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By Aaron Loeb
About the Playwright: Acknowledgments: The author wishes to thank the Bay Area
Aaron Loeb is a Bay Area playwright whose work has been community chat helped birch chis play: Jonathan Spector and
performed around the country. His full-length plays include Molly Aaronson-Gelb from Just Theater, Amy Mueller from
Ideation, The Proud, Alcestis (Doesn't Live Here Anymore), Playwrights Foundation, Laura Hope, dramaturg extraordi
Brown, First Person Shooter, Blastosphere (with Geecha Reddy), naire, and of course Bill English and Susi Damilano from SF
What Your Parents Don't \¼nt You to Know... (an opera by Playhouse, who gave it a home. Most especially, the author
Kurt Erickson for which Loeb wrote the libretto) and Abra thanks Josh, Ben, Carrie, Jason, Mark and Michael, the finest
ham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party, which premiered Off collaborators on the face of the Earth. Ir's dispositive.
Broadway in 2010. Among the honors Loeb has received
are: the Will Glickman award for Best New Play in the Bay
Area (Ideation, '14), two San Francisco Bay Area Theatre
Critics Circle Awards for Best New Play (First Person Shooter
in '07, ALBGDP in '08), Outstanding Play from the New
York Internacional Fringe Festival (ALBGDP '09), GLMD
Media Award Nominee (ALBGDP '09), and seven "E merging
Playwright Awards" from PlayGround. He is a member of the
Dramatists Guild, Inc and a PlayGround resident playwright.

About the Play: Winner of the 2014 Will Glickman Award

for the best play to premiere in the Bay Area in 2013, Ide
ation was originally produced by San Francisco Playhouse.
Bill English, Artistic Director. Susi Damilano, Produc ing Di
rector. San Francisco, California. The play was developed in
che Just Theater New Play Lab and the Bay Area Playwrights
Festival. Having premiered in San Francisco Playhouse's
second stage Sandbox Series of new works in November/De
cember 2013, Ideation will return to kick off the company's
main stage season September 23 co November 8, 2014, with
its original director and case.

Playwright's Note: This play is inspired, however obliquely,

by the work of the Center for Justice and Accountability,
which brings human rights abusers to justi ce. You can find
out more about CJA at cja.org.

22 TH \ T 1 3 A y A R >' \ J U LY I A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
 Ideation I MRON LOEB

Originally produced by San Francisco Playhouse. Bill
English, Artistic Director. Susi Damilano, Producing
Director. San Francisco, California.
Director: Josh Costello
Set Design: Alicia Griffiths
Costume Design: Michelle Mal
Stage Manager: Caiclin Price
Light Design: Erin Simpson
Sound Design: Zaque Eyn
Casting Director: Lauren English
Production Manager: Jordan Puckett
Fight Direction: Miguel Martinez
Technical Director: Elliot Ehrlich
Original Cast
Ben Euphrat (Scooter ), Jason Kapoor (Sandeep), Carrie
Paff (Hannah), Mark Anderson Phillips (Brock), Michael Ray
Wisely (Ted), Clive Worsley (J.D.)
© 2014 Aaron Loeb. The play cannot be performed wi th out obtaining
a li c ense from the playwrigh t. Inq ui ries abou r perform ance rig h ts for
Ideation ma y be addressed co: Derek Zasky, William Morris Endeavo r,
d zashy@wmee ntertainment.com. All ri ghts reserved. Professionals and
amateu rs are hereby warned that performances of Ideation are subj ect co
royalty. It is fully protected under copyright laws of the Un i ted States
of America, and of all countries covered by the Incerna ri onal Co pyright
union (in clud i ng the Dominion of Ca nada and che rest of che British
Commonwealth), of all countries covered by the Pan-Am erican Copy
right Convention and the Universal Copy righr C onv em ion, and of all
cou n tries wir h wh i ch the Un i ted States ha s reci procal copy right relat ions.
AJI rights, including professional, amateu r, motion picture, reci tat ion,
lecturing , pub li c reading , radio broadcasti ng, television, vi deo or sound
raping, all ocher forms of mechani cal or electronic reprodu ctions, such
as information srorage and retr ieval systems and phorocopying, and che
rights of translation into foreign lang uages, are srri ccly reserved . Particu
lar emphasis is laid upon the qu estio n of readings, per missio n for wh ich
must be secured from rhe author in wri ti ng.

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23
 Ideation I AARo LOEB
Ideation
By Aaron Loeb
CAST OF CHARACTERS
HANNAH, in her early 40s, carries the aura of authority,
easily switching from laughing at jokes to telling others what
to do. She likes projecting how overworked she is to garner
sympath y- and to show what a hard worker she is. She runs
this office where people hardly ever show up. She's in charge
of the finances, HR and all other operational elqnents.
Technically, she is the boss, though in this context it's her job
as boss to facilitate, not manage. She has an MBA and is an
expert in logistics and finance. She is not expected to have
the best ideas. She's in charge of practicalities of execution.
Brock, Ted and Sandeep are charged with formulating a plan.
BROCK, a backslapper, late 30s. Wears a college ring. Played
football in the Ivy Leagues. Good looking, avuncular, a little
bit sadistic. Brock is an MBA and an expert in organizational
structures. Brock is the team leader of the three.
TED, the most senior of the consultants, in his late 40s, early
50s. He's been a road warrior for many years. Family man.
Sends Chr istmas cards with a family photo on the cover.
Lives in a very large suburban house. His neighbors all know
him. He's from Texas, very faint accent. Ted is a civil engineer
and an expert in transportation
processes.
SANDEEP, late 20s, the youngest of the consultants, a recent
PhD. He's from a rich, highly educated family. He grew up in
Delhi. He has a lovely English/Indian accent. Completely as
similated, perhaps overcompensati ng. He projects arrogance
and gentleness with equal frequency. Sandeep is a PhD in
industrial and systems engineering and an expert in manufac
turing processes.
SCOOTER, early 20s, also a recent MBA grad currently
getting his PhD. He's in an entry-level position, working for
H annah. When he finishes his grad work, he will get a job
like Sandeep's.
J.D., the CEO of chis company. He has a severe attitude,
projects brilliance and scorn. His face is never seen .
SETTING: The Conference Room
A conference room in a gleaming office somewhere. It is modern.
A beautiful conference room table, Aeron chairs, videoconfer
encing system. The upstage wall dominated by a whiteboard If
possible, there is a large TV, or a projection screen, for the vidcon.
THE TIME: Now. The Present. Not the future. There should
be no hint of sci-fi.
NOTE: The actor playing Scooter can double for JD.
24 I '-I t .:, Tq c 2A1 \ Fl r o. J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
(Enter HANNAH, humming. On the table are notepads, pens
and a bundle of whiteboard markers all piled up. She frowns
and goes to the pile. She begins to distribute the notepads.
SCOOTER pops his head in.)
SCOOTER: Yo.
HANNAH: Hey! Can you-
SCOOTER: -Just getting coffee-hey, you want a-milk,
two sugars, right?
HANNAH: Scooter! Stop! I need
SCOOTER: -What is it?
(Scooter slows down , enters the room folly.)
SCOOTER: What 's up?
HANNAH: The guys are gonna be here soon, and you're get
ting coffee. You know? I asked you to set this place up-
SCOOTER: -Yeah. Dude. I set che place up.
HANNAH: Don't call me dude.
SCOOTER: Sure. Sorry. What else do you need?
HANNAH: Exactly what I told you I needed an hour ago.
Gee the room set up for the meeting, okay?
(Enter BROCK, TED, SANDEEP BROCK and TED with
shoulder laptop bags. SANDEEP with a backpack. They all dress
cool wear sunglasses. Each of them has a Starbucks cup.)
BROCK: The boys are back in town. We return in tri umph .
HANNAH: Yeah? How was Crete?
BROCK: Full of cretins.
(TED, BROCK and SANDEEP throw back their heads and
'Jake laugh. " This is the 400th time BROCK has told this joke.
TED and SANDEEP put their bags away.)
HANNAH: Very clever....Hey, Scooter, you mind finishing
up with these? Thanks. But seriously. .how was Crete?
BROCK: Crete was Cre te. What do you want to hear, Han
nah? Job done. Client happy. Pay many drachma.
SCOOTER: Greece is on the euro.
(Beat. The boys stare at SCOOTE R.)
BROCK: I'm so silly. Of course Greece is on che euro.
(He directs this to HANNAH, giving her a look of "Who is
this?"
HANNAH shakes her head. SCOOTER gets the notepads and
markers and continues a half-assed job of settingup.)
 Ideation I MRoN LOEB
Anyway! Sandeep found efficiencies in production that
increased yield by 10%-
SANDEEP: -11.3-
BROCK: 11.3%. Which is a lot more olive oil. Ted figured
out a way to reduce transportation costs to point of distro
by-
TED: -No, I didn 't.
BROCK: Sure you did. Come on. Don't be so modest.
SCOOTER: Thar you tricked them.
(HANNAH sees the state of things and takes over SCOOTER's
work.)
BROCK: I didn't trick anyone. They'll conclude that we
know how to pass liabilities down the line. Because we passed
our client's liability to them.
SCOOTER: So, they'll look for our help to pass the liability
to someone else?

(SCOOTER is interested in this and stops setting up so he can
Listen.)
TED: I had the idea. Brock did all the work. Made a new
deal with the union-this is good. I saw they had guys- our
client was paying for three guys to maintain their trucks.
Brock convinced the union that should be done at the mu
nicipal level-at the port, right? A group of central...! love
this....What did you-
BROCK: -Regional maintenance technicians. The port
should be paying for a group of guys to make sure all the
trucks are, you know, whatever, maintained to port standards
with some modest chargebacks because the whole thing gets
underwritten-
TED: -I love this. I seriously do. I want to kiss this man
BROCK: -It all gets underwritten by the local government
in the guise of, uh, you know...business-friendly environ
ment, et cetera. So our client saves, and the union gets more
heads funded by the government borrowing money they can't
pay back bur, you know, who are they going to call when that
blows up in their faces? Us.
HANNAH: Nice!
SANDEEP: Wouldn't you?
TED: Hey, can we get going soon? I need to leave early
tonight. Emily has a soccer game.
HANNAH: Oh my God! Did they make it to regionals ?
TED: They did.
HANNAH: Look at you, proud papa. Okay, well, we'll get
you out in time for the game. The room's almost ready....
Scooter?
SCOOTER: Yeah! All set! How would you do it? Pass on the
liability?
SANDEEP: (To HANNAH) Are we...uh...sorry, you need us
to get out of your hair?
HANNAH: No. Fine.
BROCK: Seems pretty obvious. Privatize the port. Long
term lease pays off the debt. Probably unload it to the
Chinese.
HANNAH: Excuse me.
(HANNAH is now having to work around the boys to get the
notepads distributed.)

SCOOTER: How do you know they'll call us? SCOOTER: Hey, I was just gonna get some coffee. You guys
need some coffee?
BROCK: Because they'll remember - wait, sorry, who are
you? (TED, BROCK and SANDEEP hold up their coffee cups.)

HANNAH: He's my assist- Oh, yeah. Right.

SCOOTER: -Scooter. Hi. Good to meet you, Brock. Hi. (Exit SCOOTER.)

