Announcing the 2011 winner in the Yale Drama Series When he was twelve, Joe snuck into the field on the edge of town and saw the Town Mayor with his sister Peregrine. This one moment has overwhelmed and transformed his life, becoming The Yale Drama Series competition, sponsored by Yale University Press and the Yale Repertory Theatre, is intended to encourage emerging playwrights. The winner receives the David C. Horn Prize, and the winning play is given a staged reading at the Yale Repertory Theatre and published by Yale University Press. The competition was judged by Edward Albee in its first two years and by David Hare in 2009 and 2010. Shannon Murdoch holds a first class honors degree in Theatre and Creative Writing from Griffith University, Queensland, and is a graduate of The Playwrights Studio at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney. She has been a professional playwright for six years. In addition to the Yale Drama Award, her play New Light Shine was selected for the National Play Festival 2011 in Sydney. She lives in Melbourne, Australia. New Light Shine By SHANNON MURDOCH Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 2012 Shannon Murdoch All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-300-18485-3 Contents Foreword, by John Guare.....................ixAcknowledgments.............................xixNew Light Shine.............................1 Chapter One New Light Shine Characters Anna Peregrine Joe Oscar Staging The lounge room of a small house. A couch. A jail cell. A bed. The meeting room in a jail. A pot plant in the corner. A field on the edge of town. The bedroom of a small apartment. An office. A large sash window hangs between all the spaces. ACT I Scene One JOE stands in the jail cell he shares with Old Billy (unseen) . PEREGRINE stands in the field, smoking a cigarette . ANNA, half-dressed for work, sits on the edge of the bed in the apartment. Silence, stillness. And then ... JOE ARE YOU KIDDING ME? PEREGRINE puts out her cigarette on the ground . PEREGRINE and JOE pace in their own spaces . JOE I mean, had it sorted you know. I mean fuck, had it sorted. All in my head and I was ready. I was fucking ready. JOE stalks over to the window. He tries to look through it. Walks away . JOE Fuck it, you can't see a thing. Is this part of it? Is this on purpose? Because I don't understand. I'm not ... A fucking real window. That you can look out of ... I'm asking. I'm standing here asking. PEREGRINE exits . JOE Because it's simple, isn't it? Because it's simple ... Because if you are going to have a window, if you are going to go to all the trouble of putting a window into a fucking wall, which I imagine, I'm only imagining is not a simple thing, then wouldn't it make senseAm I crazy? Am I the crazy one?to put in a window a person could actually look out of ... They really want it all, don't they? Think you're a bunch of clever bastards but you won't get me. I'm strong. And I got plans. And you can do what you want but neither one of those things is going to change. JOE goes back to the window. Stares, rubs it vigorously, gets frustrated, walks away . JOE Had it in my head. You know what I mean? Went through it, bit by bit, so I could be ready ... Cause this is just a moment. Just one, and it will be over before you know it and then ... then the future will happen ... So say what you want, Killer, Killer, Killer, say it all now because this moment is this close to being gone and when it is, the only person speaking will be me. JOE goes to the window again . JOE My sister is coming. Peregrine. You ever heard of a name like that? You ever heard of Peregrine? ... Story goes, it's a great story, you wait till you hear this. Story goes Dad went on his first and only bushwalk just before Peregrine was born. Said he hated it. Said it was for people not in the know. Cause the greatest inventions that had consistently proved crucial to man's contentment was the television, the couch and the stubby of cold beer. Nothing in nature, he said. And then he said it again ... Never did say why he went on a bushwalk. If you had known him you would have said straight up he was the least likely person. But he did, did the whole thing, hated every second and when he had just about enough, well of course that's when he saw it ... Said proof there was a God. According to Dad and this is not a word of a lie, the Peregrine Falcon was God's work. Wouldn't be talked out of it. Wouldn't even discuss it. Sat down on the couch with his cold, cold beer and said ... We are honoring God. JOE starts pacing again . JOE Peregrine'll come when she hears this. She'll read the paper or watch the TV. Probably got herself a little box. It's on everywhere. Every channel. Murder is still pretty interesting isn't it? ... Yeah. Yeah. JOE goes to the window . JOE Thought I might watch for her. Had it in my head. Just stand at the window and