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  | | Script: $9.00 | | Notebook Script: $16.75 | | | (8.5 x 11 3-ring binder with large margins for notes) |
| | First Performance Royalty: $75.00 | | Each Additional Performance: $75.00 | | Limited Video Rights: $50.00 | | Limited Streaming/Broadcast Rights: $50.00 | | Extra Streams: $0.50 | | | Type: Full Length Play | | Genres: Drama, Dark Comedy, Classics | | Theme: Classic Adaptations | | Running Time: 90 minutes | | Speaking Cast: 4-5 females, 4-6 males, 8-11 total cast | | Flexibility: doubling possible | | ISBN: 978-1-61588-542-8 |
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| | Script Preview Comments Photo Gallery Productions | | | Synopsis | | It is the night before Halloween at a group home for senior citizens in the small town of La Center, Washington. Donald Quintero, an aging resident with dementia, is costumed as a knight by the staff and decides that he really is a cavalier of old, viewing the world around him as land of castles, giants, fair ladies, and evil sorcerers. At first, his antics are harmless––even therapeutic for the other residents––and the staff indulges Don’s fantasy, much to the consternation of his practical-minded son, Sam.
Then, Don’s delusions of knightly valor begin causing inadvertent harm to himself and others: he uses his wheelchair to joust against a vending machine (he sees a giant), he destroys cardboard cutouts of Thanksgiving pilgrims (he thinks they are holding the house director prisoner), and he nearly strikes another resident with a yardstick sword (he sees her as an infidel). Worse, he convinces another resident that she is his paramour, Dulcinea. She forsakes her real identity and no longer recognizes her husband of forty-nine years. The house staff realizes Don has gone too far.
But because logical explanation is ineffective with those who suffer from advanced dementia, the staff choose to employ validation therapy to get through to Don: address him from inside the fantasy. They pose increasingly difficult knightly challenges to try to prove Don isn’t a real knight, but to no avail. Finally, Don’s son Sam, posing as the Knight of Mirrors, brings his father back to crushing reality, though we are left wondering if the remaining fragments of the identity of Donald Quintero are truly better than the fantasy of Don Quixote. |
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