HANNAH: He was just setting up the room. HANNAH: (Ca/Ling after SCOOTER) Hey! I wouldn't
mind...a cup....
SCOOTER: Yeah, I was just setting up the room. But how
do you know? SANDEEP: I'll get you a cup. How do you like it?
(SCOOT ER throws some whiteboard pens in the tray and joins HANNAH: Uh...milk, two sugars.
the boys.)
SANDEEP: So...brown and sweet.
SANDEEP: They will see that our client is thriving while (Beat. HANNAH smiles.)
they are in debt. Bur wait a minute.....Just a year ago, two,
our client was in debt! So, from this, what will they conclude? HANNAH: You are such an ass.
TED: I like it brown and sweet, too.
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
(SANDEEP winks at HANNAH and exits.)
HANNAH: Guys, don't encourage Scooter.
BROCK: Isn't that what we're supposed to do with the junior
staff? I read the memo.
HANNAH: Don't let him sit at the grown-up table. He's my
SANDEEP: Madam.
assistant- meant to be my-has no interest in operations
whatsoever. He was a gift from J.D.
TED: The CEO is hiring your assistants now?
HANNAH: His daddy's on the board.
TED: Well, glad to hear J.D. doesn't have anything more
important to do than staffing, especially with our stock in
the toilet.
BROCK: If the kid's so goddamned useless, why are you let
ting him in the room in the first place?
HANNAH: You need someone to keep noces-
BROCK: - Better no hands than useless ones. This is a Top
Secret job we're on chis week. If the kid sucks, I don't want
him around!
HANNAH: Brock, don't turn this into a thing. I'm just ask
ing you, please don't start creating him like he's part of the
gang, okay? He wants in on the ideation process; I want him
taking notes-
BROCK: -Fire him. We don't need notes. Who takes
notes anymore?
HANNAH: Where do you think the emails you get every
day, the ones with the subject line, "Notes"-where do those
come from? The note fairies? Someone is in all of your meet
ings taking notes. And someone makes sure the rooms are
always ready for your meetings. Those someones? They work
for me. And when I don't have people working for me, I end
up doing it myself, because all of that stuff has to get done.
BROCK: I know that. I'm just saying, get rid of the kid.
TED: Let it go, Brock-
BROCK: -No, this pisses me off. You think I don't
appreci
ate all the things you do, Hannah? I do. And if that kid isn't
good enough to be on your staff, can him. And if you don't,
that's your problem.
HANNAH: Who needs the aggravation? J.D. wants him
here. Can I give you a bit of coaching, Brock? Sometimes it
really is best to go with the program....
(Enter SCOOTER and SANDEEP with coffee mugs ftom the
kitchen-not Starbucks. SCOOTER has his own. HANNAH
and BROCK go silent. SANDEEP gives a coffee to
HANNAH.
During the following, T ED goes to the whiteboard and begins
writing. At the top of the board, he writes "Project Senna. "
Underneath, "Rules: 1. No PPT 2. Assume the worst 3. No N
Word" He also draws a system diagram: "ID. -> Collection ->
Containment-> Liquidation-> Disposal')
HANNAH: Why, thank you.
SANDEEP: Everything all right ?
HANNAH: Yes, absolut ely.
(She takes a sip.)
Mmmm... Warm, brown and sweet . Exactly how I like it.
SCOOTER: Oh! Hannah, did you want coffee?
HANNAH: Yes.
SCOOTER: Why didn't you say something? I would've
gotten you some . Okay, so, Brock...you were saying you'd
privatize the port. But if there's not enough revenue to justif
the new regional maintenance technicians in the first place,
isn't that liability just going to catch up with our clients?
BROCK: Where'd you go to B-school, Scoots? Mind ifI cal
you Scoots?
SCOOTER: Scoots is.....Sure, Brock. I went to Haas.
(SCOOTER enjoys the following; the razzing makes him one oj
the boys.)
BROCK: Haas. A fine school. A fine , little school.
SCOOTER: But, um , I'm still at Cal finishing my PhD in
industrial and systems engineering.
BROCK: Very impressive! Let me lay the stone of wisdom
upon your chest, young Scoot. If you're in the workplace,
and people call you Scooter rather than Mr. W hatever-your
name-is , it should likely occur to you that you're in some so
of "less than" or, as I like to call it, "junior" position. Does
that sound right, Sandeep? "Junior" position?
SANDEEP: That's what they called it when I went to B
school.
BROCK: That was at Harvard, right?
SANDEEP: That's right, Brock. Harvard. The one in Cam
bridge.
BROCK: It's no Haas, but it will do.
SANDEEP: Harvard was just my MBA I think in this case
my PhD in industrial and systems engineering is more ger
mane. It's from Georgia Tech. The one in Georgia.
26 THE_ AT R= 3 A Y A R EA J U LY/ A U G US T 2 0 1 4
 Ideation I MRoN LOEB
BROCK: Thank you, Dr. Krishnam urthy. Now, Scoots,
when you're in a " ju nior" position and you leave the room to
get yourself coffee, and your boss-whom you assist- does
not have one, yet you return with your own coffee,
mmmm... chat's already a career-limiting move. But when
your boss has gotten coffee instead from one of the
ludicrously overpaid team members-you know, one who
actually has completed his MBN PhD- a team member who
just got in from the road, mind you...I don't quite know what
ro call that. What would you call that, Doc?
SANDEEP: (Rolls his "r") A rookie move.
BROCK: A rookie move. Now, I am left supposing they
don't teach such things at Haas. Is that right, Scoots?
SCOOTER: Uh...
SANDEEP: That's a no.
TED: (Turning.from the whiteboard; he's ready.) Okay, guys
BROCK: -I'm left supposing at Haas, they teach you chat
if you work for a lady, you can ignore her and just hang out
with the boys.
SCOOTER: What? I just-what am I supposed to do, read
her mind? She didn't ask!
HANNAH: I think Ted is ready.
BROCK: She shouldn 't have to ask, Scooter.
("Scooter" with contempt)
You see Hannah setting up the table, and you figure that's a
woman's place-
TED: -Brock, come on-
BROCK: -You've been here for about a minute, and you're
chinking , "I am Scooter, hear me roar. I am king of chis place.
And chis lady here, this boss lady is just a glorified secretary
VP, O perations. I got more in common with the smart guys
than she does. Blah blah blah."
(Pause.)
SCOOTER: Are you- wait, are you kidding?
TED: Yes. Isn't chat a knee-slapper? Now come on, Brock.
We have limited time. Cut it-
BROCK: - There are a thousand kids from better schools
lining up around the block to get your job, and you blew it.
I'm the project lead. I say who's in the room and you're out,
kid.
SANDEEP: Wait, what? Really?
BROCK: Yes, really. Get out!
SCOOTER: This is....You can't kick me out. I don't even
work for you! I work for Hannah.
HANNAH: You do, uh...yes, you work for me, Scooter. But
chis is Brock's room. If you want to stay, convince him you'll
be good at your job.
SCOOTER: I'm just here to take notes! I will just sit quietly
here in the corner. I don't know what I did to-
TED: (To BROCK) -You are throwing a temper tantrum!
We should start now-why are you encouraging this sort of
behavior, Hannah?
BROCK: If he can't even get his boss a cup of coffee, he's cer
tainly not taking notes on any project of mine. Greece is on
the euro. You think I don't know that? I just spent a month
there. Can you imagine him chiming in every five minutes-
SCOOTER: -I won't-
BROCK: -Too late. I would like you out of my sight. Han
nah, can you please...?
HANNAH: He wants you out, Scooter. There's plenty of fil
ing you can catch up on.
SCOOTER: Get a temp. Jesus, dude.
HANNAH: What?
SCOOTER: For the filing. Get a temp! I went to-I didn't
come here to file.
(Pause. HANNAH is most displeased. SANDEEP and BROCK
look at each other excited. TED sighs.)
HANNAH: As you know, Scooter, your employment with us
is at will. As such, we have determined at this time that our
relationship is no longer mutually beneficial. We'll mail you
your last check and any personal items from your desk. May I
have your security card?
SCOOTER: What?
HANNAH: Your security card, please.
SCOOTER: Why?
BROCK: She's firing you.
SCOOTER: She's firing me?
BROCK: She's firing you.
SCOOTER: You're firing me?!
HANNAH: Our relationship is no longer mutually benefi
cial, as I said. I take no pleasure in this. It was a difficult deci
sion and one I assure you we spent a great deal of time on.
SCOOTER: You-wait, you just decided just now!
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
HANNAH: As I said, it was a difficult decision. Your security
card, please.
(Beat. SCOOTER produces his card-perhaps he was wearing it
on a lanyard)
Best of luck in all your future endeavors. I'll walk you out.
(He exits, humiliated, followed by HANNAH Beat.)
TED: Seriously, Brock?
BROCK: Hey, Sandeep helped
SANDEEP: -Leave me out of chis.
TED: -Why in the hell did you two do char? The kid was a
pissanr, sure, bur was char srricdy necessary?
BROCK: I dunno, Ted. Why does anyone do anything? Be
cause we wanted co? Because we could? Because he
deserved
it?
TED: Thar was seriously cruel.
BROCK: If it was so awful, why didn't you stop me?
TED: I cried.
BROCK: Did you, Ted? Did you, really? You know the
fun
ny thing? Kid kind of reminds me of me at char age. I wish
someone had taken rhe rime co really thoroughly kick my ass
back then. Someday, he'll look back on chis and thank me.
(HANNAH enters.)
HANNAH: Okay, he's gone, H R's been notified, and you
boys are caking your own notes. If J.D. gees pissed about it,
I'll be sure co send him your way, Brock.
BROCK: Hey, I just kicked him our. Thar was completely
within my rights. You're the one who fired him!
TED: Can we dig in?
HANNAH: ].D.'s assistant emailed me chis morning co lee
me know chat he expects a presentation of early concepts in
two hours.
TED: What?! We're not ready for chat. There's no way we'll
be-
HANNAH: -He wanes co hear your ideas on the back half
of the process right away co see if he likes the direction
you're raking. He can squint and see if you're on the right
track.
TED: I am not going to J.D. with my dick in my hand.
HANNAH: For the record, neither am I. Lee's get started.
BROCK: "Le e's...." Uh...are you staying in the room?
HANNAH: J.D . wanes someone in senior management in
the room, yes.
(Beat.)
SANDEEP: We hardly ever gee a chance co work with you
direcdy on rhe projects. This is very exciting!
BROCK: Yes. Very exciting. Welcome co the ream! So, uh,
are you going co rake notes, then? "I fl don't have someone co
rake notes, I end up doing it myself..."
(Beat. HANNAH stares at him.)
I'll, uh...kick us off then. We had a chance co discuss ground
rules for the job back in Crete. Thank you, Theodore, for
writing it all down.
TED: Someone had co do some work while you were, uh,
psychologically torturing a 22-year-old.
BROCK: (He points to the whiteboard.) We've all agreed co be
bound on chis job by three key rules. First and foremost, due
co the secrecy of our assignment, we won't be using Power
Point. We wane no digital files associated with Senna.
All ideation is co be done on the whiteboard and erased.
Results will be recorded co memory. Any notes recorded co,
gasp, paper. Second, when we design, we assume the worse
and design systems of scale. Third, no using the n-word. Thar
one is self-explanatory. We assigned our some early work in
Crete. I'm cackling identification or, uh, diagnostics, as well
as containment. Sandeep is working on rhe liquidation sys
tem itself. And Ted was meant co rake on collection into rhe
facilities and disposal. Given chat J.D. wanes co hear about
the back half, lee's, uh, lee's start at rhe end and work our way
backwards, right? We'll lock down as many of the big con
cepts as we can before our first check-in. Sound good?
(All nod.)
Okay, then. Lee's dive into Ted's concepts for disposal.
Namely, what are we going co do with all the bodies?
(Beat.)
Ted?
(TED stands up, goes to whiteboard BROCK sits down.)
TED: Okay, so, I've, uh, I've been doing some early idear
ing and I have four proposals for our disposal system. First,
cremation. The problem is obvious: the build-out of crema
toriums necessary co in ci nerate char many bodies is...would
be...enormous-
BROCK: -Crematoria.
TED: Huh?
BROCK: The plural of crematorium is crematoria, you ii-
28 PIE rr;- 1 P1 . JULY/AUGUST 2014
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
literate redneck.
(HANNAH pulls out her phone and types something into it.)
TED: Pretty sure it's crematoriums.
BROCK: Yes, you would be. Primarily because your Uncle
Billy Joe is also your Pappy. But also because you're none too
bright.
TED: Hannah, can you please...uh....
HANNAH: (Looking up from her phone) Do you w;mt me to
fire him?
(Impersonating BROCK)
There's a whole line of kids from better schools out that door
who will take your job, you little shit bird-
BROCK: -I did not call him a shit
bird. HANNAH: No, bur I bet you
wish- (Glancing down at her phone)
-Oh! Here.....You're both right. Crematoriums, crematoria.
(Pronounced EE-thur)
Eicher.
SANDEEP: (PronouncedAI-thur) It's pronounced , "either,"
actually.
(HANNAH flips SANDEEP off)
BROCK: I'm pretty sure it's crematoria.
HANNAH: (EE-thur) Well, the Internet says it's either, and
the Internet is never wrong.
TED: (Back to it) The build-out of crematoriums would be
daunting, impossible to do in secret, require a massive, uh,
massive work effort with hundreds or thousands of workers.
And chat just assumes there's only one location where all the
cremation is performed , which means loading bodies onto
cargo flights and shipping them to that location from each
liquidation facility. If we do chat, we're exposing multiple
people and vehicles to the bodies, which potentially creates
more problems , right?
(Everyone nods, sagely.)
Alternatively, the, uh, the crematoriums could be built at
every-at each liquidation facility, but chis means even more
challenges in keeping the facilities secret. But chat's not all!
Once the bodies are cremated, by whatever, uh...you know...
centralized or, uh, localized effort, we're still left with the ash
and bone, in many cases, which also have to be disposed of.
BROCK: Right. Crematoria are out of the running.
TED: I didn't say that. They may be a crappy option, but
