GREEK TRAGEDY

by
Lia Romeo
A commission for the Farm Theater and the College Collaboration Project

Representation:

Samara Harris
Samara Harris Literary Agency
773-852-2262
sharris@samaraharris.com

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“Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all
guards against improbity.” – Jeremy Bentham

“You know, when I was little, I actually did want to be an actor. But I only wanted to play
myself. So Instagram is sort of perfect for me.” – Caroline Calloway

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Characters
Anna, 23
Jennifer, 23
At least two other men
And one other woman
And two choruses – which could also be the same chorus – and can have as many actors, of any
gender, as you want

Setting
New York (or the memory of New York, which isn’t exactly the same thing)

Time
2013

Synopsis
Anna is a famous and fabulous Instagram influencer. Jennifer is her drab best friend. But
Jennifer is the one who’s been writing all of Anna’s content, while Anna spirals into addiction
and out of control. And now Jennifer is the one who’s writing this play. A story about telling
stories… and about how to live our lives when we live our lives online.

Development History
Commissioned by the Farm Theater and the College Collaboration Project, 2020
Workshop, The Farm Theater, August 2020

Biography
Lia Romeo’s play The Forest was developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and was
scheduled to receive a National New Play Network rolling world premiere in the upcoming
season (cancelled due to the coronavirus). This and three of her other plays have been recognized
by the Kilroys List. Her plays have been produced at 59E59, Unicorn Theatre, Project Y Theatre
Company, Dreamcatcher Rep, HotCity Theatre, and many other companies. She was the winner
of City Theatre’s 2019 National Short Playwriting Award, and was a 2018 Individual Artist
Fellowship winner in playwriting from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts. Her plays are
published by Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Dramatists Play Service, and Smith &
Kraus. She is the associate artistic director with Project Y Theatre Company, and she teaches
playwriting at Primary Stages/ESPA, the M.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh
Dickinson University, and the B.F.A. program at Molloy College. She earned her B.A. from
Princeton and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers/MGSA.

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 (JENNIFER, onstage. She is dressed in a cardigan, work pants,
flats. Drab business casual, circa 2013. She is 23 years old.)

JENNIFER
It started in 2013, with Joe Sloane.

I mean maybe it started before that. Maybe it started with Instagram, which started in – what –
2010? Or maybe it started before that, because Anna had a blog before she got on Instagram, so
maybe it started back when blogs were invented – is that even the right word, invented? Which
I’m going to guess was sometime in the nineties, right?

(She looks it up on her phone.)

The first weblog was created by Justin Hall, a Swarthmore College student, in 1994. But it looks
like they didn’t start getting big ‘til the early 2000s, when platforms like Blogger and WordPress
made it easy to make one without actually knowing anything about computers.

God, the internet was like great back then. Like back in the early 2000s – do you remember? It
was like you could reach out and connect with all these other people all over the world. And
whatever weird thing you were into – manga or maps or Mariah Carey – okay, I was twelve,
don’t judge – you could find a whole bunch of other people who were into that same weird thing,
even if you’d never met anybody like that at Barkley Middle School in Alliance, Ohio. And
those other people didn’t have to know anything about you – they didn’t have to know that your
glasses were too big or your bangs were too short or your thighs rubbed together. The self you
were on the internet didn’t have anything to do with your real self, and you didn’t even have to
pretend like it did. There was no Facebook back then – or maybe there was at like Harvard, but
there wasn’t at Barkley Middle School. No Instagram stories from the Real Housewives’
parakeets, no TikTok mashups of Taylor Swift songs and screaming goats. Do you remember?
Can you even imagine?

So yeah, maybe it started way back then, in the golden days of the internet – but Joe Sloane was
the reason I first met Anna, and so as far as the story of me and Anna, it started with Joe Sloane.
Joe Sloane was a literary agent – one of the best in New York. Three weeks before, he’d
responded to my query letter by asking to see the first three chapters of my novel, a six hundred
page semi-autobiographical epic about growing up as a nerdy, sensitive girl in the Midwest. And
that afternoon he’d sent me an email rejecting it. I still remember exactly what it said – “While
you’re clearly a talented writer, I found the character ultimately uncompelling.” I was at work – I
was an executive assistant – and as soon as I got the email I started crying, so I ducked into the
bathroom and tried to pull myself together. And that’s when Anna came in.

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 (ANNA enters)

She was at McCarren and Bond that day because they controlled her trust fund, and she had to
come in sometimes so they could give her money.

She kind of floated into the bathroom, and she was humming to herself –

(ANNA begins humming to herself)

and you know how when people hum to themselves it’s really fucking annoying? Well, with
Anna it wasn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe because she was the kind of person who ought to
have a soundtrack, and so it just made sense somehow. She was wearing this pink silk slip – not
like a slip dress, like an actual slip –

ANNA
It was blue.

JENNIFER
What?

ANNA
The dress. Or the slip or whatever.

JENNIFER
I’m pretty sure it was pink.

ANNA
I don’t wear pink.
Do I wear pink in your version of the story?

JENNIFER
Yeah – I mean, that’s what I remember you wearing.

ANNA
Hold on.
(She exits and returns in pink.)
How’s that?

JENNIFER
Yeah – that’s – that’s better.

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 ANNA
Okay. Go on.

