You're listening to the Geekscape Network. Every writer that you meet will have that one script. That one script that is their heart and soul that they love so very much that has not been discovered yet. That's what this podcast is all about. We find those scripts, these unbelievably original gems, and we bring them to life with a table read of professional actors. Welcome to Undiscovered Scripts, movies made of paper. Episode 2 of Public School.
Presented by Undiscovered Scripts. Movies made of paper. So for this episode of the podcast, we are picking it up in the middle of Act One in the cafeteria. Here we go. Fade in. Interior cafeteria seconds later. We've got Max, Doug, Deb, Chad, Peter, and Cheryl. Max is in a headlock from Doug. Doug, let me go. You remember how this works. Say uncle or give me five dollars.
Max fights his way out of it. Maxipad. Grown a pair since the eighth grade. So you're the Doug that missed the staff meeting. Yeah, I bet you were there right on time, Maxipad. I gotta go. Max starts to walk away. Doug reaches down and picks up one of the balls from the sack, throws it and hits Max in the middle of his back. Max turns around furiously. Ooh, just like old times, buddy. Doug turns around and starts towards the kids' table.
Great. This is great. Max whirls around and nearly slams into Deb as she enters. The laughter that was happening trickles down to silence. Oh, sorry. I don't believe we've met. I'm... The new math teacher, Max Martin. She pauses, waiting to see if he knows her. Dr. Deb Black. Oh, the superintendent. It's a pleasure to meet you. Deb smiles a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. Welcome.
Before Max can respond, Deb picks up the dodgeball and walks into the cafeteria. Doug, I know you must be headed back to the gym with the sports equipment, right? Deb chucks the dodgeball rather hard at Doug, who barely catches it before he gets him in the gut. Yes, right. I'm on my way. Doug quickly picks up his sack and leaves.
Deb keeps walking. She sees George with food on his face. She points to her own face to indicate that he needs to wipe his mouth. Jill discreetly hands George a napkin. Deb's demeanor changes when speaking with Chad. Chad. Please tell your parents I had the most wonderful time the other evening at their club. They throw the most exquisite parties. It's a good thing the mayor was there. We definitely would have gotten a noise complaint, right? Yeah.
Deb keeps moving. She's about to pounce on Fletcher, who looks truly terrified when all of a sudden Peter hugs her from behind. What? Deb! I haven't seen you all summer. Principal Alpern. This is inappropriate. Peter, please release me. Can't blame you for being excited to see my buddy? I am not your buddy. I'm your boss. We need to discuss the anti-obesity agenda. We have the highest concentration of obese children in the county. This does not reflect well upon my administration. Upon this...
Is that Deb Black or Michelle Obama talking to me? Principal Alpern, that's an offensive comparison. Why? You are both strong women combating childhood obesity. I'm a Republican. Cheryl comes in with seven huge flat boxes. Hey, everyone! Everyone groans and have hearted greetings and eye rolls. Oh, Cheryl. I brought back-to-school treats for the kids tomorrow. She opens a box to reveal cupcakes.
Cheryl? It's Child Obesity Month. How could you be so insensitive, Cheryl? Everyone gets up and leaves Cheryl standing there, still holding the boxes, looking confused. Cheryl's the worst. Interior Fletcher's classroom. Background clock reads 1.11 p.m. Team A, Jill, Max, Fletcher, and Gracie are in the middle of the meeting. Max is repeating back the schedule to make sure he understands it.
So that means the advanced group finishes with science and then goes to math, then English, ending with history. And it's all broken up with recess, lunch, and gym. Doug saunters in like the jerk face he is. What's up, asteroids? Get it? Like asteroids? You're missing a syllable, and we are in the middle of a meeting. Now, if you would please excuse us. Doug walks up to Fletcher. Come on, Fletch!
He puts his arm around Fletcher's neck somewhat aggressively. I'm just having some fun. Ever try it? Oh. Hey, Jill. Doug still has Fletcher in a headlock. Unnoticed, Gracie has picked up Doug's phone from the table and is cruising his Tinder account. Hey. Doug, come on. Stop. Doug reaches up and starts knocking on Fletcher's head like Biff from Back to the Future. Hello? McFly? Anyone home?
Doug masks his bullying by pretending it's all a joke. Ha ha, real funny, Doug. Come on, I'm relating to you, bud. What? Back to the future. You got Doc Brown hanging on your wall. Doug points to a poster which is actually Albert Einstein. All right, Doug. We get it. Give it a rest. Wow. Maxi-ped? Stepping up? That's a first. Don't act like you're new here. This is still my school.