they may also be the best of the crappy options. Disposal
method numero dos: Mass grave. An old favorite. Presents
many problems. First of all, it's disrespectful to the dead,
obviously. Secondly, it's likely to, uh, to get uncovered some
time, right? And part of the-well, we're trying to figure out
how to leave no, uh...trace, right? So, to me, this rules mass
grave out right away.
HANNAH: It would seem, yeah...dispositive.
TED: Apart from that, the facilities are meant to be secret.
But depending on the number of bodies, it would be clearly
visible-you get the picture-
BROCK: -So will satellites.
TED: Exactly. Exactly. Now, my next idea is, well, a little
more out there, but maybe, y'know.....Option 3: Burial at
sea.
SANDEEP: Come on.
TED: Ir's an option.
SANDEEP: We're going to bury up to a million bodies !
mean, maybe more, right? We've agreed this has to be scal
able. You can't possibly imagine burying bodies at sea to be
secretly and efficiently scalable-
TED: -With enough foreplanning, yes.
SANDEEP: Well, color me incredulous.
BROCK: Oooo, I like that. That will be the title of Sandeep's
first solo album. Color Me Incredulous.
SANDEEP: With my #1 hit, "You Can't Bury Thar Many
Bodies at Sea."
(Beat.)
Sorry...I shouldn 't joke....
BROCK: Don't worry about it. Remember Concepcion.
HANNAH: That was before Sandeep's tim e.
BROCK: Ah, yeah, right.
SANDEEP: Concepcion?
BROCK: The, uh, yeah-the Chilean federales had brought
us in right after the big quake to help find savable survi
vors-I mean, we knew there were people alive under the
rubble all over the city, just no way to get to most of them
in rime. The job was modeling, you know, how many inches
of concrete can we drill through a second, how much rubble
can we clear, stability studies, cross-referencing all rhar against
population hotspots.... It was real race-against-rime , who
lives, who dies type stuff. One night-God, I was sure you
J ULY / AUGUST 2014 T
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
were there, Deep.
SANDEEP: No.
BROCK: One night we're raking a break, drinking, laughing
about something and, uh......I guess it must've been Maggie,
but I remember it being you; she says, "We shouldn't laugh."
And a wise old man-emphasis on the old-says,
(Southern accent)
Laugh about it, cry about it, the job's still the job.
(Beat.)
HANNAH: How would it work, Ted? Burial at sea. Walk me
through it.
TED: Uh ...okay....
(He goes to the whiteboard, draws a circle, and writes in it
"TERM.')
You have the bodies at the termination facilities, right?
BROCK: What is it? Liquidation facilities or termination
facilities-
TED: -Liquidation, termination, same difference
BROCK: -It's notthesame....Nomenclature matters, Ted.
A project of this scale, we can't call things by five di fferent-
TED: -I think everyone will know what either one
means-
BROCK: -Again, notthepoint.
HANNAH: Guys. I want to hear this. Let's not , uh...derail....
(TED uses the whiteboard eraser to erase "TERM" and writes
''L.F")
TED: Okay. Each liquidation facility then, uh...loads...
(He draws an arrow from "L.F" to a new circle he draws and
labels "TRANSPO. ')
...uh...loads the bodies into transport to a central location.
This has the same, uh, challenge as the crematoriums-or
oneof them, right? We're exposing transportation personnel
and vehicles.....You get what I'm saying? Anyway, the transpo
goes to the central storage facility in a port city.
(Beat. As he draws an arrow from "TRANSPO" to a new circle
he draws and labels "STORAGE. "From this circle, he draws an
other arrow to a final circle, "SHIP" He draws an arrow looping
between ''SHIP" and ''STORAGE.')
See? From the port, the ships can rake multiple trips-limit ing
the need for informed parties. The warehousing-the storage of
the bodies is accomplished in an already built, al ready, uh,
already, you know, a commercial set of warehouses.
30 T t I\ P E BA v A :i EA J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
Nothing to draw prying eyes. And of course, chis allows for
multiple termination...uh...liquidation facilities to feed into
the system, right?
(He draws more circles at the beginning, fills in the initials "L.F"
and points arrows from them to the "TRANSPO" circle.)
Again, suboptimal, but logistically it may be the best solu
tion.
BROCK: Did you even chink this through?
TED: I did.
BROCK: Ted. Teddy. Come on. First off, each body would
need to be weighted. Bodies float. Thar's a high-touch pro
cess. If we 're going to dispose of upward of a million- hell,
let's go crazy, two million bodies, that's two million bodies
someone has ro wrap up with a weight. That's also, what? A
hundred million pounds of weights we'd need to somehow
produce in secret and, uh, store at these warehouses? This has
to be a light-touch, or no-touch process.
(He makes the '1talian salute" and a raspberry-like in a Fellini
film.)
Thar's what I have to say to your burial at sea. Come on.
TED: I think it's very easy to find edge cases on this rhing
SANDEEP: -Let itgo, Ted.
HANNAH: It certainly doesn't seem credible.
(TED lets this settle in . He's clearly embarrassed. Beat.)
TED: Okay. Option 4. Combine liquidatio n and disposal.
HANNAH: How so?
TED: This method has strong disadvantages...uh...on the
moral axis, as it were.
SANDEEP: The moral axis as it were? What does-
TED: -Essentially, it occurred to me that this is the primary
part of the process in which we can introduce efficiencies .
Sandeep doesn't have a firm design for the liquidation system
yet, so...what if we combine liquidation and disposal...
BROCK: Yeah, Ted. We're following. How?
TED: Okay, so, first option I could come up with is acid.
Sandeep could design a termination chamber-a liquida tion
chamber where the subjects file in. The chamber is then
flooded with some kind of sleep agent. After that, it's filled
with, uh, highly concentrated hydrofluoric acid. It, uh, che
lares with calcium, so it would actually break down some or
all of the bone.
(Beat. Everyone else is quiet.)
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
Ic...I mean, of course, there is the problem of cleanup and the
cost of generating that much acid. There are stability issues
with acid this powerful....
HANNAH: 1hey would wake up, Ted. Wouldn't they? I
mean, we couldn't use medical-grade anesthesia. That'd be
too-what'd you call it?-high touch? This should be...
gentle. You can't-
TED: -As I said...it has moral problems. But, if we can
figure it out, we'll be left with some kind of, uh...toxic bio
sludge that will have no trace DNA, so even if it\ uncovered
at a later time.....We can just bury it in the desert.
BROCK: I like it.
HANNAH: Seriously? It'sJeffrey Dahmer on a national scale.
TED: Well...guys...come on. Don't, uh...
SANDEEP: Don't what?
TED: Don't try to, you know...make me feel guilty or some
thing for having thought of it. Jeffrey Dahmer? It's not-
SANDEEP: -I'm not-
TED: -We haven't been hired to model out the world's big
gest hugging machine, have we? I mean, uh, did I miss that
in the brief from J.D .? Rainbows and, uh, unicorns-
HANNAH: - Okay,Ted...
TED: I mean, this is.... Do you think I enjoy coming up...
modeling this stuff? Even if it's all just, you know, theoreti
cal-I don't need you to make me feel like I'm a piece of shit
for trying to figure out how this gets done, okay?
SANDEEP: No one is saying you're a piece-Ted, that's
not...it's not that. Ir's just a little horrifying.
TED: I can't believe you're just figuring that out now, Sand
eep. Where the hell have you been?
HANNAH: It also seems, you know, impractical. How are
you going to get all these people to just walk into a chamber
that floods with acid? I mean, won't they start to notice that
others go in and never, uh-
TED: Containment is Brock's job! He'll explain how we get
people to enter the chambers! We're just focused on disposal
right now-for my presentation, let's just focus-can we
please all just focus? Please?
SANDEEP: But you are not merely focused on disposal
BROCK: - O kay, maybe we should keep ideating. Maybe
none of these ideas will work-
TED: -It will work if you would all just look at it on its
own merits and stop trying to figure out new and different
ways to call me a monster.
HANNAH: No one is calling you a monster, Ted-
TED: -Y'all know the parameters of the job just as well
as I do. What if someo ne unleash ed a designer virus, 100 %
kill rate, remains dormant long enough to spread effectiv ely,
incredibly contagious. A total extinction event. We have to
figure out how to segregate the infected from the uninfe cted
and we must, I repeat, must, have provisions to keep the fa
cilities operating if they start to get overcrowded. That means
liquidation. This is abo ut the survival of the species. So, you
know, stop looking at me like that because I suggested acid.
Can you just look at this idea on its own merits rather than
through the lens of your own goddamned squeamishness? Is
that too much to ask? Because we don't have time on this gig
to get sentimental.
(Beat.)
BROCK: Hey, how abo ut we take a break, okay? Ted, come
on. Lemme buy you a cup of coffee. A l it tle- a nice little
walk to Starbucks, clear the head, right?
(Beat. TED nods.)
TED: I like their petite scones.
BROCK: Who doesn't love their petite scones? Come on,
papa bear. Let's get you out of here for a bit.
(TED and BROCK clear out. SANDEEP and HANNAH sit i
silence. Finally:)
SANDEEP: I think about you when I touch myself.
(HANNAH bursts out Laughing. SANDEEP too. SANDEEP
crosses to HANNAH They make out. She pushes him away afte
a moment.)
HANNAH: You're too young for me.
SANDEEP: Thar's nor what you said in Helsinki.
HANNAH: Helsinki was the last time. I told you that.
(She grabs him and kisses him again. His hands run up her
thighs. She slaps his hands.)
HANNAH: What are you, stupid? Brock and Ted
SANDEEP: -Who cares? They know.
HANNAH: They know?! Did you tell them?
SANDEEP: Of course not. But it's nor like...we're pretty
obvious about it. The hiding it by joking about it stratagem
isn't working out. They ask me about it all the time. I deny it
but...rhose guys are not renowned for their stupidity.
HANNAH: Jesus. Shit. Have they told anyone? Anyone in
J ULY / AUGUST 2014 -HE..,Tr<: 0
-- -
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
Geneva? Or corporate?
SANDEEP: I don't think so. If they have, there is nothing we
can do. You cannot unring a bell, madam.
HANNAH: You can't be so casual about this. They will fire
me-they'd be right to. And don't get me started on the
shitty things they could do to you-your work visa? Gone.
It's back to Delhi for you. This is so wrong....
SANDEEP: It's not wrong.
HANNAH: Sandeep. I have a husband. Okay? I am your
boss. I am your boss's boss! This could....
(Beat.)
SANDEEP: What? This could what? Ruin you?
HANNAH:Yes, Sandeep!
SANDEEP: When do you stop worrying about everyone
else, what they think about you? You don't love your husband
anymore-
HANNAH: -You don't know that-
SANDEEP: -I know that. I know Brian doesn't treat you
as I would treat you. He looks past you, doesn't he? I could
tell that in Helsinki , even if you hadn't been drunk. Even if
you hadn't told me everything. Do you know what your
Carrie Paff and Jason Kapoor in San Francisco
Playhouse's world premiere production of Ideation.
Phot o: Jordan Puckett
PP
'----.
32 - c '"'T ts - Y 8E J U LY/ AUG UST 2 0 1 4
problem is, Hannah?
HANNAH: You.
SANDEEP: Madam, I...I am your solution. In your worry
that you will be ruined, you have missed that all of this is
an opportunity. Perhaps this entire system you have been
working to incrementally improve should be torn down and
rebuilt. If they fire you? So what! If Brian leaves you? Good!
(She begins to interrupt)
No, no...please listen to me on this.....They will say, as you
say now, that what we did together was wrong. Very well. You
are wrong. And then what? You will survive being wrong. You
will rebuild, and you will rebuild something better, stronger.
The things that matter cannot all be taken away in a minute.
The things that matter...Helsinki...the way this feels...
(He touches her face gently.)
Don't tell me you don't want me. You want me. That's what
really matters.
(Pause.)
HANNAH: You are such a kid.
SANDEEP: Our age difference does not matter
HANNAH: -Of course you think I can just walk away.
You have a one bedroom with a couch and an empty
refrigerator. You don't Sandeep, you don't have any friends.
SANDEEP: I have-
HANNAH: -I mean, not real friends who have been with
you for decades. You can do anything you want. I have
friends who come over for drinks on Saturday night, and
they are my friends and they are Brian's friends. I have. .joint
bank accounts and life insurance policies and a husband who
makes about a tenth of my salary who literally cannot live
without me. The idea of just, hey, none of that's "real"? Only
a child who doesn't even have a cat that depends on him
could chink none of that's real. That's the only thing that's
real.
SANDEEP:I
HANNAH: -Shut up.
(She grabs the hair on the back of his head and pulls him to her
fiercely. They make out.)
SANDEEP: Look...we have to...we have to stop. This is. .I
won't be able to work iL
HANNAH: Yeah.
SANDEEP: I'm staying at the W
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
HANNAH: Yeah?
HANNAH: Because you don't want co hear the answer.
SANDEEP: Maybe...tonighc? (Beat)
HANNAH: Yeah. Sorry.
SANDEEP: Really ? You're really going to...this isn't like Brus SANDEEP: Yeah. No. I gee it.
sels?
HANNAH: And because I don't, uh...I don't want to chink
HANNAH: I told you Brian surprised me by showing up-I about it like chat.
don't want to talk about Brussels.
SANDEEP: Think about-
SANDEEP: Of course...! jusc...chac was a really crappy night
for me. HANNAH: -You know...the, uh...the camps- the liqui-
dacion...whatever. I don't want to think abo ut people, uh,
HANNAH: I'll make it up to you. Ted has regionals, so
people...spending their lase...
maybe we both sneak out of here early, assuming J.D . likes
your initial concepts on liquidation .... (She sighs. Silence.)