JENNIFER
She was all the way into the bathroom before she even saw me – and then she stopped and she
said:
(She waits.)
She said…

ANNA
Oh! Do you want me to say it?

JENNIFER
Yeah – I mean yeah, that’s why you’re –

ANNA
But what if I don’t say it right?

JENNIFER
What do you –

ANNA
What if the thing I say doesn’t match up with the thing you remember?

JENNIFER
Well, then I’ll tell you, and you can –

ANNA
Okay.
It’s just I have a feeling that might happen a lot. It might be faster if you just…

JENNIFER
That would be boring. Without you it’d just be me, and that would be really –

ANNA
You’re not boring.

JENNIFER
I’m not as interesting as you.

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 (ANNA shrugs, conceding the point.)

So you said…

ANNA
Um.
(getting into character)
Oh my God, I’m so sorry!

JENNIFER
No! You really don’t remember?
You said: Could you take my picture?

ANNA
Right – yeah, I did say that. But I’m pretty sure first I apologized for walking in on you in the
bathroom –

JENNIFER
No you didn’t! You’re Anna Anastos. You don’t apologize for walking in anywhere. You take
up space, you know that wherever you are, it’s where you’re supposed to –

ANNA
Yeah – yeah, okay.
(getting into character again)
Could you take my picture?

JENNIFER
(looking up, tearful)
What?

ANNA
Okay I’m pretty sure I said I was sorry – or asked you what was wrong, or –

JENNIFER
No, you didn’t.

ANNA
Even when I saw you crying?

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 JENNIFER
I’m not sure you even noticed. You were looking at the way your dress looked against the
bathroom wall. You thought it would make a really cool picture, so –

(ANNA takes out her phone and holds it out to JENNIFER.)

Yeah, okay.

(JENNIFER takes a picture and hands the phone back to ANNA.)

ANNA
Can you do a couple more? I want to try something different –

(ANNA hands the phone back and strikes a pose. JENNIFER takes a picture. She
strikes a few more poses as JENNIFER takes pictures. She scrolls through.)

Ooooh – that’s a good one.

(She shows JENNIFER the photo.)

JENNIFER
Um. Yeah.

ANNA
I have this blog, it’s called Greek Tragedy. Have you ever – ?

JENNIFER
No.

ANNA
I’m Greek – on my dad’s side – and my life’s a disaster, so. It’s kind of a stupid name, but I
thought it was funny. I don’t have that many followers.

(Two members of the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS enter and stand, one on either
side of the stage.)

But I’m getting more every day!

(More members of the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS enter and stand on each side
of the stage.)

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It’s mostly just pictures of me – what I’m wearing, what I’m doing. What’s your Instagram
handle? – I’ll give you a photo credit.

JENNIFER
Oh – I’m not on Instagram.

ANNA
You need to get on Instagram, girl!

JENNIFER
Why?

ANNA
Because everyone else is! Or if they’re not, they’re about to be.
How about this. Let’s go have a drink and I’ll help you make a profile.

JENNIFER
Um.

ANNA
Come on – let’s go to the bar at the Avalon.

JENNIFER
(to the audience)
It was two in the afternoon.
(to ANNA)
I’m in the middle of work.

ANNA
So I’ll meet you there at five.

JENNIFER
I don’t know if they’ll let me in. That place is –

ANNA
I’ll meet you out front. It won’t be a problem.

JENNIFER
(to the audience)

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I didn’t know why she chose me, but Anna was like that. She floated through life making friends
with whoever happened to be around.

(Lights shift. JENNIFER and ANNA at the bar at the Avalon. Cozy, swanky,
upscale New York.)

ANNA
Come on. There’s got to be something. You don’t actually want to work at McCarren and Bond
for the rest of your life.

JENNIFER
It’s not that bad.

ANNA
Really?

JENNIFER
Okay, I mean, it’s terrible. I don’t know. What’s your dream?

ANNA
I told you, I have a blog.

JENNIFER
So you… what… you want to get more readers?

ANNA
More readers, sponsorship deals… sky’s the limit. Your turn.

(JENNIFER takes a sip of her cocktail.)

JENNIFER
Okay. I write. But it’s not – I’m not very good.

ANNA
I love it! What kind of stuff do you write?

JENNIFER
I wrote a novel, and I’ve written a few short stories. And I’ve always wanted to try a play… I
like the idea of people being there watching.

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 ANNA
I bet you’re amazing.

JENNIFER
I’m really not.

ANNA
Have you ever thought about blogging?

JENNIFER
Oh… I don’t think anybody would want to read about me.

ANNA
Why not?

JENNIFER
I’m not very… compelling.

ANNA
I don’t believe that. You’re twenty-three years old, you’re beautiful, and you’re living in the
greatest city in the world –

JENNIFER
(aside)
She really believed that. My New York was slushy streets and dirty subway stations, long days
at the office made even longer by hangovers from the nights I spent trying to forget them.
Anna’s New York was swanky bars and cozy restaurants, photos of herself in front of graffiti-
covered walls, wearing vintage clothes that somehow fit her perfectly. Her parents had died in a
car crash when she was fifteen, and she’d been in a foster home for the rest of high school… and
then she got into NYU and never looked back. For me New York was hard, harder than I’d ever
expected, but for Anna it was all a big adventure.

ANNA
You know, that isn’t exactly –

JENNIFER
Yes it is. Or it was then. Maybe it wasn’t later, but it was then.

