play excerpt

Growing Wild

by Shona Tucker

(A dramalogue with music)

CHARACTER ENCOUNTER:

MONA WILSON: The narrative voice, African American woman, 40s

JACK: Muse-ical journalist on electric guitar

All the rest are in MONA’s head:

RC/ RONALD CLYDE: The catalyst

SIMONE WILSON TREMAINE: The free one

GENEVA “TOOT” THOMAS: Family friend

COP 1 & COP 2: The ones who serve

MOMMY (JEWEL HUBBARD WILSON): The strength of the family

DADDY (ANDERSON WILSON): The tragic one

MARIE WILSON: The intelligence gatherer

ABEL DOUGLAS: The murderer

CELESTE: The innocent

AUNTIE JUNE: The aunt

SCRIPT KEY

• The CAPITAL LETTER and italicized LYRICS are sung and played on electric guitar by JACK the Muse-ical journalist. There will also be sound cues from several popular R&B vocal artists of the ’70s and ’80s

• Stage directions are written in italicized regular type

• The words in bold and italic letters are thoughts spoken out loud while “in scene”

• The main song that plays throughout this piece is a 1973 song called “Wildflower” sung by New Birth, a prominent 1970s R&B band from Louisville, Kentucky

[BEAT ONE: The Return of Simone]

 (Lights up on a living room in a two-bedroom apartment in faculty housing of a college in

upstate NY complete with its own guitar man who sits just off right. MONA WILSON, an African American woman with hair “tied up” enters with coffee cup, water bottle, and cellphone. She walks to a table with laptop. She sits, opens it, logs on, finds the right document, sets the timer on her phone.)

MONA: Timer set. So I begin.

 (She begins to type and stops. She breathes for several seconds and then starts to write

again. Her brow furrows and she cocks her head to the side.)

MONA: Sabbatical, day three, Spring 2009.

                                    .

(She begins to read what she has already written. Skimming through. She edits as she

reads. She starts singing Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers . . . to force herself back.  “Grandma’s hands clapped at church on Sunday morning. Grandma’s hands played the tambourine so well . . .”)

Work on Grandma.

Umph.

Pandora help.

(She turns to her cellphone to play Pandora’s Cool Jazz station. LTD’s “Concentrate on You”

comes on instead)

What the f—

Freaking LTD . . .

(She turns off the Pandora station. She talks to the air.)

Okay Simone. Stop it! Wherever you are. Stop it! 

I get one freakin’ sabbatical. 

IT IS NOT SIMONE TIME! 

I’m working on a woman who actually

Did something with her life—

(Music for “Wildflower” comes in)

(Mona takes in the new song and its import. She stands.)

Oh, oh now Wildflower!

Come on, I gotta write before the kid comes home.

Grandma please tell her to let me tell your—

Simone—I don’t wanna take the time

to deal with your selfish, triflin’ butt right now, okay?

(She stops fighting. She pauses as music continues)

Okay, okay, okay but if I’m gonna tell it

I gotta tell it!

(She snatches off her head tie. She moves back to the computer with resignation and

discomfort as if to say, “here we go and I’m not keen on the journey.”)

New document: Wildflower—No!

Growing Wild.

MONA: (inhales) (Is this gonna give me the thrill I been lookin’ for)?

(MONA is transported as Jack the guitar man continues to play and softly sing Wildflower

by Skylark but as sung by New Birth.)

LET HER CRY

FOR SHE’S A LADY

LET HER DREAM                 

FOR SHE’S A CHILD           

LET THE RAIN

MONA tilts her head as if she is letting the music in.  At “Let the Rain”—she has made her

decision. She stops the music and begins typing.

MONA: It is 2003, (she crosses to center stage)

two weeks into my Having Our Say rehearsal about 

Two beautiful old sisters.

At Actors Theatre of Louisville. 

I am in the mini-gym of the 800 building.

lifting weights—

working out before rehearsal. 

(okay, 10 more bicep curls)

I lay across the weight bench                         

when he walks in                                           

(Music pause)

Blocking the door.     

He isn’t particularly a big guy—I mean, tall guy.

He’s round enough.                           

(Music continues)

Broad shouldered

With a belly 

balding.

A kind of black Buddha with glasses.

He is not there to work out, I can tell.

I think if I do some sit-ups, he’ll go away.

He stands in the doorway.

(Music Pause)

RC: You one of them actors staying here?

MONA: (Oh crap,

a “fan” of the theater

and I just need to sweat.)

Yes.                             

(music in)

(Do more sit ups and he’ll go away. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven)                             

(music out)

RC: You from here, right? You from Louisville?

MONA: Yes—          

It is a rainy day.

A perfect day for a

good

long

workout.

