There’s No Place Like Home

by

“may*star”

Setting:

On one side of the stage there is a small sterile looking room with two beds and two sets of shelves. There are 3 white walls, the wall towards the back of the room contains a heavy door with a small window in it. The glass of the window is shatterproof. One of the other walls has a window that does not open. This window is also made of a material that cannot be broken. The walls are bare. The beds and the shelves look like a dorm room. The beds are made neatly, military style. There is nothing in the room other than about 3 stuffed animals and a set of pajamas on one of the shelves. When this room is lit, the rest of the stage is dark. And vice versa. The other side of the stage is very plain and contains only a basic table, a basic chair and some black theatre boxes.

Characters:

Starr: {2 identical actresses will be needed to play the part of Starr because Starr often needs to be on stage in two places at once.}

She is a 15 year old foster child. She had really long hair and blue eyes. She is wise beyond her years, yet too trusting. She is nice, sweet, compassionate and caring. She is creative and a writer. She makes her own clothes. She has always hung out with the so called ‘bad crowd’, the Goths and the punks so on, but she has remained true to herself. She has never done drugs or had sex even though all her friends have. She has pretended to smoke and she has done some minor shoplifting. She gets close to straight A’s in school and she has depression, but hides it around her foster parents so that she is not put on meds.

Faith: a girl who has been taken away from her parents because her dad molested her. she has a sister named hope and a brother with a normal name. she seems friendly and undamaged.

Scott: Starr’s boyfriend from ages 14 to 15. Starr loved him with all her heart, but he was younger than her and didn’t really understand what love was. Starr attached herself emotionally to him when she had no one else. They were best friends. He played roller hockey at the time they were together.

Stern looking woman: A staff member that works at the modern day orphanage called orangewood. She is white and about 50 years old with dark red hair. Very conservative clothing.

Group home staff member: a tall emotionless African America man. He is much like a robot. Cold and heartless. Sometimes he laughs, but he is still colder than ice. His wife is the same. Together they are the perfect pair of robots.

older woman: Starr’s foster mom at one time. She is white and about 58 years old. She has a slight southern accent and a fluffy orange blonde perm. She is cold are uncaring also. She has lots of foster kids so that she can get lots of money. She makes the kids wear thrift store clothing and will only buy junk food and frozen food. She refuses to buy fresh fruit because she’d rather not spend that much money on the kids.

staff members: people that work at Orangewood Children’s home.

social workers: a man and a woman

principal: a man with dark hair, about 6 feet tall or shorter.

Mary: a conservative looking woman.

kids: just 3 people, no speaking lines.

man: a school worker, (can reuse a staff member actor for this part)

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SCENE 1

(Lights up on the plain side of the stage)

Group home staff member: (calmly, coldly) Starr, will you come here please.

(Starr walks across the room to the Group home staff member)

Starr: Yes?

Group home staff member: (pointing to a pair of shoes) Will you please put your shoes away?

Starr: (politely, truthfully) Excuse me Aaron, but those aren’t my shoes.

Group home staff member: (Calmly, emotionlessly) Starr, you are arguing. You need to say “okay” and follow instructions.

Starr: But they aren’t my shoes!! How can I put them away if they are not mine!?????

Group home staff member: 2000 negative points for arguing. Remember how we follow instructions Starr? We say “okay” and then we do the task. Saying anything other than “okay” is considered arguing. You can put those points down after you put your shoes away. Starr, please put your shoes away.

Starr: But I told you, they aren’t mine!! I can’t put “my” shoes away if they are not “mine”!

Group home staff member: (disgustingly calm and cold) You’ve earned another negative 2000 points for not following instructions. You may write those points down now, along with the others you earned for arguing.

(Starr pulls a “point card” out of her back pocket and unfolds it. It is the size of half a sheet of paper. Starr goes to the table and sits.)

Starr: May I have a pen please, Aaron?

(he hands her a pen)

Group home staff member: Okay, are you ready?

Starr: Yes.

(she puts her pen to the card, ready to write, Starr writes as he talks.)