ANNA
Okay…

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 JENNIFER
So then you said –

ANNA
I’d love to start doing some longer posts, but I’m such a bad writer. Hey, you want another
round?

JENNIFER
Oh – no, I don’t think so. They’re a little outside my budget –
(aside)
The cocktails were seventeen dollars. They had St. Germain, and ginseng, and something called
dragon’s tears.

ANNA
Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. The manager is a friend of mine – I have a tab.

JENNIFER
Anna had friends and tabs everywhere. We drank for free at the Avalon, the Wexwood,
Jardinier. And the places we didn’t drink for free, men bought drinks for us. Or they bought
drinks for her, and I was there. But that was later.
(back to ANNA)
I mean yeah, okay, sure. Let’s have another one.
(back to the audience)
This is where things get a little bit fuzzy. There were more drinks, there were guys –
(a couple of GUYS enter and laugh with ANNA and JENNIFER)
There were pictures.
(The group takes selfies.)
As promised, Anna made me an Instagram profile, where she described me as a “brilliant offer”
– she meant to say “author,” but we were three or four cocktails in. She posted some photos and
tagged me –

ANNA
Jennie, help me come up with a caption.

GUY 1
How about hashtag wasted?

GUY 2
No no no – hashtag shwasted!

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 GUY 1
Hashtag turnt UP!

GUY 2
Hashtag ham sandwiched!

GUY 1
What the fuck?

GUY 2
You’ve never heard that one?

JENNIFER
They went on like that for a while. It wasn’t important.
(Lights go off on the GUYS.)
Anyway – here’s what we ended up with.

(ANNA and JENNIFER freeze in tableau. A picture of the two of them in the
same pose, along with a caption, appears on the screen behind them.)

“The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” – Humphrey Bogart.
@Jenniferlynn and I are catching up fast at @theavalonnyc. #cocktails #newfriends

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Heart heart heart heart heart

You are sooooo pretty. Can you do a tutorial about your hair?

Mmmmm yum dragon emoji crying emoji

Bogie is the best. #maltesefalcon.

JENNIFER
I woke up the next day with a headache… and five hundred followers. Five hundred people I’d
never met wanted to know what I was doing, just because I was friends with Anna, just because a
little bit of her might rub off on me.
Anna and I started spending our lunch breaks together, working on blog posts or Instagram
captions. I didn’t spend a lot of time on mine – I didn’t care that much – I’d post a few pictures
and try to say something funny every once in a while.

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 ANNA
That’s not –

JENNIFER
But mostly we focused on Anna.

ANNA
That’s not really true.

JENNIFER
Oh come on. We spent HOURS –

ANNA
No, I just mean, it’s not true that you didn’t care. We did spend more time on my stuff, but that’s
‘cause we got more out of it.

JENNIFER
I mean sure, but that’s not –

ANNA
Tell them about the events.

JENNIFER
She got invited to a lot of events. A dinner at a trendy restaurant, a launch for a new perfume.
And sometimes she’d bring me with her.

ANNA
Sometimes?

JENNIFER
A lot of the time. And companies were always sending her stuff – clothes, lipstick, champagne-
flavored gummy bears – no, for real, that’s an actual thing.

(Swag begins to rain down on ANNA)

And whatever she didn’t want, she’d pass along. Most of the clothes didn’t fit me, but she gave
me some shoes, some bags, some makeup. I started dressing better.

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 ANNA
Um. Speaking of dressing better. Am I going to keep wearing this dress the entire time?
Because I have a lot of clothes, and – if this is how you see me, that’s fine, but –

JENNIFER
No, no, you can wear something else.

ANNA
Do you want to tell me what?

JENNIFER
Um. Maybe the leather jacket. And the top with the lace, and jeans.

(ANNA finds clothes in the swag pile and starts changing.)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Girl that jacket is amazing. Link please?

ANNA
Oh, sorry, it’s vintage. But there’s a similar one at Nordstrom – here you go.
Just so you know, it’s an affiliate link, so I may get a small commission. Thanks for supporting
the businesses that support GreekTragedy.com!

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Heart.

ANNA
Jennie, you should change too. Like you said, you were dressing better –

JENNIFER
That’s true. Here – toss me some of the stuff you’re not –

(ANNA tosses JENNIFER some accessories and a pair of shoes from the swag
pile.)

ANNA
Take this lipstick too, it’s not my color.

(JENNIFER catches the lipstick and puts it on.)

15
 JENNIFER
Anna had started getting a lot more followers. I mean, she was doing all right before. She was
gorgeous, and she took good pictures, but it was true, what she’d said – she wasn’t a very good
writer. She had so many amazing stories – the time she’d ended up onstage at Madison Square
Garden, tripping on mushrooms and singing backup on “With or Without You”… the time she’d
broken into the Met after hours to drink Dom Perignon with an Italian prince. But when she
wrote them down it was sloppy – sentence fragments, typos. She didn’t know how to capture the
magic of her life in words. And I did.

She went from 2000 unique visitors every month, to 12,000, to 28,000.

(More actors enter and join the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS.)

She got an agent – someone she met at one of those fancy events, while I chugged cocktails in
the corner.

(AGENT enters, wearing a smart skirt suit. She and ANNA talk while
JENNIFER watches.)

