Bully: Hey Tad! Have fun at your piano lessons, you stupid prissy girl!
(Tad Newton looks at the Bully. For a moment they truly understand each other)
Later:
Male Piano Teacher: Tad, are you being bullied at school?
Tad: Forget about it.
Male Piano Teacher: No Tad… I never forget. Never…
Tad: Right. Ah yes. Bring it back to your days with the Vietcong. Strange how that’s coming up again. Hey, is that what my parents pay you for? Being a shell-shocked loser? Because I thought they were paying you to make me a maestro. My mistake.
Male Piano Teacher: You know, I’m allowed to remember things during these lessons, Tad. I’m a Male Piano Teacher, but I’m a person too. I…I can’t help what I remember.
Tad: I know, I just-
Male Piano Teacher: -you’re just upset. You’re being bullied, I get it. Are they saying you’re a girl? Are they calling you a girl for taking piano lessons?
Tad: I do NOT want to talk about it, ok?
Male Piano Teacher: Listen, you’re not a girl for playing the piano, Tad.
Tad: …
Male Piano Teacher: You’re not. You’re a girl for not playing it well.
Tad: !!!! What…what do you mean?
Male Piano Teacher: Name me some famous piano players.
Tad: This is stupid.
Male Piano Teacher: Go on, do it.
Tad: Fine! I will do it! Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Joel
Male Piano Teacher: Dudes. Name me a famous girl piano player.
Tad: …I….I can’t!
Male Piano Teacher: Girls can’t play the piano, Tad. Well… they can, just not very well.
Tad: I never thought about it that way before.
Male Piano Teacher: There are a lot of things girls can’t do, Tad.
Tad: You’re right!
Male Piano Teacher: Now stop playing the piano like a girl.
(Tad plays a beautiful and heart-wrenching melody, as he comes into his manhood and maestro’s the shit out of the piano noun)
10 Years Later
(Tad is 27 and his trail-blazing fingers are running across the piano as if they are filled with octane and cigarettes. He is on stage by himself in a sold out square garden surrounded by devotees. He wears a crown made entirely out of piano keys. As he finishes his song, the crowd is stunned and there’s a beat of silence before they start clapping their hands off and cheering like they’ve witnessed whatever it is they most wanted to see in life – proving conclusively that Tad’s music means different things to different people)
Tad: Ladies and gentlemen!
(the crowd goes seriously wild)
Tad: Ladies and gentlemen! I have something to say!
(crowed LOVES that he has something to say)
Tad: Ladies and gentlemen! (Tad holds up his hand and the audience immediately quiets) THAT, is how you play the (swear)ing piano.
(Tad walks of stage, not looking back)
(1st of 4 Sequential Montages. We see Tad grow more famous and even wealthier. Shots of bigger sold out arenas, people getting Tad Newton tattoos where he’s giving a thumbs-up, but maybe his thumb looks like a piano key, newspaper headlines declaring Tad the Champ, and shots of Tad shaking the hand of a Presidents and Kings. Shots of Platinum records on the wall that have been arranged in the shape of a Grand Piano.)(2nd Montage, appearing directly after 1st Montage. We see Tad start doing drugs and spiraling out of control, and then there are shots of him getting his act back together and becoming a better piano player and realistically, a better person as well. Shot of Tad throwing away his cigarettes and returning a case of energy drinks to the Safeway, and then a shot of Tad finishing the composition of an amazing piano symphony that, in an implied and unseen montage, he had started and had trouble finishing)
(3rd Montage, right after 2nd Montage. References other montages, but focuses mostly on how Tad’s family feels about his success. Shots of people who are likely related to Tad looking fondly at a picture of an art project that Tad may have made in elementary school.)
(4th Montage, right after 3rd Montage. Headlines of ANOTHER piano star growing famous, who is a WOMAN. Her name is Melody, and through a series of shots showing her fingers rocking keys, we know that somehow, despite her gender, she is the real deal. At this point, the montage would pause, and the audience would be given a quick survey and mini-pencil, with the question, “Girl Piano Player? Can you believe it?” and then a “Yes” and a “No” box for the audience check. When at least 75 surveys are completed [some people may need to take the survey more than once, depending on attendance and theater size], the montage song would end just as Melody would finish playing the song on the piano.)
(Camera cuts to a gigantic pink mansion. Tad is banging on the door furiously while wearing his piano vest. A butler named Derek opens the door.)
Tad: Where’s Melody?!
Derek: You’ll never find her!
Tad: But I must! Don’t you see?! I’ve got to make her love me! She’s the only one who comes close to understanding me, even though objectively I’m still a better piano player!
Derek: So this isn’t about the makeup bill?
Later:
Tad: Hey Melody! Look at this bumper sticker! It’s so funny!
Later:
Melody: That’s such a cool finger move you do in that piano song you play.
Tad: I call that move “Melody’s Twinkle.”
Melody: After….me?
Tad: Count on it.
Melody: I have a move too. It’s called… “I love you Tad Newton.”
Tad: ;-)
Thursday:
Melody: That sidewalk reminds me of my days in the Vietcong.
Tad: Melody?! You’re….you’re MALE PIANO TEACHER?!?!
Melody: Shit.
2 comments:
I saw the end coming from the first three words of the screenplay. I, like many people who enjoy the internet in this day and age, don't like spoilers. And this movie literally is a spoiler for itself by being very obvious.
BUT-- I know there are still a lot of people out there without regular access to the internet, and also some people who DON'T mind spoilers. I drank all the cough syrup I had in my car and was able to mentally "place" myself into the headspace of one of those people. It was difficult, to say the least. But I came to the conclusion that such a person WOULD love this screenplay. Love it to bits n pieces. Love it for all time. For a person who isn't always thinking about spoilers and how to avoid them, this screenplay could be the next Apocalypse Now or Realosity.
PEACE
Steve
Hello Stephen,
Thank you for your uneducated input. While I am not sure exactly what you saw coming, you may have been confused. At the end of this screenplay idea, I am attempting to insinuate that Melody was actually Male Piano Teacher the entire time.
If you did see this coming, I must tip my hat and congratulate you on your ability to foresee the lies you were telling about seeing the the end coming because you did not see the end coming. The end was as sneaky a surprise as the previous sentence!!
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