(Beat.) Ir's just...you know?

Do you ever chink abouc...I mean...what if they ever use the
design? O r, uh, what if...
SANDEEP: I need co, uh...go to the bathroom and...you
know...cake care of something? Would you care co come with
me?
HANNAH: Save it for tonight.
(They kiss.)
SANDEEP: I chink about it all the time.
HANNAH: Oh, God. Don't do chat. This only works if it's,
you know...casual. Don 't...
SANDEEP: I mean about the camps. I chink about. I've
been chinking about it all che way from Crete. I believe in
what we are doing and I understand why there should be a
plan- muse be a plan like chis. I do. Buc. whac if? You know?
What if it were instead for brown guys named Mohammed
foreigners or. people who look like me. People like me.
HANNAH: Or women who cheat on their husbands.
SANDEEP: That's guilt talking. You do not deserve co be put
ma camp.
HANNAH: I never said I did. Jesus.
(Beat.)
SANDEEP: What if you were one of chem? One of the
people going co the, uh, facilities. Would you look back on
your life before the termination chamber and ch ink ,
"Yeah, I played chat just right." Or would you regrec. you
know?
Would you wish you'd cold Brian about me?
HANNAH: Don't ask me chat.
SANDEEP: Because you don't want co think about it?
SANDEEP: Yeah.
HANNAH: Yeah?
SANDEEP: No. Of course.
(Pause. Sudden61 there is a loud ringing. The vidcon system is
chirping. They both jump. HANNAH looks at the system.)
HANNAH: It's J.D.
SANDEEP: What?
HANNAH: I have co cake ch is.
SANDEEP: Oh. Right. Okay. I'll jusr...are you coming co
my room tonight?
(The vidcon rings. It's really damned loud and obno xious.)
HANNAH: Yes, Sandeep. Yes.
SANDEEP: Then I'm going to, uh...go for a walk.
(Exit SANDEEP HANNAH answers the vidcon. The vidcon
screen is preferably on stage and we see J.D. However, it is also
possible that the vidcon screen is on the fourth wall, so that Han
nah stares out at the audience, with lights representing what she
sees.
If we see J.D., he is in an immaculate office,but is standing
in front of the camera so we only see a pair of pants. He regularly
walks off camera.)
J.D.: Hannah.
HANNAH: Hi, J.D. We're, uh Did I have the rime wrong?
I had our first check-in down for 90 minutes from now.
J.D.: Are you alone?
HANNAH: Uh. . .yes?
J.D.: HR informs me you've lee Perry go.