AGENT
Free swag, that’s kid stuff – all the top brands are hiring bloggers now. I see you working with
Free People, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie – there’s a new beauty brand, Glossier, that might
be a fit. You’re such a great writer, and you take photos, and you’re stunning – you’re what they
call a triple threat.

JENNIFER
Anna didn’t mention me. And that was okay – we talked about it after. We both decided that
Anna-the-brand was stronger if people believed she was doing it on her own. And we were
pretty invested in Anna-the-brand at that point. It wasn’t just the events, the free stuff – we
believed in what we were doing. We were proving that women – young women – had something
to say, that our voices deserved to be heard. Or some of our voices. The voices of the ones who
were gorgeous and stylish and rich and thin and almost always white, and could look like they
did it all without even trying.

Still, people were reading the stuff I wrote, even if none of them knew it was me – 12,000,
28,000, 45,000 people.

(If there are any more actors available to join the chorus, they should do it here.)

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 ANNA
And some of them were following you, too.

JENNIFER
A few thousand, not –

ANNA
That’s a few thousand more than you would have had otherwise. And you liked it. And you
knew other people might like it – publishers and producers might like it –

JENNIFER
I wasn’t even thinking about that, not then.

ANNA
Right, no, it never crossed your mind that working with a well-known blogger might be helpful
as far as your writing career –

JENNIFER
It didn’t! I just, I loved the work that we were doing. We could hit publish and a few seconds
later thousands of people would be reading my words. It was different than any other kind of
writing – more unfiltered.

ANNA
Was it, though?

JENNIFER
I mean yeah, there were no… gatekeepers, no barriers between us and our readers. No Joe
Sloanes to tell us that we weren’t good enough –

ANNA
That’s true – but when you’re telling a story, it’s never really unfiltered, is it? Even when
you’re trying to make it seem like it is.

JENNIFER
I just loved writing, and knowing that people would actually read it. And okay, if I’m being
honest, I loved that it gave us a reason to spend time together –

ANNA
We would have done that anyhow.

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 JENNIFER
You think so?

ANNA
Yeah, of course. I wasn’t just hanging out with you because you were helping me write my
socials. I admired the shit out of you, if you want to know the truth.

JENNIFER
Right.

ANNA
I did. You’re smart, and hilarious, and thoughtful – I mean I was the face, but you were so much
more than that.

JENNIFER
That’s not – you’re thoughtful too, you just came up with all that stuff about what it means to tell
a story –

ANNA
You came up with that stuff and you put it in my mouth. I mean, it was great, don’t get me
wrong – you always knew how to come up with the thing I should have said and pretend like I’d
said it.

JENNIFER
Okay, but –

ANNA
You think I would have slept with your boyfriend if I hadn’t been crazy jealous of you?

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS gasps and strikes poses of exaggerated shock.)

No no no, you guys don’t know that.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS subsides.)

But yeah, I slept with her boyfriend. She was probably saving that part for some sort of big
reveal – the climax, so to speak.

JENNIFER
I was saving that part, you weren’t supposed to –

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I’m the one who gets to decide how to tell this story. I’m better at telling stories than you are.
You’re better at everything else –

ANNA
I’m not – that’s the point –

JENNIFER
(over her)
But I’m better at telling stories.

ANNA
You want to just tell that part now, though? – since I already gave away –

JENNIFER
That wouldn’t make any sense. I haven’t even met him yet.

ANNA
We can do the part where you meet him. Come on, that part’s fun.

JENNIFER
…Yeah, okay.
So Anna and I were drinking rose at the rooftop bar at the Wexwood. It was summer by then.

(ANNA takes off her leather jacket.)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Girl that top is amazing! Link please!

ANNA
Oh, sorry, it’s vintage. But there’s a similar one at Anthro – here you go!
Affiliate link, small commission, thanks for supporting Greek Tragedy, you know the drill.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS makes hearts with their hands.)

JENNIFER
Anna had been there for hours, since she didn’t have a job. She’d managed to run through most
of her trust fund in the past five years of living in the city, but she’d started making some serious
money from the blogging stuff. I don’t know how much –

19
 ANNA
Like 75 grand. It wasn’t that serious.

JENNIFER
It was more than I made. And like everything you ever did was comped –

ANNA
Everything we ever did was comped –

JENNIFER
Yeah, okay, but I had to pay rent, and you didn’t –

ANNA
(to the audience)
I had a deal with the Avalon where they were letting me live in one of their suites. But that’s just
‘cause I’d lost my apartment –

JENNIFER
She’d gotten kicked out for throwing an illegal party –

ANNA
An epic illegal party –

JENNIFER
An epic illegal party on the roof.
Anyway, I was still answering phones and making spreadsheets, and feeling more and more like
I’d never be doing anything else. After the Joe Sloane rejection I’d been too demoralized to go
on sending out my novel, and I wasn’t writing anything new. There wasn’t any time… I was
either at work or out with Anna, and any free time I had I was working on blog stuff or captions.
Anna never offered to share the money she was making. I thought about asking. But it seemed
like – I don’t know, it was her thing, really. She’d built it – I was just helping out, for fun. And
it was fun. And she was already giving me so much stuff – it seemed greedy to ask for more.
So I just kept – working away, and meanwhile Anna was spending the afternoons at hotel bars
with a bottle of rose and her laptop, editing photos and getting chatted up by European
businessman-types who wanted to take her to the Spanish Riviera.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS swoons.)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Girl that is soooooo romantic.