Group home staff member: Column One: “Respecting Authority.” Column two: “didn’t say ‘okay’.” “2000 negative points.” Are you ready for the next one?

Starr: yes.

Group home staff member: Column One: “Respecting Authority.” Column two: “didn’t follow instructions.” “2000 negative points.”

Starr: (finished writing) okay, done. Please sign, Aaron.

(she hands him the card and the pen, he signs his name on each row.)

Group home staff member: Okay good. Now we are going to do a role-play. Ready?

Starr: Yes.

Group home staff member: Starr, please go get me some paper from Tina in the Office.

Starr: Okay.

(Starr goes offstage and comes back with paper, she hands it to Aaron.)

Group home staff member: (still with a cold, calm, fake voice) Good Job. You’ve earned 1000 positive points. You may write those down now.

(Starr sits down and begins to write what he tells her)

Group home staff member: “Respecting Authority.” “Role-play.” “1000 positive points.” Okay, we’ll do another role-play. Let’s do one for “Boundaries”. Ready?

Starr: Yes.

Group home staff member: Okay, you are at school and a boy tries to hug you. What do you do?

Starr: You back away and leave the situation as quickly as possible. When you get home, you tell a staff member and self-report about the incident.

Group home staff member: and why is it important to self-report?

Starr: because someone else may have seen and misunderstood and told the staff and then you guys would think that I was hiding something if I didn’t tell.

Group home staff member: Good Job. Now read from the book about “boundaries.”

(he hands her a thick book the size of text book, open to the page she needs to read from.)

Starr: (reading aloud) Boundaries. Step one. Imagine big circles radiating out from your body… (she starts laughing) hahaha. Circles radiating out from your body?! (she makes circle gestures in slow motion, making fun of the book) You’ve got to be kidding me! This book is insane!

Group home staff member: Starr, that is not appropriate behavior.

Starr: Sorry Aaron.

(there is a knock at the door, Starr gets up and goes to the door, the Group home staff member goes too. Starr opens the door.)

Starr: (in a very fake voice and holding out her hand) Hello. My name is Starr! It’s nice to meet you!

(she firmly shakes hands with the lady at the door.)

Group home staff member: Hello Mary, just one second. (turns towards Starr. He still uses the calm fake voice..) Starr! You did a good job! “Getting along well with others.” “Shook hands with and Greeted Mary.” “1000 positive points.”

(Starr struggles to write down her points without going to the table.)

Starr: Please sign, Aaron.

( she hands him the card and pen and he signs)

Group home staff member: You still are “in the hole”. You do not currently have your privileges. Here’s some paper. (he hands her the paper he’s been holding) You will earn 250 points for each role play you write. Do one on “boundaries”, two on “getting along well with others” and two on “respecting authority”. They should each be one page long. Let me know when you are finished.

Starr: “Okay.”

(Starr goes to the table with the paper and begins to write. Aaron and Mary exit. Starr sits there writing. Time passes. The lights fade.)

SCENE 2

(Lights up on the small room on the other side of the stage. Starr sits on one bed. Faith sits on the other.)

Starr: yeah, so that group home was probably the worst place I’ve ever lived in.

Faith: wow, I bet!

Starr: and if we didn’t get up and go to the door and shake the people’s hands…even if it was just out own friends…and even if we were in the middle of dinner or something, we would get negative points!

Faith: that’s terrible!

Starr: Oh! And we would get negative points if we didn’t have our point cards with us at all times!

Faith: that is so inhumane!

Starr: They made us ask to eat, ask to go to our rooms, to go to the bathroom, to go outside…and when we did go outside, we had to stay near the house and they would check on us.

Faith: that’s even worse than this place! At least we don’t have to ask to go to our rooms!

Starr: yeah…and this place was on the outs so we got to wear our own clothes, unlike here, but there was a dress code! Can you believe that?! and we weren’t allowed to wear 2 piece bathing suits or tank tops, or skirts or shorts that were shorter than a certain length, we couldn’t show our stomachs either…it was insane…

Faith: god that sucks, sounds like the military or something…

Starr: yeah and we still weren’t allowed to go out with our friends like normal people…

Faith: what do you mean?

