My dinner with Andre

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[We see Wally walking along the streets in a big city; we hear street sounds. Wally has a blank expression. We hear his voice commenting on the action, as a narrator would. This narrating voice will be labeled "WALLY'S NARRATION" to distinguish it from Wally's actual words within the action of the story.]

WALLY'S NARRATION: The life of a playwright is tough. It's not easy, as some people seem to think. You work hard writing plays, and nobody puts them on! You take up other lines of work to try to make a living...I became an actor...and people don't hire you! So you just spend your days doing the errands of your trade. Today I had to be up by ten in the morning to make some important phone calls. Then I'd gone to the stationery store to buy envelopes. Then to the xerox shop: there were dozens of things to do. By five o'clock I'd finally made it to the post office and mailed off several copies of my plays, meanwhile checking constantly with my answering service to see if my agent had called with any acting work. In the morning, the mailbox had just been stuffed with bills! What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to pay them? After all I was already doing my best! I've lived in this city all my life. I grew up on the upper east side, and when I was ten years old I was rich! I was an aristocrat, riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all I thought about was art and music. Now I'm thirty-six, and all I think about is money! [Change of scene: in the subway. A train pulls in; Wally gets in and we see him riding, standing against the door.] It was now seven o'clock and I would have liked nothing better than to go home and have my girlfriend Debby cook me a nice delicious dinner.

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