20
 JENNIFER
When I showed up that day at 5:30 there were three of them, and Anna was wasted. She’d
spilled wine all over her computer – we ended up losing three weeks of photos – and she’d lost a
shoe.
(ANNA kicks one of her shoes offstage.)
The businessmen were circling like sharks smelling blood, but I got rid of them. Anna was in no
shape to go to the Spanish Riviera that night. She was slumped on the table –
(ANNA slumps over the table)
half awake, just lifting her head to pick up her glass and drink it down.

(ANNA lifts her head.)

ANNA
Where’d they go?

JENNIFER
Who?

ANNA
Jose, and Manuel, and Felipe…

JENNIFER
I don’t know – back to Spain?

ANNA
They were supposed to take me with them.

JENNIFER
I know. Maybe next time.

(ANNA slumps back down again.)

That’s when I noticed the guy by the door.

(BRANDON enters.)

He was cute, and he kept looking over at us. Well, at Anna, really, but she was way too drunk to
flirt. So after a couple of minutes of trying to play the looking game he gave up and headed over
to our table.

21
 ANNA
(lifting her head)
Oh hiiiiiii.

BRANDON
Hi.
(to JENNIFER)
She needs to go home.

JENNIFER
And I bet you’re just the guy to take her.

BRANDON
I’ll take her to the door, but after that she’s on her own.

ANNA
I don’t need to go home. I just need a little bit of coke.

BRANDON
Okay, you know what?

(He steps forward and takes ANNA’s arm, pulling her upright.)

JENNIFER
Hey! Get your hands off her –
Hey! Somebody help us –

BRANDON
…I’m the bouncer?

JENNIFER
Oh!

BRANDON
You want to help me get your friend here home?

JENNIFER
Yeah – sure, sorry, I didn’t mean to be –
Anna – come on, you’re too drunk, you’ve gotta go.

22
 (She takes one of ANNA’s arms and BRANDON takes the other.)

ANNA
Maybe I’m not too drunk – maybe the rest of you aren’t drunk enough.

BRANDON
Well, you know what Humphrey Bogart says. The problem with the world –

JENNIFER
(finishing the quote with him)
Is that everyone is a few drinks behind.

BRANDON
Nice. You a Bogart fan?

JENNIFER
Yeah. Huge fan. Totally.
(aside)
I wasn’t. I’d just Googled quotes about drinking that first night, when I was trying to come up
with a caption.

BRANDON
You want to get together and watch a film sometime?

JENNIFER
…Me?

BRANDON
(confused)
Yeah, you.

JENNIFER
Um. Yeah, sure, okay.
I gave him my number, put Anna in a taxi, and then went home and watched old Bogart films ‘til
sunrise. A few days later he took me to a screening of Key Largo at Film Forum. And then we
went to dinner, and then I took him back to my place and he didn’t leave all weekend. I was
living in Astoria then, in an illegal sublet that didn’t have a kitchen or a shower. I cooked
oatmeal on a hotplate and washed my hair in the bathroom sink. The ceiling was so low that

23
Brandon couldn’t even stand up straight – but we spent most of our time in bed, so we didn’t
mind.

(BRANDON and JENNIFER cuddle.)

He was pretty much totally out of my league –

(ANNA sticks her head out from the wings.)

ANNA
Whatever, he was not.

JENNIFER
He was cute, and he was smart, and he was working as a bouncer a couple of nights a week to
put himself through NYU film school. His exes, who I immediately began cyberstalking, all had
long, shiny hair and spent a lot of time wearing wide-brimmed hats and lounging by rooftop
pools.

ANNA
So did you though.

JENNIFER
I mean yeah, I guess so. But I never felt like I was really –
When he slept over I’d get up early to fix my hair before he woke up.

(JENNIFER fixes her hair. BRANDON wakes up.)

BRANDON
Hi.

JENNIFER
Hi.

BRANDON
Wow.

JENNIFER
What?

24
 BRANDON
I don’t know how you look so gorgeous in the morning.

(JENNIFER shrugs.)

JENNIFER
Genetically blessed, I guess.

(They kiss. They start to get into it. JENNIFER breaks away to address the
audience. BRANDON reacts – hey! – but then subsides.)

JENNIFER
I still went out with Anna a couple of nights a week, when Brandon was working, but I wasn’t
seeing as much of her as I used to. She was dating somebody too, a banker whose family had a
place in Nantucket. We all went up for a weekend and had a good time.

(ANNA and the BANKER enter. He’s in a suit, she’s in a bikini and rose-tinted
heart-shaped sunglasses. She poses, and a photo of her in the same pose in front
of the ocean appears on the screen with the caption: La vie en… #love
#Nantucket)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Is that the Hamptons?

Hashtag swoon.

Your boyfriend looks exactly like George Clooney.

(The BANKER primps, pleased.)

JENNIFER
Anna had a lot of sponsorship deals by then. The bikini was Mara Hoffmann, the highlights
were by John Sahag, the lipstick was from a brand called Stowaway that makes adorable little
tubes you can tuck in your pocket. Her body was a billboard – she was working with all of these
different brands, and they weren’t just expecting her to use their stuff, they were expecting her to
come up with multiple posts every week about how she was doing it. And the sponsored content
had to feel just as real and authentic as her personal posts did. Otherwise she’d lose readers and
the brands wouldn’t sponsor her anymore.