Starr: well…. We couldn’t just go to people’s houses or anything….couldn’t just get up and go to the mall….and of course couldn’t go in their cars! But you probably know how that works already…

Faith: yeah, it was like that in my foster home.

Starr: yeah.

Faith: I wanted to see my old friend, from when I lived with my parents…and we used to go out all the time together, but they made my friend’s mom get fingerprinted and all this stuff, just so that they could come pick me up for a few hours! It was crazy!

Starr: yeah, that’s happened to me. Only no one was ever willing to get fingerprinted, so I just lost contact with all of my friends, and just anybody I ever knew.

Faith: that sucks. This fucking system is sooo lame…

Starr: yeah, seriously!

Faith: oh but, so how was your group home different from the foster homes….you know, with the friends thing?

Starr: oh yeah…where was I?…if we made like 10,000 points every day for the whole week…actually, it was more than that, it was like 25,000 a day maybe…I don’t remember …but yeah, so if we had enough points, we could buy “free time 2” which was 4 hours of going somewhere by ourselves. And it had to be used all at one time. And they had to drop us off and pick us up, of course we weren’t allowed to ever spend the night or go to parties or anything like that. And we had to be home by like 9 or 10pm.

Faith: wait so you only got 4 hours a week total?!

Starr: yep.

Faith: and only if you made enough points?

Starr: uh-huh

Faith: what happens if you didn’t make enough points?

Starr: then you didn’t get to go out! Silly.

Faith: well, I mean, that’s just not right!

Starr: yeah, ya think?

Faith: and I thought my foster home was bad! But we didn’t have to have point card things or anything like that….thank god!

(the lights quickly flash off.)

SCENE 3

(Lights up on the plain side of the stage. Starr is sitting on a black box. The Group Home Staff Member is sitting in a chair behind the desk. She has her point card out. The Group Home Staff Member has a binder full of papers open on the desk. )

Group Home Staff Member: (coldly as usual) Alright Starr, your total for the week is 74,000 points. You’ve earned your privileges for the week.

Starr: what does that mean?

Group Home Staff Member: it means that you can now buy free time 1 this week. this means that you now have the ability to purchase your right to watch TV, to hang out in the living room, and other common areas of the house. You will be allowed to talk to the other girls and to talk on the phone. Actually, since you’re new here, you will not be able to have phone privileges.

Starr: why not? That’s not fair!

Group Home Staff Member: Because, like we’ve already told you, new children are not allowed to use the phone for the first two months they are here at boystown.

Starr: I know, I know, but why? That’s not human! I want to talk to my mom! She doesn’t even know where I am!

Group Home Staff Member: calm down Starr. These are the rules. There are no exceptions. Your social worker will let your mother know that you are alright. I’m told that she is not allowed to know where you live anyway.

Starr: uh, yeah, but I always give her my address anyway! I don’t care if you guys think she’s going to kidnap me, she’s not going to! And she’s had all my addresses for like the past 4 years! She’s never shown up at any of my places either. She’s not dumb! She knows she’s not allowed to. She just writes me letters….

Group Home Staff Member: Starr, you are not allowed to give your Mother your address, you know that…

Starr: well then you have to let me call her!! she’s my mom! It’s my right to use the phone! Freedom of speech! You can’t tell me I can’t talk!

Group Home Staff Member: Stop arguing Starr. You’re about to earn negative points…

Starr: okay.

Group Home Staff Member: good job saying “okay” ! you’ve just earned 1000 positive points! You can write those down in a minute. Let’s finish totaling up your card for the week. First.

Starr: okay.

Group Home Staff Member: now, did you want to purchase free time 1?

Starr: um, what happens if I don’t?

Group Home Staff Member: Well, then you won’t have your privileges and you will have to sit at the kitchen table all week. You will not be allowed to talk to any of the other girls, watch TV, or hang out in the living room.

