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TIME: The Present PLACE: Bloomingdales New York
CHARACTERS: The call is for women over 40. They are four women who bond because of menopause symptoms. Their relationship develops like people on a long plane trip that share their life stories and never see each other again once they have landed.
PROFESSIONAL WOMAN: [big belt voice to E, should be able to sing gospel and inprovise] 45-55 African American. With an attitude, she is in the position of power in her career and has earned every dollar working twice has hard as her male counterparts; great legs under short skirts; a control freak, out of control with the big M and has little patience with the havoc it is wreaking on her life. Her ride to the top of the heap (i.e. owning her own company) has left her with little relationshop to her daughter, her mother, her race. It has always been difficult for her to identify if it was fear of failure or fear of success that was her great motivator. The frustration of dealing the raging hormones is not only with the symptoms, but in her inability to control them. This perceived failure allows other parts of being a woman to surface including accpeting the knowledge that she is, in fact, not alone on her mountain.
SOAP STAR: [soprano with a belt, lyric soprano to E, belt to B] 42-50. attractive, well preserved and buxom. She is obviously passed the ingenue character that she has played in a popular soap opera. She is struggling to come to grips with aging unsuccessfully because it affects her livelihood as well as her life. She is th most shallow of the four but manipulative because of her celebrity. Her emotions run from fearful to frustrated. The evolution of her friendship with the others is the result of having to look beyond beauty, from what is skin deep to what is real.
EARTH MOTHER: [warm, pleasant voice, strong chest voice to C] 48-55 very healthy, vegetarian, survivor of the 60's drug era; she could wear Birkenstocks and socks; herbalist, astrologist. She lived on a community farm in Connecticut with her husband whom she met at Woodstock. She roly poly. Of the four, she has the least baggage...she is warmer, and the least judgemental. She is the Mother Earth character that one would expect the housewife to be...as long as she has had sleep. She doesn't get angry... only cranky. She is not self-conscious about who and what she is. She is the most playful. Unlike most women at this age that are put in the position of parenting her parents due to aging or ill health, she has been mothering her mother for the last several decades (and marriages). She loves and is loveable, both characteristics draw people to her.
IOWA HOUSEWIFE: [low chest voice, sweet, innocent sound, should be able to belt to C]44-48 not quite in shape, her clothes make her look a lot frumpier than she really is (i.e. no sense of style). She is in town with her husband who is at convention and is trying to rekindle their romance on a second honeymoon... to no avail. She wears bifocals and carries her handbag under her arm constantly. She had her children later in life so they are still at home. She has naive wisdom; she prattles oblivious to the fact that no one is paying attention; she is the product of being a housewife and a mother. Until her hormones started to surge, she got her power from being a wife and mother. She is discovering - but waffles as she is doing it - what her husband and kids have known all along. She has strength... and the ability to discover her own destiny.
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