He lingers.                              

RC: You one of them Wilson sisters, ain’t you?

MONA: (Do I know this man?)

I try to envision him twenty years younger

And thirty pounds lighter.

If I look real hard,

He almost reminds me of—someone.  

(Music In)

(Did I act with him?

Was he in “The Black Nativity” as a wise man?

Had he lived down the street in Newburg, my old                        

neighborhood?)

RC: You Simone Wilson’s sister, right?

MONA: (She stops.)                                                  

(Music out)

(She freezes)   

My sister Simone had died twenty-two years earlier.

(SILENCE)

MONA: Yes

Twenty-two years earlier my sister Simone was murdered.

(SILENCE)

MONA: Yes. I’m Simone Wilson’s sister.

(Music in)

I stare at him and mentally peel off

The onion skin-like layers

That protect me from my memories—

His beady eyes see the work I’m doing,

They connect with my journey to the past

The past

that strolls with me everyday

Like an invisible 1980s fanny pack

Strapped to my gut.

He says in a voice oozing with admiration and steaming lust,

(Music out)

RC: Lord, lord, lord, I used to love your sister.

MONA: FACT number one:

Women either loved

or hated Simone, immediately.

She was very comfortable and funny

and witty and that they loved—

she was also good with men,

all men, no matter the man and that they hated.

Fact number two: all men loved Simone.

She challenged them.

She used to say,

“Is this gonna give me the thrill I been lookin’ for?”

(Music in—instrumental of “Got to Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye)

(Who is this man, blocking the only exit out of this room?)

(Music out)

RC: I did. I used to love yo’ sister.

(Music in)

MONA: And he gives me a “once over” leer

As though looking through me to her.

[BEAT TWO: Simone and the Mob]

(Mona snatches the moment)

MONA: Simone wasn’t a party girl.

Simone was the party. 

RC: E’ry man down at Joe’s wonted YOUR sister—

(Music—vocals 1^st verse of “Got to Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye as Mona dances)

MONA: Joe’s Palm Room on Jefferson Street

In the West End of Louisville, Kentucky

Joe’s was Simone’s party place.

RC: Lookah here, you go down ‘ere right now

And some of them old heads,

Jimmy and Petie and Eddie and them,

they still talk about her to this day.

But didn’t none of us get too close.

(Music Out)

MONA: I want to ask him all kinds of questions

Like,

“How well did you know her?"

“Were you friends?”

“Did you try to date her?”

“Do I know you?”

RC: Yeah, ain’t nobody mess with your sister,

because she was Reuben John’s woman.

MONA: Reuben Johns?

MONA: He stares at me like I have a piece of scalp missing,

RC: Yeeeah. You don’t know Reuben Johns?

MONA: I don’t know who or what Reuben Johns is.

But I know nothing good is attached to it.

I got a feeling,

got a funky feeling going on.

And I don’t know if I’m gonna open this door.

(pause)

Okay.

MONA: Reuben Johns?

RC: Yeeeah, Reuben Johns run

all the mob business,

mob business in Louisville, Indiana and Illinois                                                                   

and Ohio.

MONA: Excu—No, um . . . No no no no no, my sister.

MONA: In my mind my sister . . .

MONA: When I say that my sister was crazy and                                         

mischievous—

but she didn’t attach herself to anything like that!

She wasn’t in the mob, she was good!

She was wholeso—

MONA: She was really . . .

---

Shona Tucker is the Mary Riepma Ross Chair of Drama at Vassar College. She is the ex-Chair and full professor of the University of Louisville Department of Theatre Arts. As a writer, she has completed Mississippi Mud, a trilogy based on true stories of three “regular” African-American women who make majors move that change their families’ history. The second part of the trilogy, Growing Wild, was part of the #HealMeToo Festival at the IRT theater in 2019. She is completing a pilot with the working title What Had Happened was . . . and has co-authored a chapter in Community-Engaged Praxis in Peace, Social Justice, and Human Rights Education: Partnering for Transformative Change (to be released by Teachers College Press, Spring 2026). As an actress, she is an original cast member of Broadway hit To Kill a Mockingbird and Broadway’s Death of a Salesman with Wendell Pierce. Other performance credits include numerous Off-Broadway and regional theaters such as: Playwright’s Horizons, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory, Williamstown Theater Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, and ACT-San Francisco. Her television/ film credits include: The Hating Game and Linoleum, Lights Out, WALK THE FISH, Preaching to the Choir, New York Undercover, and Law and Order. Ms. Tucker has an extensive directing resume as well. She is a Usual Suspect with NYTW, an Audelco Award winner, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab alum, and Fulbright Scholar. BS: Northwestern University and MFA: NYU/Tisch.