Starr: okay, yeah, then I guess I have to buy that then!

Group Home Staff Member: (he writes in the binder) Alright, that leaves you with 6,000 extra points. What else would you like to buy? There are candy bars, shampoo, allowance, free time 2…

Starr: free time 2? Is that what the other girls were talking about, where you get to go out for 4 hours?

Group Home Staff Member: Yes.

Starr: Okay, I want to buy that/

Group Home Staff Member: Okay. (he writes in the binder, then stops and looks up) Actually, you know what, I’m sorry, my mistake, You don’t have enough points for that this week, what else would you like instead?

Starr: oh. Umm…I guess allowance.

Group Home Staff Member: Oh-kay (he writes in the binder) Alright, you now have $5. We will keep that for you in the office.

Starr: I can’t have it now?

Group Home Staff Member: No, here at Boystown, you are not allowed to have money in your possession, or you will receive negative points.

Starr: what?!?! Why?! What about if I need to take money to school for lunch or something?

Group Home Staff Member: Well, we sign you up for the free lunch program, so you don’t need money.

Starr: okay….but why aren’t we allowed to keep our own money?

Group Home Staff Member: well, it’s a risk. If we allow you to possess money, it would be easier for you to run away…

Starr: oh yes! I’m going to run away with 5 dollars! I think I’ll go to France!

Group Home Staff Member: Starr, this is not a joking matter.

Starr: (mechanically) okay Aaron.

(Starr gets up and starts to sadly walk offstage)

SCENE 4:

(Lights up on the small room again)

Faith: (horrified by the story) wow. All I can say is wow. That sucks! I’m sorry you had to go through that!

(Faith hugs Starr)

Starr: Thanks sweetie.

Faith: wow, I hope I don’t even get put in a place like that! I’d kill myself for sure!

Starr: yeah, well, anyone can end up there. They just throw you wherever there’s room, ya know?

Faith: yeah, true.

Starr: oh and they would make us sit at that table, in absolute silence, to study. You weren’t even allowed to cough almost. It was the kind of silence that almost pierces your ears….(pause) I used to do my homework with music on…I always had music on, I had my room set up so that the radio came on with the lights….music was everything to me……. I can’t do homework with music on anymore….I can’t even think with music on now….I almost stopped listening to music there…they never let us have any free time to hang out in our rooms, and they censored what we listened to…

Faith: I think I’d rather live in hell than in that place!

(A stern looking woman looks through the glass window in their door. she opens the door and comes into the room a little, she holds the door open as she talks.)

Stern looking woman: (harshly) Girls, you need to be silent during shift change!! If I hear you talking again you are going to have to stay in your room for an additional hour. Do you understand that?

Faith: yes.

Starr: okay.

Stern looking woman: In addition to that, you have both earned a red for today. If you talk again it will be three reds and you will put on basic for a day.

(the stern looking woman exits. It is silent for a moment and then the girls go back to talking, but this time they are quieter.)

Faith: What! A red! But I never get reds! God, I can’t wait to get out of here!

Starr: yeah, seriously!

Faith: I can’t believe that! A red just for talking!

Starr: whatever happened to freedom of speech?!! I swear this is not America!

Faith: tell me about it. And we will get on basic, just for talking? That’s so lame!

Starr: being on basic is like being in prison…sitting at a desk all day and having to sit with the staff at break at school while all the other kids get to walk around….and I hate how they make us wear those disgusting pink hospital pants and those baggy pink shirts, they are so ugly!….

Faith: at least we’re not boys! They have to wear hot pink pants from the 80’s … that’s even worse!

Starr: very true. Can you imagine how embarrassed they must feel having to wear pink pants in front of the other boys?!

Faith: I wonder if the other boys make fun of them…

Starr: hmmm…I never thought about that…

Faith: they probably do!

Starr: maybe.

Faith: oh I am SO mad that I got a red! It’s so not fair!! I’ve had like nothing but greens this week! And you know how hard that is!!!!!

