Page 77 of Score

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DESSI BLUE

Screenplay by: Verity Hill & Canon Holt

Directed by: Canon Holt

EXTERIOR – HARLEM – NIGHT – 1936

7th Avenue at 132nd Street

Dessi and Tilda stand outside the Lafayette Theatre, jostled by the swelling wave of people waiting to get in. The crowd of mostly Black theatergoers are dressed to the nines and there’s a buzz as they gather eagerly beneath the lit theater marquee. Signs that read MACBETH and STANDING ROOM ONLY plaster the building. The line to see the all-Black production of the Shakespeare classic winds for several blocks and the cars on the street are jammed into a standstill.

DESSI

I thought for sure we’d get in tonight.

TILDA

I’on know why. This show been sold out for weeks. We’ll be lucky to see it before it closes.

DESSI

Don’t say that, Tilda! We got to. We shoulda bought the tickets yesterday.

TILDA

We’n have no money yesterday, Bama. What we look like sitting up in the Lafayette watching someMacbethand ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out? We just got paid and had to take care of rent first.

Dessi points to a scalper waving tickets on the corner.

DESSI

Ooooh! He got some tickets.

SCALPER

Three dollars! Get your ticket to Harlem’s sensation! Three dollars for tonight’s showing ofMacbeth!

TILDA

Three dollars! I’ll be damned. We’n paying three dollars for them tickets. We’ll buy tickets for a show coming up soon, but we ain’t paying no three dollars for ’em when we can get ’em for forty-five cents.

DESSI

You right. I just wanna see the show.

TILDA

I just wanna see the show. (MIMICKING DESSI’S SOUTHERN DRAWL)

To be so country, you love some sophistication, don’t ya, Bama?

DESSI (LAUGHING)

Don’t call me country and don’t call me Bama.

TILDA

Alright… (PAUSES AND GRINS) Bama.

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