J ULY / AUGUST 2014

 Ideation I AARON LOEB
HANNAH: Perry?
J.D.: Scooter. Perry Hermann. Goes by Scooter.
HANNAH: Oh, yes. Perry. Sorry. I did, yes.
J.D.:Why?
HANNAH: Isn't this a little below your pay grade, J.D.?
J.D.: Why did you let him go?
HANNAH: He was fundamentally terrible at his job.
J.D.: But you are not. At least, I didn 't think you were. I
told you he is the son of one of our board members-an Id
friend of mine, I might add-and you fire him? Meanwhile,
you're working on a secret project, and you just let him walk
out of the building?
HANNAH: He signed his NDAs.
J.D.: Oh, because no one has ever broken an NOA I can't
believe you'd suffer from such an enormous lapse in judg
ment, Hannah. It makes me question your ability to run that
office.
UD. is off-screen now. We hear whispering.)
HANNAH: J.D., I am so sorry. I did not mean to let you
down. Scooter was refusing to do his work and one thing led
to another. I have friends in town at some really prestigious
firms , I can find him another-I'm very sorry.
J.D.: I'm concerned about your future here, Hannah. After
a blunder like this, I have to wonder ifI can trust you. Can I
trust you, Hannah?
HANNAH: Of course you can. Yes.
(More whispering off screen)
J.D.: I need you to make sure the guys do their work over
the next few days, okay? I need a complete design. No matter
what.
HANNAH: A...of course. That's why I'm here!
J.D.: No, you're not listening to me.
(Enter TED and BROCK, loudly. HANNAH is all smiles the
moment she hears them enter.)
BROCK: Hannah, this is genius.
HANNAH: Hey, guys. I've got J.D. on the vidcon....
BROCK: J.D. Did we have the wrong time? I'm so sorry! We
were'nt-
J.D.: -No, nothing like that. I'm looking forward to your
initial ideas. Talk to you in 90 minutes, gang.
34 ' H E A I r1 t B A f ;, R E I' J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
HANNAH: Uh, can I call you back from my desk just to
finish-
(The pants appear in front of the camera again.)
J.D.: -Sorry, Hannah. Schedule's jammed up. Gotta jump.
(The vidcon goes dark. HANNAH stares at it. Beat.)
BROCK: What was that about?
HANNAH: I can't discuss it, Brock.
BROCK: Was it about Scooter? Didn't figure J.D. would
hear about it so soon. What did you tell him?
HANNAH: I not only can't tell you, I'm not going to tell
you.
BROCK: Are you- is this a power play?
HANNAH: Yes. It's a power play.
BROCK: Just admit he was calling about Scooter. We know
it was about Scooter.
HANNAH: Okay. You know it was about Scooter. I'm,
uh...I'll be right back.
(Exit HANNAH)
BROCK: Wait, did she admit it, or was she just saying,
"Whatever you say"?
TED: Of course it was about Scooter. She probably just got
screamed at by the CEO because of your shenanigans , so,
you know, why not drop it rather than picking at it?
BROCK: Because I want to know. Why shouldn 't she tell
me? It affects me too if J.D. is pissed off. She should tell me!
TED: Excessive winning.
BROCK: Fuck off.
TED: Seriously, Brock. You're going to die at 42 of a massive
infarction . You can't go through life needing to win every thing,
all the time-
BROCK: -I don't need your, uh...your "make yourself bet
ter" management consultant bullshit.
TED: We're management consultants.
BROCK: How are the petite scones?
TED: Woah! You've befuddJed me with your sudden change
of topic. Totally threw me off the scent. How can you be
world class if every little thing is a competition, buddy? You
gotta save yourself for the big races-
BROCK: -I seriously cannot deal with pop-psych wrapped
in spores analogies right now-would you shut up?
 Ideation I AARo:-i LOEB
(Beat.)
TED: They're delicious. The scones. Thank you.
(Enter HANNAH and SANDEEP.)
BROCK: Well, hello. Were you and J.D. able co consum
mate your secret chat ?
HANNAH: No, he wasn't available-thanks for your inter est.
Bue look who I found.
TED: Good! If we can gee back co it, then.....Fir c off, sorry
about my liccle, you know-
SANDEEP: -No need co apologize, Ted. This is. . .ic's okay.
TED: So. Brock and I had chis genius idea on che walk from
che Starbucks-actually, it was at the Starbucks, but we kind
of crystallized ic-
BROCK: - Ship pi ng containers .
TED: Asshole.
BROCK: You were caking coo long.
TED: Brock. Seriously. You're gonna die alone.
SANDEEP: Shipping containers. Please, uh...you know...
HANNAH: Use more words.
( TED uses the diagram on the whiteboard to illustrate this
flow:)
TED: The bodies from che yet-co- be-designed liquidation
chamber are loaded into shipping containers at the liquida
tion facilities, preferably by automated means. They're then
trucked or railroaded co harbor storage facilities and folded
into regular shipments. Mid-ocean, they're pushed overboard.
1he containers sink with the bodies.
BROCK: Good , right? Ir serves multiple function s. We don't
have co weight the bod ie s, and no one has co couch chem
ever again once rhey leave rhe liquidation facility. We need co
prepare for many di fferent kinds of virus, right? Some viruses
would result in seepin g bodies char are contagious. Och-
ers would have inert bodies. This works in either scenario,
containing the body and rhe virus in lined containers and
preventing any downstream infections.
(Beat.)
HANNAH: Ir could work.
SANDEEP: What about the shipping manifests?
TED: The, uh...huh. Shir. Yeah. I shoulda thought of char.
BROCK: What?
TED: If a whole shipping container goes missing mid-ship
ment, it would sec off all kinds of red Bags. Drug smuggling,
weapons...they don't search each indi vidual co ntainer, but
they, uh...the inventories of containers are pretty exact.
SANDEEP: Supposing...okay, it doesn't...it's nor disposicive.
BROCK: Right. It's harder co do because of the man ifests,
but maybe if you have key people in on the plan-
HANNAH: -Ted, you're up already. Can we just.....Lee's
just list everyone who would need co be invo lved, everyone
who would have co know about the facilities in order to
make chis work. Maybe....maybe even if there wo uld need to
be some kind of cover-up necessary co make the containers
disappear, chat cover- up could be, uh, limit ed to the people
who already have co know about the entire operat ion. So, y0
have the people at the liquidation facility who know what's
going on-
(TE D writes "LF Staff")
TED: -And they call ahead co the folks at the port to say,
"Th ere's four ship pi ng containers coming your way that need
co di sap pear." So, someo ne at the po rt aurhority, the
shippers
carrying the containers, and the handlers on the vessel who
have co dump the things.
(TED writes down "PA Staff" "Shippers" and "Handlers.")
SANDEEP: This brings the port authority people into the
mix, but ocher than char, everyone else was already in on it.
HANNAH: Right. Yes. If we're entertaining any "burial at
sea" scenario, we will have co i nvolve the shi ppers and the
handlers, no matter what.
BROCK: Wair. Would we? Sure, the folks at rhe liquida
tion facility need to know what's going on, bur the shipp in g
personnel-the truckers, the railroad folks, the shipping
company...rh ey co uld just know they're shi pping biohazard.
They won't open the containers, so they don't have to know
anything about their contents.
HANNAH: They're going co just shove containers of biohaz
ard into the ocean?
BROCK: Sure. You grease palms co gee eve ryone to look the
ocher way. You pay rhe handler s co push chem overboar d and
nor ask questions. You pay the port authority people to make
them disappear off the manifest. Hell, rh e guys carryin g rhe
containers from the facilities co the port don't even have to
know anything at all!
SANDEEP: They will know the location of rh e liquidation
facilitie s, however. And chose are a secret.
TED: Bur they don 't know what's in rhe facilities. So, it's, uh
kind of a second order of confidenrial ...you know? Second
order of, uh-
JUL Y / AUGUST 2014
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: -Yeah, yeah. Shit, righ t, yeah. Okay, so lee's say
there's tier one knowledge. The people who know everything
chat's going on in the facilities and then people who know
a little bit-tier two-then people who know noth in g, tier
three. And let 's label each, uh, let's- you know? That way, we
can figure out who needs to know what to make the
shipping containers disappear. Maybe it's not, uh...you know,
maybe it's a smaller list than we were thinking. The people
working at the liquidation facility are tier one.
(TED writes "J "and circles it next to "LF Staff')
SANDEEP: No, they're not.
(TED erases the "J "in the circle, poised to write something else.
Slowly, over the following, he realizes he won't write anything
else, and looks a little disappointed-he was on a roll.)
BROCK: How do you figure? They have to know every
thing-
SANDEEP: - Th ey have to know what they have to know.
They have to know that they are running a liquidation facil
ity. They have to know people go into a yet-to-be-designed
chamber alive and chat they come out dead. And in chis
scenario, they have to know chat they load those bodies into
shipping containers, then chat they lie to the truckers about
what's in them.
BROCK: Or. ..in other words...everything?
HANNAH: Thar's not ...he's right. That's hardly everything.
SANDEEP: They do not have to know that there are other
facilities. Th ey do not have to know what happens to the
bodies. Th ey do not have to know why those people are dy
ing in the chambers. They do not have to know for whom
they are working or why. We have to know all of chis because
we are designing the system.
TED: O kay, so they're tier two.
(He writes "2" and circlesit nex t to "LF Staff')
BROCK: No. We can't say what tier they are.
(BR OCK, SANDEEP and HANNAH look at each other, all
realizing something. TED does not.)
TED: Jesus. Make up your minds , guys.
(He erases the "2,"caps the pen and sits down. Now he notices.)
What?
SANDEEP: If we are having this conversation now....
HANNAH: Someone had it before us. And maybe someone
before them. We only know what we know.
SANDEEP: More precisely, we only know what we need to
36 " _ - T f'< _ , r ,.
J U LY/ A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
c =.;
know to design the system.
HANNAH: So, what tier are we?
(Pause.)
BROCK: We can't, uh....We can't know. Can we? It could be
chat we know everything.
SANDEEP: It could be chat there are layers upon layers of
secrecy-a thousand tie rs. And we may be at the bottom, or
the middle, or-guys...
(Beat.)
How big is chis thing?
BROCK: Okay, this is we can figure this out. Right?
Simplest scenario is chat chis is exactly what we've been told:
a client has hired us to build chis model in case there's ever a
virus and it has to be used. We know everything ch at's going
on and everything we have been told is true. Right? Let's call
that Scenario A
SANDEEP: Let us call chat Scenario Wishful Thinking.
BROCK: Scenario B. It's more complicated than we think.
It's a, uh, it's a tree of knowledge. Let's just...lee's- it's a tree
with multiple, synchronously developing knowledge sets.
(He draws the following on the whiteboard, erasing what's
there already first.)
Look. There's a highest level. That's tier one. True tier one.
(He draws "VISION" at the top and circles it.)
Tier one is the vision holder for the assignment. And in this
scenario, let's assume the vision holder isn't celling us the
truth.
TED: Why not?
BROCK: Because maybe it's not theoretical. Maybe the virus
is real.
TED: Oh, for God 's sake-
BROCK: No, think about it. This makes sense. The virus is
already out there, and the vision holder doesn't want to start
a panic. But he-she-it- I'm going with "it"- wants to make
sure it gets the best results , so it creates multiple branching
assignments for "n" teams, all competing wit h one another
based on different, uh...information sets, right? The client
intends to find the best id e a by telling these teams they're
working on a theoretical design and then it 'll pick the best
one. Or the best pieces.
(BROCK draws four lines coming off "VISIO N." He then draws
circles at the end of the lines and fills them in: " J, " "2," ''.3, "
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
So, this team, lee's say chat's us.....This team chinks it's design
ing a secret system to deal with a virus possessing a slow
infection pattern , and chat team over there thinks it's deal
ing with, it's been told to handle a fast-spreading virus and
an international panic-right? You'd want a different plan if
word of the virus got out and it was harder to get people to
the facilicies-
HANNAH: -And this way, vision holder gets a rich set of
plans from which it can pick and choose based on conditions.
TED: What does it matter? This isn't the job. We're not be
ing paid to figure out the client 's methodology. The job is to
design the system, and I need to leave early. Hannah, could
you please keep us on track?
HANNAH: Lee's, uh.....I think this is worth exploring. Just
for a minute. We don't know anything about the client, and I
think, you know, given the nature of Project Senna-let's just
prove out chat it's Scenario A.
TED: Okay, fine. Let's prove it out, then. In Scenario B,
you' re positing chat we're one of many teams. You're assum
ing vision holder has gone out and hired the top teams from
several major consulting firms?
BROCK:Yes.
TED: I reject the premise.
BROCK:Why?
TED: If chis is a secret mission, you can't spin up multiple
teams. There'd be too much chance of leaking. Word gets out
about the virus and starts a mass panic. No. You'd find one
team. The perfect team. Scenario A.
SANDEEP: Not if you need to guarantee an outcome. Our
idea may be...
(Something occurs to him. Until he speaks, he scribbles on a
pad.)
HANNAH: Yes. Right? You want the best idea. You don't bet
on one team only. You need different proposals-
BROCK: -And if someone leaks? So what? Who's going
to believe it? And really, who would leak? These are the top
teams at the top consulting firms in the world. Are you going
to endanger your career by celling people something so crazy
sounding? Besides, I reject your premise!
TED: And what's that?
BROCK: If there's only one team on earth working on chis
problem, it's unlikely to be us.
TED: How do you fig ure?
BROCK: If you're going to design a massive, people-moving
system... the very paragon of efficiency? We are very good at
what we do. Our competitors are pretty good too. Bue there
is one ring to rule chem all and in the darkness bind them.
TED: They would never take the job. Come on!
HANNAH: Brock's right. For the good of human ity, they
would. For a problem like this, they'd be your first call.
Nobody knows more about moving millions of people into
a facility every day and millions of tons of waste out every
night....
TED: There isn't a chance in a million that...guys, Disney
would not assign Imagineers to create a death camp!
BROCK: If Scenario A is chat you've hired one and only one
team to save the human race, you'd get them before you'd get
us Ted, I am capable of considerable self-regard as you well
know, but the more I think about this Scenario A is unlikely
because we're in it. I mean, we're certainly, you know, first
round draft picks, but...
HANNAH: He's right. It would be a team, uh, you know,
a team at the Pentagon. Or a handpicked dream team. Or...
if this is a plan to save the human race, would you really bet
it all on some guys who just got off a plane from Crete? No
offense.
TED: None taken.
(Beat.)
This in no way contradicts what J.D. told us, or makes our
work less important, but I agree. Ir's most likely that there are
other teams working on the assignment.
BROCK: In Scenario B, the vision holder looks at the com
peting proposals and chooses the one best suited to deal with
the parameters of the, uh, the virus, right? The team with the
winning idea is given, I mean, if I were running it, the win
ning team would be given autonomous control of executing
its plan to contain the virus: budget, staffing-
SANDEEP: -No.
(SAN DEEP stands up suddenly. He sits back down.)
HANNAH: What is it?
(SANDEEP shakes his head. Beat. He gets up again and walks
to the board. He begins to draw what's on his notepad. As he
does, the others do not speak. They just watch. He writes a
subscript " J "next to "VISION" in the top circle. He then draws
two more circles at the same level. These he Labels VISION2,
VISION3. From each circle, he draws downward Lines and
circles at the end, Like the original structure. When this is done,
he draws a circle above the others and puts a question mark in
it. He has this circle point with Lines to each of the VISION
circles.)
JULY/AUGUST 2014- rl: .F E 0 -
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
SANDEEP: The flaw in your thinking is that what we know
bears any similarity whatsoever to the real purpose of the
plan. If this is real....if this is how you were really structuring
this. .something of this scale? You wouldn't let just one cell
come up with the plan, and you certainly wouldn't let one
cell execute it. Why would you? We are just like the truck
driver at the camp. Why would you let him know what's in
the truck? Why would you let the people who run the centers
know that there are other centers? Why would you let us
know what the plan is for?
(He writes "VI SION I = Plannin g''.· "VJSJON 2 = Building''.·
"VJSJON3 =Execution." He Xs out the cell that represents this
team.)
If we had the best plan for, say, disposal, you'd simply take
it and say, "Thank you for this excellent plan. We hope we'll
never have to use it." Then you pair it with another team's
design for liquidation, and another's for containment. You
would piece together the best plan and then spin up cells
under vision-sub-2 to build from the resulting specifications.
They would build it in pares. They would never see the whole
pieced together. Cell one assembles che trucking fleet. Ce ll
two builds the centers. Cell three builds che actual cham
ber- or, really, multiple cells build the pares of the chamber.
A different cell of trained mechanicians who don't know what
it does piece it together. A cell for warehousing. A cell just for
the shipping containers chat can hold bodies without leakage.
A cell to assemble the chemicals for chelation of bone. Each
one paid for its work, thank you very much, and then on co
che next job. Finally, you spin up a new sec of cells to execute
the plan, each one told-no, each one handpicked to believe
whatever it has been told.
A cell of people whose lovedones have died of cancer picked
to run the chambers and cold chat these are volunteers; chis
is all to find a cure. A cell of people whose families have been
killed by terrorists hired to guard the camps, told, "these are
terrorists." And who knows? Perhaps you put the members of
vision-sub-I and vision-sub-2 through che camps first, just to
make sure no one finds out. And when it's all done...
(He puts an 'X" through the whole thing.)
You burn it all down. If you are preparing to outdo the
Nazis in the media age, chat is how you would do it. Every
cell given a handpicked story, everyone kept in line by their
financial interests, their personal prejudices-
BROCK: -Come on, Sandeep. We all agreed not to,
you know not to use the n-word.
TED: This is hard enough.
SANDEEP: I believe we are past worrying about-
38 - F- - P.t JUL Y / AUGUST 2014
BROCK: -Look...maybe chis is what it looks like. Maybe
it's even more complicated than chis. Maybe chis is a con
spiracy we can't even- I mean, with all our knowledge and
considerable , uh, horsepower, maybe even we can't fathom
the-the-the depths, right? Or...maybe not.
TED: Right. Yes.
BROCK: Maybe it's exactly what we've been told.
TED: Exactly. Thank you! Can we all-lee's just...lec's
remember what we've been asked to do here. Protect the hu
man race from extinction. Survival of the species, people.
BROCK: We can't lose sight of that first vidcon with J.D.
in Crete. There is a virus. And we know two things about
everyone who has it: 1) they will die; and 2) half the peopl e
they encounter will die too.
SANDEEP: No such virus exists.
TED: Noc yet, Sandeep.
BROCK: And I'd say...you know, I'd point out chat no such
conspiracy exists either.
SANDEEP: Not yet, Brock. Or, maybe it does.
(Pause.)
They're counting on us keeping chis secret.
HANNAH: Who's they?
SANDEEP: For it to work-for something like chis to work,
everyone would have co keep it secret until...until it's too late.
I mean that's the problem with something like chis historical
ly, isn't it? To execute something of chis scale-it's impossible
to keep it secret. And if people knew, someone would stop
chem-
HANNAH: -Stop chem from what?
SANDEEP: From using it. From doing it.
HANNAH: Bue if there's a virus-
SANDEEP: -Thar is not my point, Hannal1, and you know
it. Do not play dumb. Please. It offends me.
(Beat.)
Using it against whomever. Against dissidents. Against peoph
who look like me. Against Mexicans. Against gays. Against
whomever they want to use it against, in the name of what
ever they are doing thing s in the name of. Country? Profit?
God? Well...rhose are the big three, aren't they?
BROCK: Deep...you're starting to get ridiculous.
SANDEEP: Am I? It has happened. I didn't make chat up,
did I? It has happened many rimes in the history of rhe
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
world. Is it that you think Americans are so uniquely good
that they would never use such a plan?
TED: Well...yeah.
SANDEEP: We are a multinational conglomerate. What
possibly makes you so naive as to imagine we're building this
for the American government?
(Pause.)
Because that is what J.D. implied but never said? Because
it is what you want to believe? Scenario A is a team in the
Pentagon? Why is it not just as likely in your minds that we
are building this for Kashmir? As a way to finally clea nse it of
its inconvenient Muslims? Or perhaps it is for Chechnya. Or
oil companies in Nigeria taking-
BROCK: -I know J.D. I mean, not incredibly closely,
or...I've looked him in the eye on this project-
TED: -Me too. We all have. Through a video teleconfer
encing system, sure, but I've known J.D. a long time and
he would never sign up to design and execute a genocide-
SANDEEP: -If he even knows. Ifhe isn't just as in the
dark as we are. In order to do something like this and get
away with it, they will need to keep it quiet. Which means
eventu ally getting rid of everyone who knows.
HANNAH: What are you saying?
SANDEEP: I don't know! I don 't...I suppose I am telling you
chat we are all going to be killed. And likely your family too,
Ted. In case you mentioned anything about your work. Your
wife, your kids.
BROCK: Woah! That is over the line, Deep. And a huge
logic al leap-how doyou get there?
SANDEEP: If we do what they expect, if we, uh, follow the
rules, then we plan it, go on with our lives, not suspecting we
were part of anything noteworthy. Likely we start dying indi
vidually by unrelated means...a car crash. Cancer. Choking to
death. Whatever it will be...
BROCK: This is science fiction at this point.
SANDEEP: It is the most remarkable thin g about you...
about Americans. You are so entirely trusting while at the
same time being so profoundly paranoid about the wrong
things. You chink every little thing will kill you, every new
group is out to get you, and meanwhile you allow yourself to
be poisoned-in your food, in your water, in your informa
tion-and when someone points it out, you call it science
fiction. I do not know how you do it. At least in India, we
know everything we are told is a lie.
(Beat.)
Someone needs to be told. Someone needs to tell. It is the
only way we will be safe.
TED: You can 't be serious. Deep, no one will believe you!
BROCK: And if they did, that's even worse! Think about it.
No one will hire us again-not just the four of us, I mean,
yes, the four of us will be well and truly fucked, bur the
whole company.....The Street will dest roy us. Hannah, for the
love of God, get him to-
SANDEEP: -The Street?! You're worrying about the stock
price? Have you heard nothing I have said? I am trying to...if
I am right about chis-
HANNAH: -Sandeep, you are under...
(Beat.)
As an employee of this company, you have signed a whole
host of non-disclosure agreements. I don't need to remind
you that the consequences of breaching chose agreements will
be severe and will be lifelong. You are very well compensated
by this company for your time, for your ingenuity and for
your discretion. May I remind you that the company has
sponsored your work visa and your application for perma nent
residency. That sponsorship will be revoked immed iately upon
termination for cause. Do not.............don't test our resolve.
SANDEEP: Our resolve? Our? Hannah, I just want to
keep you safe. Keep Ted and his family safe... Brock...
HANNAH: Blowing up our careers...our lives...based on a
wild theory? It's a hell of a way to show you care. Now, we
have a dry run with J.D. in an hour-
SANDEEP: -I need to go for a walk.
TED: We need your design of the chamber.
SANDEEP: Don't worry, papa bear. I'll figure it out. I'll be
back in just a..I need to stretch my-need some air-what
ever, can I just-
HANNAH: -Sandeep...
SANDEEP: -Don't-! Hannah , you cannot threaten me
with one breath and say my name like chat with the next. I
just...
(Beat.)
Sorry. Sorry, guys....You are of course right. I appear to have,
uh...to have overreacted. This is just one theory of many and
there is no reason to...the stress......May I please just go for a
walk? I am not going to cell anyone.
(HAN NAH nods, small. SANDEEP exits. Beat.)
J U L Y / AU G U S T 2 0 1 4 ,-j . T P, E [L, Eh 39
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: Come on, Hannah. Go after him.
HANNAH: Why would I?
(BROCK and TED look at each other.)
TED: No reason. Just, maybe...you know. Not that I'm say
ing-
BROCK: -No. Nooneis saying-
TED: -It's just you were kinda hard on him there and
maybe...
HANNAH: Jesus. Does everyone know?
TED: Know what?
(HANNAH exits. Pause.)
BROCK: Okay. That was fucked up.
TED: Ir's non e of our business.
BROCK: (Pointing at the board) No, not Sandeep and Han
nah-the vision -su b- I thing.
TED: Come on. J.D. would know if this were some kind of
Holocaust type of stuff, righ t? If this were-
BROCK: - J.D .'s not, uh, you know...he's not Zeus. He's
not omniscient- he's just a CEO. Maybe he's being lied to-
TED: - D eep's just letting his imagination go wild.
BROCK: Look, I don't believe it either, but shouldn 't we at
least entertain...okay. Let's prove it. Prove this is a hypotheti
cal design in case of emergency.
TED: \Y/h y ? Wh y would we waste time modeling-what has
happened to this team?! Has time lost all meaning? We've got
a prelim in under an hour and you wanna-
BROCK: -I don't want to any more than you do, but-I
mean, what if Sandeep is right? Don't we owe it to ourselves
to give, what? Five minutes-
(He writes "H ired" and "Specific Team.''.)
TED: Okay. Fact: We were briefed by J.D.
BROCK: Ooo! Good one.
(He writes 'JD. Briefing.''.)
TED: This is way too broad. Let's get more specific. Fact:
Hannah had a conversation with J.D. before we did.
BROCK: We don't know that.
TED: Right. Okay. We don't. But we know she could have. I
mean, we were in Crete, working together 24/7-
BROCK: -It wasn't 24/7.
TED: Okay, it wasn't, but we were in Crete, and we both
found out about the job at the same time. From Hannah.
And how she found out about it? We don't know.
BROCK: T rue. Okay, so now you're saying chat even within
our tier, there's a kind of variable knowledge set. We can as
sume Hannah is in a different knowledge set-one where she
may know exactly what we know-ah ah ah, yeah, I get it,
right. So, if Deep is right and there is a conspiracy, we could
quantify our knowledge of that conspiracy. Like, let's say you
and I know "8"- get me?
TED: No.
BROCK: I'm saying let's just call what we know "8."
TED: Call it "k" or something. A variable. 8 is confusing.
BROCK: That's my point!
TED: How? How is that your point?
BROCK: It allows for variance-I mean, yes, you could say
"k." You could make it a variable but, I was rhinking...yeah,
okay. We'll call it k.
TED: You didn 't really have a point, did you?