You couldn't take me then, and you can't take me now. Doug, I'm not going to fight you. Fight? Dude, you thought I was serious? Wow. We are at work, man. Keep it professional. Later, nerds. Bye, Jill. He smacks Max on the back. Doug walks out. Everyone tries not to look at Max. Max is dejected. Interior Edison Middle School hallway. We see the following scenes blend into each other as if a single sweeping shot. Max, thinking he's alone, punches a locker. What am I doing here? Come on, Chief.
Max whirls to see Peter standing there. You know exactly why you're back here. To great weather? Nope. To save money? No. To teach sixth grade math? Negativo. Well, yes, that's part of the reason you're here. That's your job description, but you're really here to help the future version of you. Why do you think I'm here? Peter raises eyebrows and smiles kindly.
The interior teacher's lounge continuous. Fletcher walks into the teacher's lounge, sees two of the three tables are filled. Feeling unwelcome, he goes and sits by himself and begins to polish his new glasses. Interior lockers. Jill is struggling with a heavy bag. Chad walks up in the opposite direction and leans on the locker and grabs her bag. He's clearly flirting with her. Jill thinks Chad's being sincere, but he's just showing off.
Interior hallway outside of the gym. George and Gary walk down the hallway past the gym doors. Doug hurls a red dodgeball at Gary, whose Ray-Bans hipster glasses fall off. George is a deer in the headlights, totally frozen. Interior, Deb's office. Deb, hair in a ponytail, dress more casual, stacks of books in front of her, looking stressed. She chugs a Red Bull, balls up a sheet of paper and throws it over her shoulder. We reveal many cans of Red Bull and balls of paper. Interior, girl.
We are outside a stall in the girls' bathroom. We reveal Gracie smoking a cigarette in one of the stalls. Interior school office. Margo is tenderly tidying up Peter's office. She picks up Peter's EMS sweater and smells it. Exterior Thomas Edison Middle School. Max starts to open the door of the school with confidence and starts walking to his car with a smile. In the background, janitors are tossing the old desks into the dumpster. Max is ready for the first day of school. End titles.
Tag, fade in, exterior Edison Middle School, end of day. All of the teachers are walking to their cars. Around the circular driveway, a white creeper van screeches to a stop. Tom, a skinny guy with thick glasses, comb-over, mustache, and a khaki jacket, gets out of the van. A bunch of candy bars fall out onto the ground. Max watches him with wariness. He looks around to see if anyone's gonna do anything. Chad confidently...
walks up. I got this, bro. Tom, 500 feet. Tom drops his head, gets back into his creeper van, and drives off. Fade out, end of show. Thank you for listening to Episode 2 of Public School. Stay tuned for a bonus episode with a roundtable discussion with all the talent. and Chad, bro, who's unfortunately the most like me. Hey, this is David Blue, and I read Max Martin. Hey, this is Dove Mare. I read Peter and Doug. And you can catch me on my Instagram at Dove Mare.
M-E-I-R. Not like the political office. Hi, this is Aliza Pearl. I read Gracie Newcastle, Deb, the superintendent, and Cheryl with the cupcakes. I know I'm the worst. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Aliza Pearl and on the internet in general and a lot of other stuff.
Hi, I'm Rob Padgett, and I read Fletcher Zielinski. Hi, I'm Stephanie Bentley. I read for Jill. I'm an audiobook narrator, actor, and creator of Lustily Ever After, the very first audiobook musical for adults. You can find us at lustilyeverafter.com. And I'm America Young. I wrote the script with Rebecca and stumbled through the stage directions for this reading. Sound engineering and original music by Andy Bill. So actors, what did you love about the script?
I love that this speaks to everybody. We've all gone through school, hopefully. And we've all gone through these trials and tribulations. Everyone's nodding no. I'm the only one who's gone to school. And this speaks to everything we have to go through as kids. And I love how you do it with such a fun... energy to it and with wonderful quips and I'm excited to see where this goes. Thank you, Dev.
I had a very challenging middle school experience myself, and I could very much see myself in Max's things. If I went back to my school, there were...
are half a dozen people that if I saw them even today as a grown-ass man, it would immediately put me right back where I was. So, yeah, I very much... feel that i think max is very well written and relatable that way cool thank you yeah for me it was high school i my middle school was fine but for me my high school was where i was traumatically scarred for all time but i think for me it's my marriage Fair. But it makes me not want my kid to go to school.