25
For a while I’d been helping out with these. We did a post about laundry detergent by telling the
story of the time that Anna tripped on the curb while she was wearing four-inch heels. She
spilled coffee all over her silk camisole, necessitating the liberal employment of Tide. She also
sprained her ankle, ended up in the Minute Clinic, and got asked out by both the doctor and the
guy who was working the desk.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS swoons.)

Or for a post about mascara, we told the story of the shipping heir who told Anna she had eyes
he could drown in. He actually did drown, we found out later – threw himself off a pier into the
Hudson.

ANNA
God, the trolls really went to town with that one –

JENNIFER
Can we not talk about the trolls?

ANNA
We have to talk about the trolls, they’re part of the story.

JENNIFER
They’re not really part of the story yet.
Anyway, so, I’d been coming up with a lot of these posts. But now I was spending my nights
snuggled up with Brandon catching up on Downton Abbey, instead of inventing new and exciting
ways that Anna’s life could be used to sell stuff. And Anna was falling behind.

(Anna’s AGENT, in her smart skirt suit, enters.)

AGENT
Anna, you’re losing sponsors.

ANNA
I’ve got almost a hundred thousand followers.

AGENT
Sure, and that’s great, but you’re not delivering on your content. These brands, they talk to each
other. You’re getting a reputation for being someone they can’t rely on.

ANNA

26
 (breaking from the scene, to JENNIFER)
Do I have to have this conversation in my bikini? I mean she’s already lecturing me like I’m
some dumb irresponsible girl, and the fact that I’m wearing practically nothing doesn’t –

JENNIFER
No, no, you can totally get dressed. Sorry.

ANNA
Should I wear the same thing as before, or – ?

JENNIFER
How about that shirt with the flowers, you wore that a lot.

(ANNA starts getting dressed. To AGENT)

ANNA
So okay, here’s the thing. That’s not really what I’m in it for. I want to inspire my followers,
not to spend all my time trying to sell, I don’t know, wet wipes, or shoes.

AGENT
Sure. But every job has fun stuff and not-so-fun stuff. And it’s usually the not-so-fun stuff that
pays the bills.

JENNIFER
Anna had been kicked out of the Avalon by then – she’d fallen asleep with a candle burning, and
while she hadn’t burned the place down, she’d set off the sprinkler system and caused a lot of
damage. We’d written a funny post about it – one of our most popular so far.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS laughs silently.)

She’d moved in with her boyfriend for a few weeks, but then she’d gotten tired of him and
they’d broken up, so now she was renting a cute little studio in the East Village. And that cute
little studio cost $4500 a month.

ANNA
(to AGENT)
Yeah. I get it. I’m going to do better.

AGENT
You’d better do better.

27
 ANNA
I will.

(AGENT exits.)

JENNIFER
Anna had been gifted a weekend stay at a new resort in the Catskills – fall leaves, horseback
rides, wine by the fire – and she invited me to come. It’d be fun – a chance to get out of the city
– and we could spend our down time hammering out a bunch of new blog posts. Brandon was
working that weekend anyhow. It sounded great.
But then his schedule got switched around at the last minute – he was free that weekend, but had
to work every other weekend for the rest of the fall.
(to ANNA)
You can totally say no, but – could Brandon come? This is the only weekend we’ll get to see
each other for a while –

ANNA
Yeah, of course he can come – I’ll get them to upgrade me to a suite.

(BRANDON enters and squeezes JENNIFER’s waist.)

JENNIFER
Say what you will about Anna – but she had a generous heart.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS puts their hands to their hearts.)

I really believe that.

(Lights shift. They’re in the Catskills. A photo of ANNA in a pile of leaves

appears, along with the caption: When you’re wearing white jeans, but you can’t
resist… #tidestick #mohonkmountainresort #catskills)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Heart heart heart heart heart

I want to go to there

I love my @tidestick! I barfed all over my brand new @Gucci bag and it came right out.

28
 JENNIFER
(looking at her phone)
Uggggggghhhhhhhh.

BRANDON
What’s wrong, babe?

JENNIFER
I just got an email from Mitch McCarren. He needs me to collate this presentation by 5 pm.

ANNA
Fuck Mitch McCarren.

JENNIFER
I don’t want to fuck Mitch McCarren.

ANNA
We’re supposed to go on a hike this afternoon.

JENNIFER
I didn’t usually work on weekends – I didn’t get paid enough – but we were going to trial on
Monday.
(to ANNA)
I have to get this done. You guys go.

BRANDON
Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you here all by yourself.

JENNIFER
I’m just going to be working.
You guys go. Have fun.

(JENNIFER opens her laptop and begins typing. She remains onstage through the
following scene.

ANNA and BRANDON are in a forest clearing. She spreads out a picnic blanket
and he unpacks a backpack with sandwiches and wine.)

JENNIFER
I don’t actually know how this part went – I wasn’t there. So this is just what I imagine.

29
 (BRANDON picks up a sandwich to take a bite.)

ANNA
Stop! We have to take pictures first.

BRANDON
Oh – okay. Sorry.

ANNA
They packed this whole picnic, they’re going to be really mad if I don’t –

BRANDON
Sure.

