman. Then Jasper drops his gun. All four mean are now lying on the floor.
Slowly, Felicia rises to her feet. She surveys the carnage.
JASPER
(dying)
He got us, Felicia. He got us all. But we got
him. Now it will be up to you to start a new
League of Fiends.
FELICIA
I don't think I will.
JASPER
But you've got to. You're the only fiend left.
FELICIA
I'm not a fiend, Jasper. Not like you, or Alexi, or
Hugo, or even Sherman King. Yeah, Sherman
was a fiend. But I'm not. I let him take my gun,
so all you fiends would destroy each other. You
see, ... my real name is Frances Hearst ... the
Vanquisher!
Jasper groans and dies.
BLACKOUT!
THE END
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scripts
© 2005 by Richard Nathan. All rights reserved
The author grants all internet uses to print these scripts for their own, personal, non-commercial use. No other use may be made without the author's permission. Without limiting the foregoing, the plays may not be staged without the author's express permission.
Send e-mail to the author at Richard-Nathan@att.net.