Because I don't want her to have to go through this stuff. But, you know, at least it helps you develop a sense of humor. Exactly. It's like making your kid get sick a lot so that they have a better immune system later. If you survive middle school, you'll be able to live. And through anything, right? Did anybody else have a bad...
middle school I mean not that this is supposed to be a therapy session definitely all bad does anybody have a good middle school I actually moved right in the middle of middle school and nobody knew me and so then I became popular for a few minutes until they found out then it was over of middle school, and when I came back, the first thing that somebody said to me was, we thought you died. So I don't really have a good reference for that, but...
It is true. There's that thing of when you go back and visit your parents, you immediately default back to your old paradigm. And what's nice about this is it's exploring the teacher side who are fighting to still get past who they were as kids. let alone with each other. It's an interesting dynamic.
Cool. So my mom and my sister and a ton of onsen cousins are all teachers. And all I hear from them are stories about how terrible the other teachers are and the principal and superintendents and all that. So it really is true that these dynamics in schools, like among the staff, are kind of like being back in middle school. It's, you know, just lots of frustrations and weird power grabs and things like that.
Like that this pilot kind of captures like a version of that. That's awesome. Yeah, it is true because I'm in the same situation. My whole family's teachers. And they tend to act the way the kids act after a while. You kind of forget. I think they forget that they're not in middle school.
The dramas become inflated. They kind of get into what the drama is for the kids sometimes, a little too much. Yeah, my sister has a great story about a chair being stolen, I kid you not, by another teacher. It's really crazy. Sounds crazy. yeah the fact that they made it crazy yeah Fantastic. Thank you, guys. Was there a character that you liked more than others? I really loved Fletcher. Yeah. I think he was really fun, and I love how seriously he takes himself.
And all the pop culture references, like the nerdy, just like every major franchise is mentioned. Well, yeah, of course. Divergent isn't a part of everybody's lives. I don't know how. It absolutely is. I also love hearing about Chad. That sounds funny, but he's such a douche, but I so want to hear more. Sweet.
I'm available. There was something really subtle that I liked about the writing of Doug and also the playing of Doug, which was him jokingly... bullying like i'm doing quotation marks for those listening when he's he's being a bully but he's acting like he's not being a bully he's just like oh i'm relating to you it's such a like cool meta thing that's happening it's the adult bully it's like i can justify it now
because i'm an adult but yeah it was very learned how to hide it very well written and that's a hard thing to catch with people who do that like well i'm not joking you're just too sensitive or i'm joking you're just too sensitive why'd you take it that way exactly so many people like that it's getting pretty relevant
with online culture the way it is. In politics, but we don't have to go there. I was just joking about China, but we don't have to go there. Thank you guys so much. Anything else before we wrap up? Do you know in your head, since you're one of the writers of it, do you intend to include the students in it?
Yeah. Like in the future, will they be characters as well or is that? Yeah, that's the goal. Also coming from a producer perspective, we know that it can be a little challenging with kid actors. So it was going to be mainly about the teachers, but then we would get glimpses.
of maybe one specific student struggling with one specific issue for that episode and how they're interacting with the others. So that the bulk of the story is what's happening behind the scenes with the teachers. But there will be a couple of scenes interacting with the students. I thought that was interesting. seeing the school before school starts. That was something I only became... I guess I knew it intellectually, but as a parent, once I...
became aware of how school works. I was like, oh wait, they go to work. That's work for them. They have to show up before the kids show up. The kids are just the cattle. It's probably their favorite time, too. Yeah, and knowing some of them now on a personal level and being like, oh my gosh, this is a... calm, regular place that you live most of the time. And then all these
wild animals, children, mine included, come rushing in. And so I think it's really interesting to see the day before or however soon before the kids come in. And also how the teachers react around the kids. Yeah, how they code switch and see how.
they're different with these different populations throughout the day because the kids come in waves yeah well they used to come in waves now they're always there's always kids there's no prep time for teachers anymore but there used to be prep time for teachers yeah
You don't realize until you're an adult that any time that you had a movie day in class, it's because your teacher was hungover. Yeah. No, I had a junior high school teacher that basically told us she was hungover. She's like, I got a headache today, guys. It's a migraine. Just read. Okay. I know how to play Egyptian rat screw because my teachers were like hungover. And for our next podcast, we're going to learn how to play Egyptian rat screw.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Undiscovered Scripts. Get it for free on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about this script, along with details of the cast and crew, please visit our website at moviesmadeofpaper.com.