(ANNA takes out her phone and takes pictures of the picnic from different angles.
She studies them, adjusts things, adds some artfully-placed fall leaves. Takes
more pictures.)

ANNA
I’m so sorry – you’re probably starving –

BRANDON
No, no, it’s fine.

(She takes more pictures.)

…How many more do you think you’re going to need?

ANNA
Oh – just a few.

(She takes more pictures.)

BRANDON
I guess I never realized that it was such a big… production. I thought you just… took a few
snapshots of what you were doing, and then –

(ANNA laughs.)

30
 ANNA
That’s what you’re supposed to think. But it takes a lot of work to make it look easy.
It’s not even just the pictures, it’s the hair, and the clothes, and the makeup…

BRANDON
You know that’s what I like so much about Jen, is she’s really authentic, she’s not worried about
–
Not that it’s bad to be – I mean –

ANNA
You know she fixes her hair before you wake up?

BRANDON
What? What does that even mean, she –

ANNA
She gets up before you wake up, and she goes in the bathroom and fixes her hair. And then she
gets back in bed and pretends to be sleeping.

BRANDON
Really?

ANNA
Yeah. Isn’t that funny?
Hey – could you take a couple of me with the food? And then we can eat, I promise.

(She hands him her phone and poses. He takes pictures.)

BRANDON
Is that enough?

ANNA
I don’t know, how do I look?

BRANDON
(scrolling through the pictures)
Good, you look really… good.

(She comes close to him and bends over his phone to look.)

31
 ANNA
You’ve got a good eye.

BRANDON
You think so?

ANNA
The way you framed this – most people just point and click, but these are really…

BRANDON
Thanks.

ANNA
You should take pictures for me more often.

(She moves the food around and rearranges her hair.)

Okay – could you take a few more?

(He takes more pictures. He’s into it now.)

BRANDON
Maybe try turning your hip –

(ANNA sticks a hip out.)

That’s good. Okay, and then if you lean forward – yeah.

Do you want to – maybe just open your mouth a little?

(ANNA does.)

That’s good. That’s really –

(He holds out her phone to show her the pictures. She comes close to look. Their
heads, bent over the phone, inch towards each other. They kiss.)

ANNA
This is – we shouldn’t –

32
 BRANDON
I know.

(They continue kissing. Lights go down on the two of them.

After a moment, ANNA steps out of the darkness.)

ANNA
That wasn’t the way it happened. But it was a way it could have happened. You’re good at
coming up with ways things could have happened.

JENNIFER
They started “taking pictures” together a couple of times a week. She already had a
photographer, but she wanted to diversify her aesthetic, and she said Brandon had a great eye for
beautiful things.

ANNA
He found you, didn’t he?

JENNIFER
She got a lot of comments on the pictures.

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
So gorge.

This belongs in a gallery.

Anna and her new photographer are totally fucking.

(JENNIFER’s head whips around to stare at the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS.)

JENNIFER
And as soon as I read that, I saw it. I hadn’t seen it before. The way the camera looked at her…
the way he looked at her…

(JENNIFER crosses to BRANDON)

JENNIFER
I have to ask you something.

33
 BRANDON
Yeah?

JENNIFER
Did something happen – with Anna?
(to audience)
I could tell from his face.
I told him I never wanted to see him again, and then I called her and told her I never wanted to
see her again, and then I cried for three days. And then I texted some of my old college friends
who I hadn’t seen in awhile and we went out drinking.

(JENNIFER’s COLLEGE FRIENDS enter.)

COLLEGE FRIEND 1
So yeah, finance finance finance finance –

COLLEGE FRIEND 2
Finance finance business finance finance business finance.

COLLEGE FRIEND 3
Law law finance business finance law finance.

COLLEGE FRIEND 1
Finance finance alcohol weed.

COLLEGE FRIEND 2
Alcohol weed alcohol weed.

COLLEGE FRIEND 3
Alcohol alcohol weed finance.

JENNIFER
I didn’t know if we used to have things in common and now we didn’t, or if we never had and I
just hadn’t known the difference. I tried to drink enough to make it fun –

(COLLEGE FRIENDS all begin moving in slow-motion.)

COLLEGE FRIEND 3
(in slow-motion)
Alcohol weed alcohol finance –

34
 JENNIFER
But I just ended up throwing up on the curb. I didn’t go out with them again. I went to work,
and I went home, and I went to work, and I went home, and I felt like part of my heart was
missing. I didn’t know if it was Brandon, or Anna, or both of them.

I still followed Anna on social – I couldn’t help it. I figured she and Brandon might date, but
they didn’t. They didn’t even keep taking pictures together.

ANNA
Of course we didn’t – I felt terrible!

JENNIFER
Instead she started dating a model named Fernando. He was six and a half feet tall and he had
one blue eye and one grey eye. She wasn’t doing as many sponsored posts, but then the industry
was changing – the FTC had come out with new regulations, and bloggers were facing some
backlash on sponsorships anyway. I wasn’t sure if she was doing any worse because I wasn’t
there or not.

And then one night six months later – I’m sorry, by the way. I hate when people do that in
stories, skip over the boring awful parts. It makes you feel like you can skip over the boring
awful parts in your life, but then you can’t, you have to live them. But then they’re over, and
you don’t really want to think about them, so you skip over them when you’re telling the story,
but it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, and it doesn’t mean they didn’t suck.