TED: -The whole idea is just-how doyou even model a
non-face-based supposition like chis?
BROCK: By starting with facts and building from-this is
just eating an elephant, right? We do it like we always do it!
One bite at a time. Lookit.
(He walks to the board, erases all the vision circles,
writes "FACTS.''.)
Fact...
(Pause. He can't think of any.)
We were hired for this job! Fact: "We" in this case is D eep,
you, me, Hannah.
BROCK: Fuck off.
(BROCK writes a circle and puts "BROCK + TED HAN
NAH" and above it, "lex v. " Under "BROCK + TED" he writes
''v=l "-this should be mostly under the "BROCK" part.)
We know "k" about what's going on here. We capture the
degree to which other tiers know more or less than we do
through the variable "v." In our case, v equals one . For H an
nah, it's unquanti fia ble at this point but-
TED: - It's not unquant ifiabl e. She knows at least as much
as we do, right?
(TED writes ''v 2". J "under HANNAH)
TED: Vis greater than or equal to one. That's a start.

40 l % .u,,c -: t,'i A Et JULY I AUGUST 2 D 1 4

 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: Okay. Yeah. Good. Right. And what does v equal
for J.D .? Or Sandeep? Or Scooter? Think he knew anything?
TED: Dunno. I, uh...yeah...huh. I think everyone else gets
their own tiers- their own "v." We should work through it
on a case by case-I mean, except Deep. He knows what we
do. So, for Deep, v = 1. Everyone else? Vis greater than or
equal to zero.
(As TED talks, BROCK writes "DEEP+" in front of "BROCK
+ TED." Then he writes elsewhere on the board 'JD."
and "SCOOTER.''.) . BROCK: The entire point of this five-minute exercise is
BROCK: That's not right. They know about Senna. So, v is
greater than zero.
TED: You fired Scooter before we started-
BROCK: -I didn't fire him. Hannah is a big girl and did it
all by herself. For Scooter, v is greater than zero.
TED: Okay. True. And less than one.
BROCK: We don't know that.
TED: We certainly know that Scooter knows less than us.
BROCK: No, we don't. What if he's, whatever, the client
pretending to be the kid of a board-what if he's the true
vision holder?
TED: (Sarcastic spooked out) Yeah. You're right. What if he
tricked you into firing him so he could leave the room? Oh
my god! What if he secretly poisoned our coffee and soon he
will reveal that we only have three hours to finish our design
or he won't give us the antidote?
BROCK: I'm not saying he is the vision holder, just
what if-
TED: -We don't know if there even is a vision holder! And
if there is, Scooter it ain't!
BROCK: Are we entertaining all the possibilities or nor?
I mean, I can hand wave and make assumptions too, if we
want to just half-ass chis thing. The only thing we know for
certain is chat for all agents, v is greater than zero.
(BROCK writes "v > O" under JD. and SCOOTER. He steps
back and Looks at the board.)
BROCK: Is this right? Can we really lump you, me and
Deep together?
TED: What do you mean?
BROCK: Like I said, it wasn't 24/7. I mean, what if you had,
you know, a midnight meeting at the Acropolis with Deep
Throat or something. What if they got to you?
TED: What if they got to you?
BROCK: They didn't.
TED: I don't know char. And I don't even know if there is a
"they." And neither do you! So, lee's not get paranoid.
BROCK: "Let's nor"...?
(BROCKgestures forcefully at the board as if to say, "What do
you call this?".)
TED: I mean any more than necessary.
paranoia!
TED: Okay, fine. You want me to gee paranoid? Let's get
paranoid. How is it possible for J.D. to know anything less
than one? He hired us. He has to know all the, uh, inn er
workings....
BROCK: He doesn't know about the shipping containers.
He doesn't know about the discussion we're having right now.
TED: Right. But shou ldn 't he? I mean, if you were..let's
say he got hired by some secret organization to design death
camps and secrecy was paramount. Wouldn't they want to
know exactly what we were working on and saying at all
times just in case we started to question the mission?
BROCK: Of course. He'd have us under constant...uh...
constant...
(Pause. TED and BROCK Look at each other and then, standing
perfectly still as though they are afraid to move, Look around the
room. From their faces, we can tell they are imagining cameras
everywhere. Enter HANNAH)
HANNAH: Guys, this is really freaking me out
(She Looks at the board.)
What the hell?
BROCK: It's nothing, H ann ah. Just trying figure out
to
some scuff. But we realized everything is fine and we are
happy to get back to work.
TED: Yeah. We got a little loco there for a moment, but all's
clear!
HANNAH: Great to hear. But everything is not okay. I went
after Deep. When I got downstairs, I asked Mike the door
man if he'd seen him go-
BROCK: -His, uh, his-his-his name is Ike!
(Beat.)
HANNAH: No, it's Mike. And-
BROCK: -I'm pretty sure it's Ike, Hannah. Unless he
changed it.
JUL Y / AUGUST 2014 t-<:"'-r:
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
TED: It's Mike. And it's been Mike this whole entire time.
BROCK: Seriously? I've been calling him Ike for, like, five
years. I'm such an asshole. Why am I so thoughtless?
HANNAH: Is, uh...is this really the most important thing we
could be discussing right now?!
TED: No. But good growth, Brock. Recognizing you're an
asshole is a first step. Go on, Hannah.
BROCK: No, don't go on, Hannah. Let's talk more about
my growth, Ted.
TED: But... Oh. Yeah. Yes, indeed. Your growth. I've, uh,
been waiting for you to open up like this, Brock, and it's, uh,
very important that we take this moment to talk about your
feelings about, uh, tell us, uh, about your mother.
(BROCK looks at TED like "what?')
BROCK: I'd prefer some advice on my interpersonal, uh,
skills-
HANNAH: -Not now, Brock! Mike told me he saw San
deep getting into a town car and it raking off. A black town
car.
BROCK: So? He called an Uber. Okay! Back to work!
TED: Right. We're-Hannah, we're almost out of rime. He
called a car. Thar's all.
HANNAH: When did he have rime to call a car? And here's
the thing. Mike wasn't sure if he saw Deep get into the car
alone or someone was with him. It was our of the corner of
his eye. Bur he definitely saw the car take off fast. I've been,
uh...
(She puLLs out her ceLL phone and dials as she speaks. It's on speak
erphone.)
I've been calling him and calling him and there's no answer.
(Ringing. Voicemail.)
SANDEEP (Y.O.): You have reached the voicemail of San
deep-
(HANNAH hangs up.)
HANNAH: You see what I'm saying? I think someone
shoved-
BROCK:- Um uh um hey!-I want to listen to music!
HANNAH: What?
BROCK: I want to-I like music! Ted, play some music on
your-off your iPhone, right? Play some music, Ted!
TED: Yeah! Music!
HANNAH: What is wrong with you two? Aren't you hearing
what I'm-
BROCK: -Music! Music music music! I like music!
(TED puLLs his iPhone out and plugs it into a headphone jack.
He quickly presses play on his music. A very contemporary,
insipid pop song blares out of the speakers in the conference room.
Examples of the right leind of song are the current equivalent of,
"Oops, I Did It Again" or "Call Me Maybe." It should be some
thing popular at the time the play is being performed in order to
place the action at RIGHT NOW BROCK looks at TED with
disdain for his music choice. TED shrugs.)
TED: (Yelling over the music) My daughters love this song!
HANNAH: Turn it down!!
(BROCK beckons HANNAH over. She goes to him, confused.
TED joins and they huddle. They speak, but we can't hear over
the blaring pop music. BROCK gestures at the board occasion
ally. HANNAH looks concerned, then very concerned, then she
gets it. She nods and says something. Very suddenly, the three
of them spring into action. They rapidly and frantically search
the
conference room. They look under the table, open up electron-
ics (if possible), try to look behind the whiteboard, crawl on the
floor, knock on walls. They don't really know how to find bugs, so
this should not look like a highly professional bug sweep. They do
this until the pop song ends. Pause.)
BROCK: Nothing.
TED: Nothing.
HANNAH: Me neither.
(Beat.)
TED: I think we have to assume we're just overreacting and
this gig is exactly what we've been told.
BROCK: And what have we been told?
TED: You know what we've been told.
BROCK: What about you, Hannah? Do you know anything
we don't know?
HANNAH: Nothing.
BROCK: Did J.D. brief you before he briefed us?
HANNAH: No. I learned about rhe job the same rime you
did.
TED: Okay, so v equals 1.
BROCK: Does it?
TED: Yes.
HANNAH: IfI knew something, why wouldn't I tell you?
42 I 7 b--- ;:: : 5 M I ,..J; E "'\ J u Ly/ Au G u s T 2 0 1 4
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: I don't know, Hannah. Why wouldn't you? What
did J.D. say when he called earlier today? Why were you so
secretive about that conversation?
HANNAH: He was calling co make sure the job gets done
and to yell at me about Scooter. I wasn't really eager to share.
BROCK: What do you mean to make sure the job gets
done?
HANNAH: He said no matter what, he needs a design.
BROCK: And you didn't think this was worth mentioning
until now?!
HANNAH: No. Because it's the kind of thing J.D. says all
the time! "I need this job done, no matter what." It's what
passes for inspirational oratory with him.
BROCK: You're awfully comfortable keeping secrets from
us. Maybe he also cold you what's really going on. Maybe he
cold you to get the job done, even once we started getting
suspicious. They had to know we'd start asking questions
maybe he offered you a big promotion to get us to design
this thing-
HANNAH: -You think I would cover up a plot to commit
genocide-that I'd keep a secret of this magnitude from you
both, because they offered me a promotion? Is that what you
think of me?
TED: No.
(Beat.)
BROCK: No. But maybe they threatened to expose the af
fair. Maybe they threatened to hurt Brian. I'm just trying
co be methodical about this. Maybe they-
HANNAH: -They didn't.There is no they-at least, if
there is a they, I haven't met them, and they have not
threatened me in any way.
BROCK: Maybe you and Sandeep are in on the secret-the
true tier one. Maybe Sandeep is and you're not. Maybe he
got into the town car and drove away because it was his town
car. Maybe he's Keyser fucking Soze! I mean, here we are,
putting him in our tier, but ma ybe that whole thing with the
vision sub-one was just him toying with us like rats in a maze.
What about this?
(BROCK goes to the board and writes "v > 1"under "DEEP"
and erases the "+"after his name.)
What if vis greater than 1 for Sandeep? What if it's this?
(BROCK erases the "+" between "BROCK+ TED" and writes
one betw een "TED" and "HAN NAH ':· he then removes the
equal-to line, so under "T ED + HANNAH" it says "v > 1.''.)
I do n't know what's in any of your heads. What if everyone
knows what's really going on bur me? What if this is a mas
sive conspiracy against me?
HANNAH: It isn't.
BROCK: Isn't it?
HANNAH: No.
BROCK: Prove it!
TED: Brock...some things can't be...gravity is just a theory,
right? But we don't enter into every design asking, "O kay,
what do we do if stuff starts falling up ?" Sandeep is nor the
client. I don't know anything more than you. Hannah isn't-
BROCK: -How dowe know-
HANNAH: -V equals 1, goddammit! V equals l! For me,
for Sandeep, for Ted! I know exactly as much or as little as
you do, Brock, and you're really pissing me off at this point ,
actually. Sandeep has disappeared! And it may be completely
innocent, or it may be utterly sinister, and we cannot turn on
each other right now based on random accusations. You have
absolutely no basis to suspect me!
(Beat.)
BROCK: Sorry.
HANNAH: We need to decide what co do. We have J.D. in
less than half an hour, and he's expecting preliminary ideas on
at least liquidation and disposal-
TED: -We can't do that!
HANNAH: Of course we can't. If Sandeep is right
TED: - No , we can't because the liquidation system was
Sandeep's design. I can diagram the shipping container dis
posal method more thoroughly, but none of us are qualified
co create a-
HANNAH: - We're nor going to design a liquidation sys
tem!
TED: Wh y not?
HANNAH: Because we don't know if someone will use it.
TED: We have to assume someone will use it! Otherwise
why design it? We took the job to design this thing knowing
full well someone might use it. Hell, we felt good abo ut the
possibility of it being used until Sandeep -
HANNAH: -We can't take the risk that they'll use it on
TED: -On people with a deadly virus who will wipe out
humanity? We can't rake that risk? We can't risk being good at
our jobs and building something amazing to save humanity?
J ULY / AUGUST 2014 - T
 IdeationI AARON LOEB
Why not?
BROCK: Don't be an asshole. That's not what she was going
to say, and you know it.
TED: I know it wasn't what she was going to say and I was
not being an asshole. And why are you back to being, uh,
Mr. Hannah Defender all of a sudden? A minute ago you
were accusing her of being in on a conspiracy. Maybe you
two are in it together! Can you prove you aren't?
BROCK: I was swayed by logic, Ted. There is no more rea
son for me to suspect Hannah than there is for us ro suspect
you.
(Beat.)
But I have to note, you keep pushing us to design the system.
Why are you so eager? Maybe you are in on it!
TED: I swear to God almighty I will punch you in your god
damned face, Brock.
BROCK: I don't hear a denial-
TED: -Keep talking. I will punch you in your face.
HANNAH: Boys...
BROCK: While we're talking about probabilities, how about
we examine the probability set I'll call, "Ted has a fucking
prayer's chance in hell of laying a finger on me." I do Tai Bo!
TED: I'd say my chances are good. Very good, indeed! Why
don't we experiment and find out?!
HANNAH: BOYS! Stop it!
We...we are in the middle of what is potentially the end of
our-I don't even know what it's the end of Our lives? Our
world? Nothing? We don't know if we're aiding and abetting
genocide and you two are acting like children. Can we please
get back to doing what we do best? Solving problems?
(Beat.)
TED: My problem right now is that you've both abandoned
logic.
BROCK: (Forced friendly) Please explain, old buddy.
TED: Someone-admittedly someone we all like a lot pops
up and says, "H ey, what if your work will result in a
genocide." And suddenly, y'all are-uh-you know, all
ratio nal thought is our the window and it's just, "Oh my
god the world is going to end and we have to stop
working."
BROCK: You were looking for hidden cameras too, pal of
mine.
TED: Okay, fine. We. We have abandoned reason. If some-
one tells you, uh, "The shampoo you use is, you know, poi
soning the groundwater and will wipe out the human race,"
do you just accept that?
HANNAH: That's a terrible analogy. We're designing actual
death chambers. You were figuring out how to dissolve bone!
TED: Okay, true. True. But what is most likely? We have
competing scenarios. And in one scenario, if we abandon
our work, we fail to protect the human race in a way, per
haps, only we can. And in another-dreamt up entir ely by
someone who isn't even here anymore-if we do our work,
we participate in a genocide. Both outcomes are tragic
worse than tragic! Apocalyptic! And yet the good we could
do, ifJ.D. is telling us the truth, far outweighs the potential
negative we could do if Sandeep is right about a conspiracy.
Saving all of humanity, logically, is a higher good than exter
minating a subset of humanity is an evil.
HANNAH: No. If J.D. is telling the truth, it's merely a hy
pothetical virus. If Sandeep is right, it's a real genocide.
TED: It's all hypothetical! We just need to work through the
probabilities rather than allow emotions to color our deci sion.
What are the possible scenarios here, and what are our
possible reactions? From there, we can optimize a path for a
good outcome.
(TED goes to the board and erases everythi ng. He writes: " J.
Genocide. ')
Scenario 1. This is an elaborate plan to commit genocid e,
with competing bids from competing teams, all of whom will
be killed when the plan is put in effect. Okay? Scenario 2.