Starr: ALL greens? Wow!! That’s amazing! How many people did you have to kill to do that!?! (laughs)

Faith: guess the staff just love me! Hehe

Starr: I guess so!! I try my hardest and only get one or two greens a day, the others are always blues of course. I rarely get all three greens! And you’ve gone ALL week with 3 greens every day?!?!

Faith: yep!

Starr: wow! Well then you’ll get the honor room for sure!

Faith: that was my intention! But now I have a red!!

Starr: oh yeah….but maybe they’ll make an exception since the rest of your marks are greens?

Faith: I don’t think so…you get one red and no honor room. No exceptions.

Starr: aww… poor thing

Faith: There’s gotta be some way to convince the staff to take away my red!

Starr: you know they don’t take away reds!

Faith: I’ll find a way to make them! I have to have the honor room! I’ve worked so hard for it!!

Starr: oh well I hope you get it!

Faith: (pause) soooo…yeah…anyways….how did you get into the system?

Starr: well, when I was 11 years old, we had just moved into some new apartments, so there were boxes of stuff all over the house. My 3 year old brother and I would dump all the stuff out of the boxes while looking for things. My poor mother was left with all the mess.

Faith: you horrible little children! (laughs)

Starr: anyways, one day my mother said “clean the house or else you’re going to orangewood” and at that time, I had just barely learned that this terrible place existed, but I still didn’t quite understand it.

Faith: she was going to take you here?!

Starr: oh no, no, not at all. She wasn’t threatening me…

Faith: oh, I see….

Starr: Yeah, so the next day, for some reason social services came over to our apartment, they saw that the house was a mess, and decided that our mother must be neglecting us, even though the opposite was true! She was too busy spending time with us to clean the house! Anyway, they took her off to the hospital for “depression” and then because she didn’t find a place for us to go, even though they didn’t give her time to even try to find a place, they took us to orangewood.

Faith: oh wow that really sucks.

Starr: yep, and isn’t that creepy?!??! My mom was right, she said if I didn’t help clean up the house I was going to orangewood, and she was right!

Faith: she must be like psychic or something! Anyways, go on.

Starr: I was at school at the time, so they took away my little brother and then they came to my school and pulled me out of PE class….

SCENE 5:

( lights up on the other side of the stage. Starr is standing near the edge of the stage with a couple of other kids. A man gives her a pink slip of paper.)

man: Starr Grier, you are wanted in the office.

Starr: (to herself) oh no…I have a really bad feeling about this.

(Starr walks over to the desk. The principle is sitting there, behind it.)

The principle: Starr? Sit down.

Starr: ok

(Starr sits in the chair that is on the front side of the desk)

The principle: you’re going to Orangewood.

(Starr is too shy to say anything. The principle gives her a stale Butterfinger. She slowly eats it. He leaves her alone.)

( Two social workers come into the office and lead Starr away.)

Social worker: come with us.

(they exit)

SCENE 6:

(lights up on the small room again)

Starr: …they had my brother in a car seat in the backseat of their car. He was barefoot with pajama pants and no shirt. It was a cloudy cold day and they didn’t even dress him before taking him from my mom! Can you believe that?!?! Now THAT is neglect! They are the ones that should have had their kids taken away from them!

Faith: that’s dumb. I swear these people are no better than anyone’s parents, they just take us from one bad place to another, and then we are even more screwed up in the end!

Starr: yep. Lovely isn’t it?

Faith: anyway, go on with your story…

Starr: okay, and so then they took me here of course. I was terrified. They took me in through that side door and then checked me for bruises, and tested my blood to see if I was under-nourished or anything. They separated my brother and I and took me to junior girls …I think I was the oldest girl there…no one else was 11, but I was too young or innocent to go in with the older girls. Anyway, they took away all my things, my backpack and my clothes and they made me take a shower with cheap shampoo and cheap soap, and they gave me stretch pants and a baggy shirt to wear…I remember how terrible it was to have to wear there ugly clothes…back then the clothes

Were even worse than they are now…

Faith: that’s gotta be pretty bad then!

Starr: anyways, they told me that said I have no bruises or signs of neglect or abuse or anything and that I could go home in 3 days…

Faith: oh yeah?

Starr: yeah and then I had to talk to a social worker person and a court person lady who took my picture and stuff. A few days went by, and then I got a new social worker and they said that I would be going home in two weeks instead of the 3 days.

Faith: something similar to that happened to me.

Starr: they didn’t let me see my little brother because I guess the kids he was in with had chicken pox or something like that and so they were all in quarantine.

Faith: wow that really sucks. I don’t know what I would do without being able to see my brother and sister.

Starr: you’re lucky that you 3 all came here together. You get to see them a lot more than I ever saw my brother…I didn’t see him for so long at first that when I finally was allowed to see him, I rarely did, because I wasn’t used to it, and they kept me so busy with meaningless activities…and I had my little friends…

Faith: yeah I know how that is.

Starr: anyways, so that two weeks kept turning into more and more time and it had been months … they let me see my mom finally…my brother and I went to visit her at the hospital. She seemed fine. Then they let her out but made her stay in a board and care home or something like that.

Faith: god, the state even controls the parents too?! Yay for America! Land of the free!

Starr: yeah, tell me about it. So anyways, we started to get one hour a week visits with her. but they were monitored. I have no idea why, it was the stupidest thing ever. I think maybe they thought that she was going to kidnap us or something.

Faith: that’s just crazy! And if she did kidnap you, then so what?! She’s your mother for god’s sake!

Starr: anyways, so I ended up being stuck here for about 6 months total…I used to count the days on a piece of paper…I’m not exactly sure, but I want to say that I was here 133 days…that’s the last number I remember at least. So then I was finally released, but it wasn’t to home, they put me in an Esh home for awhile.

Faith: an Esh home? What’s that? I haven’t heard of that one before.

Starr: almost no one has…E S H …Esh, it stood for “emergency shelter home” and it was basically just a short term foster home. Kids were only supposed to stay there for about 2 weeks…but you know me and two weeks! I ended up being there for about 3 months! The lady was kind of nice, but her own kids, who were adopted ones, were vicious… they were so mean and spoiled…first they used to torture this girl named Michelle, but when she left they started to be mean to me instead….once they screwed my alarm clock all up, and they stole some of my clothes…

Faith: I hate when the girls do that.

Starr: yeah, but then they moved me out of there…they let me go look at a real foster home to see if I wanted to move there…I said “no” … I hated it, but they moved me there anyway.

Faith: aw, that sucks

Starr: yeah it did. I think I ended up living there for a little over two years. And the lady would only buy junk food… she was too cheap to buy fruits and vegetables ..she bought Pepsi and chips and these brownies that came in a box and just all these over processed sweets and junk food and ice cream. I used to eat ice cream sandwiches for breakfast!

Faith: hey, what are you complaining about? That sounds like heaven for children!

Starr: It was fun at first, but got old really fast. You can only eat so much junk food before you want to kill yourself!

Faith: good point. But wasn’t it better than the food they make us eat here?

Starr: yeah, I guess so. Anything is better than cafeteria prison style food!

Faith: have you heard that they really do feed us the same stuff as the prison?

Starr: yeah, I have heard that, I bet you it’s true.

Faith: I hate it so much here. I’ve been here for 2 months already. I can’t stand it anymore! Let’s run away!

Starr: oh I wish, but you know, if we get caught trying to run away, they’ll send us to juvenile hall.

Faith: yeah but we’re faster than that, they won’t catch us.

Starr: you think so? We’d have to run pretty fast and then jump over that stupid wall.

Faith: we could go at night, and sneak out maybe.

Starr: oh yeah, that will work! We’ll just sneak right out of the doors with the alarms on them, or better yet, let’s go out the windows that don’t open! We can brake the shatter proof glass while we’re at it! (laughs)

Faith: okay, okay, you’ve got a good point. I guess it’d be easier to run away in the day.