Exactly what we've been told. It's for a hypothetical virus.
(He writes: ''2. Virus" and then ''.3. Test.')
I suppose the other option is that this is some kind of psych
experiment, right? We're being monitored to see how we'll
deal with being asked to design something , you know-
BROCK: - O h , like, uh, like that thing with the button and
the screaming and people kept pressing. Right. There's also a
different kind of test, though. A test of the firm, to see how
creative we'll be with something out of the box, right? Maybe
someone wants us to take on a weird job and this is their way
of seeing if we'll do what it takes and go off the deep end
when the job requires.
(TED erases "Test" and writes "Psych Test" and then writes: "4.
Biz Test.')
HANNAH: That's an awfully expensive test.
BROCK: Like I always say, C RFDW S.
HANNAH: What?
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: Crazy Rich Fuckers Do Weird Shir. I bet it's a test.
HANNAH: Wh y?
BROCK: Occam's razor. Everything else is just too...you
know? My gut says this all turns out to be a test.
TED: Okay. Brock's keen gut instinct aside, any other op
tions?
(Pause.)
Good. Now, what we need to do is decouple our acti_ons and
the scenarios.
BROCK: Explain.
TED: Imagine each of these scenarios is equally probable,
and we have no way of knowing which one is real-with me
so far?
(BROCK and HANNAH nod)
Then we just have to choose the best action to produce the
highest probability of a good outcome if any of these sce
narios turn out to be true. Our possible actions are a) agree to
participate orb) refuse to participate. Right?
(TED creates a grid, next to the four scenarios and labels the top
row /1) Agree" and "B) Refase.''.)
BROCK: Right.
HANNAH: Wrong. We could pretend to participate and
do a bad job.
BROCK: Maybe you could.
HANNAH: I'm serious. We could sabotage the chambers so
they don't-so they won't work.
TED: Okay. Right. Action C, Sabotage.
(TED creates a third label, "C) Sabotage. ''.)
BROCK: But we're not building the chambers. How do we
sabotage them?
HANNAH: By designing a system that seems, on the surface,
to be a good idea, but is actually impossible to create or
impractical to execute.
BROCK: Oh! Right. Yeah! Like, okay, so, for instance, and
I'm just spitballing here, flamethrowers.
TED: What?
BROCK: Flamethrowers? You gather up the infected and,
uh...
(He makes the sound of firing up a flamethrower.)
TED: So, you chink in about 30 minutes we get on a call
with J.D. and suggest the centerpiece of our plan is...Bame-
throwers.
BROCK: It's supposed to be credible but impractical.
HANNAH: I was chinking maybe more technically difficult
to execute, like a perpetual motion machine or something.
BROCK: Elaborate?
HANNAH: Well, like, something that sounds on the surface,
uh, you know, seems really flash y, but then when you actu
ally have to execute the plan.... Oh! Oh, uh...self-serve mass
graves.
BROCK: I like the sound of char.
HANNAH: Right? So, forget about shipping containers.
Instead you have a system where the infected, okay, you cell
them they're infected and convince them-
BROCK: -Oh oh oh, right! For the good ofhumanicy
HANNAH: -Right! For the good-they have to climb into
the mass graves themselves and, you know, uh...get 'er done.
TED: Why would they go along with that? Why wouldn't
they hold out for a cure or demand to see their kids one last
time or-
HANNAH: -That's the point. Some of the infected- may
be even most- wouldn't go along with it, which means you'd
need a whole host of fail-safes, making the whole idea utterly
impractical.
BROCK: Nice! So, if we want to sabotage, we suggest self
serve mass graves.
TED: Okay. Great. Got that out of your systems? If I can di
rect your attention back to the board, let's say we do what I'm
proposing, which is, you know, just for shits and giggles, get
back to work, do our damn jobs, and design the facilities. In
this model, I'm calling that "Action A." What are the possible
outcomes for that action based on these scenarios: genocide,
virus, psych test, business test?
BROCK: Put a, uh, a, uh green up arrow next to the ones
that are good and a red down arrow-no, fuck it, chat's stu
pid. Here. Just lee me. We're talking about scenarios lA, 2A,
3A and 4A. Right? Each scenario paired with Action A.
{;4.s he's talking, BROCK gets up and grabs markers.)
I like this. Yes. Yes. So, what is the outcome for each?
(Heputs a red frowny face in grid position IA and green smiley
faces in 2A, 3A, 4A.)
If we participate and it's a genocide, lA , we've helped kill
innocent people. Women. Children. Boo! Frowny face. If
we participate and save people, 2A. Yay! Smiley face. If we
J ULY / A UGUST 2014 THE TRE B', ""
 Ideation I 1W{o
participace and do a good job, we pass eicher cesc. Yay.
HANNAH: Passing che cescs or nor passing che cescs is neu
cral.
BROCK: How do you fig ure? It demonscraces our psycho
logical sound ness or gees che company a gig.
HANNAH: Neicher of which are morally relevant when
compared co a genocide or a species-leveling evem!
BROCK: Bue boch of which are good for us personally.
Thus, sm iley face. ·
TED: I chink the problem is wich che model. Noc all goods
are equal. We can't equate, necessarily, moral good with self
inceresc-ac lease not in chis instance.
BROCK: Righc. Yeah. We need new actions, chen.
TED: How so?
BROCK: Actions A, B and C assume we ace as a team. If
you're going co imroduce chis new complexity of self-imeresc,
maybe there are scenario/action pairings chat are good for
one of us and bad for che ochers. Righc? Maybe one of us is
already playing out such a-
HANNAH: -Brock, lee's not do chis again
BROCK: -No, listen. Action D: Conspire.
(He labels a new column "D) Conspire" on the grid.)
In Action D, one of us secretly contacts the client or the ad
miniscracors of che test and says, 'Tm one of you. I'm down
with genocide, an d I'll help you gee the ochers co go along."
In Accion D, one of us makes sure he or she is fine, no matter
what, while the rest of us are put through che camps. That's
1D I'm talking abouc.
(Pause.)
HANNAH: Are you saying chat's what you've done, Brock?
BROCK: No! I'm not saying-chis is jusc...i c's logical, righc?
This is one of the actions. And for all we know, Sandeep is
playing out 1D righc now. And for all I know, one of you are.
(Beat. TED puts down the whiteboard marker.)
TED: Kinda puts a dampener on the spirit of collaboration .
BROCK: You were the one saying we'd abandoned logic,
Ted.
TED: Yeah, and continuing co float crazy hypochecicals chat
turn us against each ocher doesn't help matters. We've got a
job co do.
BROCK: It's not- it's a logical scenario in which one of us
maximizes his or her self-interest at the expense of-I can't
be
46 J ULY / AUGUST 2014
LOEB
che only one who sees chis. I mean, I'm beginning co chink
you guys are pretending co be bochered. You're just pissed
because I've said whac you were already chinking!
HANNAH: No one else was chinking of chis.
BROCK: Weren'c you? I'm the only one here wich nothing co
lose but my job and my life. You're probably sitting chere cry
ing co figure out how to protect Brian. How co protect Sand
eep-chough maybe you're a little torn on char one, because
he was just a Bing and got coo close, but now he's maybe in
danger, and you aren't sure whac co chink. And you're prob
ably crying co figure out how co keep the whole ching secret
from Brian and from HQ. You have a loc co lose here. Maybe
Action D is just what the doccor ordered! Make a liccle, uh...
keep your perfect lictle life runnin g smoothly.
HANNAH: Screw you, Brock.
BROCK: A fine rebuttal. And whac about you, Ted? You've
gocca be sining here chinking, "Whac if Deep is right? Whac
will chey do co my wife? To my daughcers?" What possible
moral good could compare co chem killing your kids?!
TED: Are you chreacening my kids?!
BROCK: No, I'm saying you're worried chat chey'll do some
thing to your kids if-
TED: -Which is exactly how you'd obliquely chreacen my
family if you were working for chem! You'd say, "Boy, if there
is a conspiracy, you muse be awfully worried abouc your
kids." Who are you working for really, Brock?
BROCK: I'm not working for anyone but me! All I'm saying
is chat you'd curn on us in a second if you thought ic-
(TED chucks a whiteboard eraser at BROCK It hits the board.)
Hey!You-
(BROCK throws a whiteboard marlur back at TED. TED
ducks it. They begin to throw whatever is handy at each other
papers, pens. Occasionally something connects, and they shout
"OW 1' '.)
TED: Mocherfucker!
(The two of them rush at each other and actually start wrestling,
though utterly ineffectually. This goes on for a moment when
HANNAH starts pounding on the conference room table.)
HANNAH: Stop it! STOP IT!
(Suddenly, HANNAH's cell phone starts ringing. They stop.
Beat. Everyone stares at the phone.)
Oh my god. It's Sandeep.
(She scrambles and grabs the phone. She answers it. TED and
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK step away from each other and watch her.)
Sandeep, where are you? Sandeep? Hello? What is-I can't...
SANDEEP?!?!
BROCK: What is it? What's he saying?
TED: Put it on speaker.
(Shedoes. We hear what is either someone being suffocated or just
an ordinary pocket dial. It's impossible to tell.)
HANNAH: Sandeep?! Can you hear me?!?
( lh ey all gather around the phone.)
ALL: SANDEEP!!
(Pause. lhey go silent. We hear the muffled noise on the other
line. lhey look at each other. Click. lhe phone goes dead. HAN
NAH sits down hard She immediately calls back. Nothing.)
TED: Ir was just a pocket dial.
BROCK: That wasn't-didn't you hear him? Something 's
happening- somebody 's doing something to him!
TED: Sandeep is fine. It was a pocket dial.
BROCK: I think he's trying-maybe they have him some
where and he's trying to get us a-he's trying to warn us
and-
TED: -Ir was a pocket dial, Brock.
HANNAH: Ir really sounded like a pocket dial.
BROCK: It sounded like he was being hurt!
TED: You're freaking out!
BROCK: You should be too! He was-that was-they're
hurting him!
HANNAH: I'm calling JD.
TED: What? Why?
HANNAH: Why?! Because Sandeep may be-I don't
know-that sounded like a pocket dial but if Brock's right...
we have to find out what's really going on.
TED: We're supposed to do a test run with him any min ute,
and we are a mess! We have no presentation! No ideas! All
you will accomplish by calling is to make us look like
idiots-
HANNAH: -We'll just tell him we're behind. We have to
get more data-
TED: -You're wasting time! In the precious minutes we
have left, we should be putting together our ideas for the
call. This model is good. It works. If we brute force it out,
you will see-I think we will all see that Action A yields
the
highest probability of positive outcomes. Participating. Do
ing our jobs. Hannah, you're supposed to be the grown-up
in the room. You really want to call J.D. with no presenta
tion-with next to nothing to show for the last two hours?
Especially after he told you to make sure we got to a design,
no matter what?! This is a hell of a way to demonstrate he can
trust you-calling to accuse him of being part of some made
up conspiracy. Sandeep is a kid with an overactive imagina
tion, and he got in your heads. We've torn up the office and
wasted our time, and now we're going to look like assholes in
front of the CEO and...guys, please. Let's get back to work.
(Beat.)
HANNAH: We're calling JD.
TED: Fine. Do whatever you want. I don't want my name
associated with it! I'm getting coffee.
HANNAH: You cannot leave this office, Ted! No going to
Starbucks.
TED: Why the hell not?
BROCK: When Deep left, he got snatched ...maybe. 1here's
no telling what could happen-
TED: -I'll tell you what will happen. Nothing. You are
delusional. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get some
goddamned petite scones.
(TED storms out. Beat.)
BROCK: How's this going to work?
HANNAH: I don't know. Tell him Sandeep lefr...see how he
reacts?
BROCK: That's it?
HANNAH: Got anything better?
(Pause. BROCK shakes his head. She dials the vidcon. It rings
and rings. BROCK glances at the board, rushes to it, erasesit,
sits. After a dozen rings, She hangs up.)
BROCK: He's ducking us.
HANNAH: Or, you know, he's busy. Or he's walking to the
conference room for our call in a few minutes. Or he's in the
bathroom.
BROCK: Or he's ducking us. Did he say anything to you be
fore? Anything that might help us figure out what he knows?
Why he's ducking us?
HANNAH: No, just what I told you...
(Beat. She suddenly makes a horrifying realization.)
Oh my god. Oh ...
JULY/AUGUST 2014 f[ 47
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
BROCK: What?
HANNAH: I never...! never told you guys J.D. said he didn't-
that he wondered if he could trust me. But just now, Ted
said, he said, "This is a hell of a way to prove he can trust you."
How did he know J.D. had said tha t to me?
BROCK: That could just be a thing he said-a coincidence!
HANNAH: Or it could be just like you said-It could be
Action D. They threatened his kids-
BROCK: -Or it's just-just, you know, "How can J.D.
trust you"-
HANNAH: -The exact words! He used-
BROCK: -This is Ted we're talking about! He grew me
from a seed. They got to him? My God, I was right. That's
why he attacked me...do you think-has he been working for
them since Crete?
(Enter TED.)
Oh, hey.
TED: (He can tell somethings wrong.) Hey. How was J.D.?
BROCK: He wasn't there. It's almost as if he knew we'd call.
TED: Well, sorry to hear it.
HANNAH: Are you?
TED: I, uh...I don't know. I guess? Listen, guys, I've got some
good news. Some very good news. I found a friend of ours in
the lobby.
(HANNAH jumps up, face alight.)
HANNAH: Oh, thank God! Where the hell has he been?
(Enter SCOOTER, looking sheepish. HANNAH is crushed.
SCOOTER has changed clothes since the beginning of the play
and is now wearing gloves.)
SCOOTER: Hey.
HANNAH: Scooter.
SCOOTER: I came by to apologize and to, uh, ask if you
could accelerate my last payment?
TED: I ran into him downstairs trying to get buzzed up.
HANNAH: And you brought him in here?! Why the hell is
he here?!
SCOOTER: I told you. To get my-
HANNAH: -You didn't swing by right now, of all times, to
get-
Ifyour dad is on the board of directors of chis company, you
don't need the, whatever, six hundred dollars.
SCOOTER: My money is in a trust with monthly disburse
ments. And I'm light. Not chat it's any of your-uh, sorry,
did I do something wrong just now? I mean, you already
fired me, and I know I was a crappy assistant, but-
HANNAH: -What the hell is he doing here, Ted? This is
a secure-
BROCK: -This is supposed to be secrer-
TED: -Okay, okay. Calm down. Tell chem what you told
me.
SCOOTER: O h, yeah. Ted was asking me if I knew any
thing-
TED: -I remembered char you said J.D. sent him to you, so
I figured maybe he knew something about Senna.
SCOOTER: I wasn't supposed to say anything, bur J.D. and
my dad told me to keep an eye on you guys because there
was some kind of test coming up. Listen, H ann ah, I can see
you're still pissed at me-
BROCK: - Yeal1 yeah yeah. What kind of rest?
SCOOTER: Didn't say. Just to cell chem what I saw. How
you guys reacted.
TED: We never considered this.
(TED goes to board and writes "Loyalty Test.')
An internal rest to see how we'd react to something complete
ly outside the norm, and possibly terrible.
BROCK: Goddammit, I knew it was a rest! I told you guys!
TED: You did. You cold us.
BROCK: Have other teams been through it?
SCOOTER: I don't know.
BROCK: Do they do chis all the time? I've been here for ten
years, and I've never heard of this.
HANNAH: Neither have I. A loyalty test?
TED: Look, we can get pissed off about it later, but for
now, this litrle guy is the answer to all our prayers. God only
knows where Sandeep has gone, but now we have another
engineer to help us design the liquidation chamber-
HANNAH: -What's the point? If it's a test, why bother?
BROCK: How do they rank the results? I mean, what are
the parameters we're being tested on? Are we being ranked
against ocher teams?
HANNAH: Who cares? We just cell J.D. we know it's a test

48 T H : , TF E 8 '"' 1 R Er J U LY/ A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
 Ideation I iw m N LOEB
and we refuse to participate.
TED: Yeah? How do you chink chat will go over?
HANNAH: Unless, you know...whac if he'slying ? What if
you're lying?
SCOOTER: Sorry?
HANNAH: You coming in here and saying it's a test doesn't
prove anything, does it? le just means we know you're saying
it's a test. That doesn't make it a rest. Or what ifJ.D. was ly
ing to you?
TED: Hannah...ac some point , you've got to lee go of
HANNAH: -Why are you wearin g gloves?
SCOOTER: What?
HANNAH: It's not cold. What're you hiding? Let us see your
hands.
SCOOTER: They're just gloves. Maybe I should go...
HANNAH: Where's Sandeep? Was he crying to call me?
What were they doing to him?!
SCOOTER: I have no idea, H annah. I just came up here
to apo logize, and Ted grabbed me. Thar's it. I don't know
anything about San deep. Seriously. You're acting like I've
threatened to hurt you or something. Have I threatened you?
HANNAH: No.
SCOOTER: Have I threatened Brock or Ted? Or Sandeep?
Or your husband?
HANNAH: Why are you asking me chat?
SCOOTER: I just wane to make sure we're all clear here. All
I did was walk into th e room. I didn't threaten anyone. So I
don't know why you're treating me like I've threatened you.
TED: Guys, we have a practice run in, like, five min utes.
What are we going to present?
SCOOTER: How about I step out and grab you a coffee? I
can cell you need co talk. Milk and rwo sugars, right?
(Beat.)
HANNAH: Yes, ch at's right.
(Exit SCOOTER.)
TED: The kid can help us pull chis out of the toilet and pass
the test. And I can get co Emily's game. Regionals. This has
been the worse goddamned day we've ever had as a team,
I realize chat. But is it too lace for us? Can we just do ch is
presentation, put it behind us, pretend none of chis ever hap
pened, and get on with our lives?
HANNAH: I don't know if we'll ever be able to do char.
TED: Well, you don't know until you cry it, right?
(Beat.)
What is it? Why are you looking at me like chat?
BROCK: We thought you were in on it. Apparen cly you
repeated someth ing J.D. said to her.
(She looks at BROCK, horrified)
What? Now ch at we know it 's a test, you can't still believe...
(TE D sighs and sits next to her. He holds her hands in his. She
looks frightened He looks in her eyes.)
TED: Hannah...I swear on che lives of my children chat v
equals 1. I know nothing more ab out any of chis than you
do. Now you have to ask yourself- if I'm in on it, if Scooter's
in on it...why are we still here? If we're serving some shadowy
vision holder, why do they care whether you're in or not?
HANNAH: I don't know. They need che team.
TED:Why?
(Beat.)
There's no good answer because it doesn't make any sense.
(Beat. HANNAH trembles.)
HANNAH: Where is Sandeep?
TED: The last we saw him, Hannah, he thought we were
designing a death camp for some, uh, terrifying conspiracy
an d- I hate co say chis-bur you kinda threatened to have
him deported. Why would he rake your calls? He's probably
hiding somewhere, or on che first plane out of the country.
You know what? I'm betti ng he threw his phone out to
keep, uh, Big Brother from cracking him down. The pocket
dial mighca been a homelessguy playing with it.
HANNAH: It's a test?
TED: It's a rest.
HANNAH: It's just so hard co believe. You walk out of the
room and come back with ch e exact answer we wanted to
hear: Scooter heard it was a test from Daddy?
TED: That's what happened.
HANNAH: Why is he wearing gloves?
BROCK: Because he likes gloves! Jesus! It's a test, like I cold
you. And we are going to fail.
HANNAH: I hop e...I hope you're right.....And chat we've
failed already. I hope they cell us no one else has ever gone
past che first five minutes and ch e longer you lase, the lower
JUL Y / AUGU S T 2014-
 Ideation I AARON LOEB
your score. I hope they ask us, "Wh y didn't you just run out
of the room? Why did you keep going ?"
(Beat.)
Bue I don't chink-I don't know if it's a test And I don't
know if you really believe it is or if you're just saying it is or if
someone made you cell us chat or if maybe even you came up
with the whole story-
BROCK: -It's Ted! The same Ted chat walke d in that door
chis morning. The same Ted we've both known for a decade.
It's just Ted and some kid from Cal getting coffee. We have
a call in one minute. Less. And you have to just. whac are
you going to do? Tell J.D. that you refuse to participate in his
genocid e? Refuse to present until he answers your questions
abo ut Sandeep? If this is a loyalty test you'll have just made
it very clear that you are disloyal. H e'll in vestigate why you
completely failed this assignment. Why you let a critical team
member walk out of the room and disappear. They'll find out
about the affair. Brian will find out. They will destroy you,
H ann ah, and then they'll turn their attention to me. I'm the
project lead and I let Sandeep walk out too. I lost control of
the room on chis hugely important job. They'll never crust me
again. Our careers will be over. You'll ruin us both, Hannah.
Why would you do chat to me? Because Scooter is wearing
gloves?! Because Ted said somethin g that sounded like some
thing J.D. said once? Because Sandeep got in a car?! You can't
do chat, H annah.... You're not gonna do chac. . .are you?
(Enter SCOOTE R with coffee. He places the cup in front of
HANNAH.)
SCOOTER: Here you go. Brown and sweet.
Michael Ray Wisely, Carrie Paff and Mark Anderson
Phillips in San Francisco Playhouse's world premiere
production of Ideation. Photo: Jordan Puckett
50 TH'" IC< I:. , F J U L Y / AU G U ST 2 0 1 4
(HAN NAH stares at the mug.)
TED: We can do this. I'll describe the idea for shipping con
tainers and we'll cell J.D. we have a bunch of good ideas for
liquidation. Scooter, do you think you could design self-se rve
mass graves?
SCOOTER: What?!
BROCK: But char's-
TED: - It's just somet hing to get us started.
SCOOTER: I, uh...what kind of project is
this? BROCK: Ir's just a test. Wing it!
SCOOTER: I guess. I mean...why would people-do the
people want to-is this for suicidal people or someth ing?
BROCK: Don't worry ab out it. Do you chink you could
design a system where people kill themselves inside shipp ing
containers?
TED: Oh, yeah. Make the shipping containers the mass
graves. Thar is geniu s, budd y. Pure genius.
BROCK: I know. Right?
(The vidcon starts to ring.)
Shit. Tha r's J.D. Ca n you do it or not, kid?
SCOOTER: Yeah. Yes. I think I can, Brock. Lots of edge
cases but sure.
BROCK: Atta boy.
( The vidcon rings again. And again.)
Hannah? What are...are you gonna answer it?
(HANNAH slowly reaches out and answers the vidcon. There's
a gleamingconference room on the other end. It's backlit, and
we see only a shadowy figure in the room. From the head of the
table, we hear j.D.'s voice.)
J.D.: Good afternoon, team.
TED, SCOOTER, BROCK: Good evening , J.D.
J.D.: So, Hannah, what does the ream have for me so far?
(ALL Look at HANNAH. Pause. She stares at the coffee mug.
She takesa big sip and puts it down. She looks at the others in
the room, then the screen, and is about to speak...)
(BLACKOUT)
END OF PLAY