Anyway, so, one night six months later – late, maybe three a.m. – she knocked on my door.

(ANNA enters, hair disheveled, mascara running.)

She was drunk, and she looked like she’d been crying.

ANNA
Jennie – I need your help. They’re saying such awful things –

JENNIFER
Who’s saying awful things?

ANNA
The trolls.

35
 JENNIFER
Actually, you know what? Maybe we should tell this part later. Maybe we should tell some more
of the good parts first.

ANNA
There aren’t really any more good parts.

JENNIFER
Yes there are, that’s not true! There were all those nights we went out –

ANNA
Yeah, and I got so drunk that you had to carry me home –

JENNIFER
Not always.

ANNA
Really?

JENNIFER
Okay, well there were all those nights we stayed in –

ANNA
We never stayed in.

JENNIFER
Sure we did. Sometimes.
You remember that night we stayed in and made pizzas –

ANNA
(laughing)
Oh my God, those were so bad –

JENNIFER
Right? We couldn’t even stop laughing long enough to take a picture –

ANNA
I wish we had that picture –

36
 JENNIFER
So that was a good part, that was a good night –

ANNA
Yeah, it was.
But it doesn’t make any sense to talk about how we were laughing and making pizzas unless we
talk about how we got there. And in order to talk about how we got there, we need to talk about
the trolls.

(The CHORUS OF TROLLS enters. They can be played by the same actors as
the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS – or not. Either way, they should be dressed
differently. Maybe they’re wearing troll doll wigs. Have fun with it.)

JENNIFER
Okay, fine. Let’s talk about the trolls.
She’d always had trolls – everyone did. There were whole forums, pages and pages devoted to
people posting about how much they hated certain bloggers. Most of the girls claimed they didn’t
read them, but I’m pretty sure everyone did. Anna did, and I did too… although I pretended I
didn’t. Until we stopped talking, and then I didn’t have to pretend anymore.
Anna wasn’t as famous as some of the other girls, so she didn’t have as many, but she had
enough. They had a few favorite topics – how she drank too much, how her shorts were too
short, how she wore too much eye makeup. After I left they talked a lot about how her content
had gone downhill, which – I have to admit – made me happy. They gave her mean nicknames,
like Little Orphan Annie, because her parents were dead.

CHORUS OF TROLLS
Check out the undereye bags on L.O.A. today.

How is this girl a beauty influencer? She looks rough.

Did anyone else see the giant stain on her top? I guess now that Tide dumped her there’s no
reason she has to wash it.

L.O.A. just posted a selfie in her pajamas. It’s 2 pm.

Does this bitch ever work?

Of course not, she’s too busy slugging rose and taking “inspiring” photos with makeup smeared
all over her face.

37
Hey has anyone noticed that girl Jennifer is never in L.O.A.’s pics anymore? I wonder if they
had a fight or something.

JENNIFER
I’d had a couple of drinks, and I was sitting at home by myself, scrolling through chat boards.
This was a couple of months after Anna and I had stopped talking. And…

(JENNIFER hesitates.)

ANNA
Come on – tell them what you did next.

(Maybe ANNA hands JENNIFER a troll doll wig.)

JENNIFER
I made up a username.

(to the CHORUS OF TROLLS)

Did anyone notice that L.O.A.’s posts went downhill right around the same time that Jennifer
stopped showing up in her pictures?

(to the audience)

That was all it took.

CHORUS OF TROLLS
Theory! Jennifer was actually writing all of L.O.A.’s “content” while L.O.A. swanned around
taking pictures of herself in denim underwear.

Okay that makes SO much sense.

I would love nothing more than if L.O.A. turned out to be a fraud.

ANNA
I was so depressed. I couldn’t get out of bed – I would just lie there and read these horrible –

CHORUS OF TROLLS
This girl has got to be the world’s dumbest human. It’s a good thing her parents are dead or they
would be so ashamed.

38
She is a waste of breath. And her hair is disgusting.

I hope she dies in her sleep.

ANNA
You read enough things like that and you start to believe them.

JENNIFER
I’m sorry. I wish I’d never done it – but I wasn’t exactly in a great place either at the time.
And I tried to make up for it – when you came to me I was there for you –

(Back into the scene.)

What are you – why are you here?

ANNA
Because I don’t know where else to go.
I’m sorry, I’m so – I just don’t know where else to go.

(Beat.)

JENNIFER
Here – come in – it’s late –

ANNA
I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you so much, and I couldn’t –
You were so mad –

JENNIFER
I’m still –

ANNA
I know. You should be – it was totally unforgivable, what I did. I’ve thought about it every day
and wished I hadn’t.

JENNIFER
Me too.

39
 ANNA
I feel like I’m losing my mind, they’re saying these things and I just – I’m not any good without
you –

JENNIFER
Really? Cause I’m doing fine.

ANNA
Of course you are. You always have it together, you’re not a mess like me –

JENNIFER
(to the audience)
I wasn’t eating, and I’d developed a weird obsession with Animal Planet. I’d spent the night
watching baby turtles getting eaten and crying into my vodka soda.

ANNA
My agent fired me. And I’m supposed to give this big speech at this blogger conference next
Friday. And I just – I can’t – I’m going to get up there and they’re all going to say I’m a fraud –
my heart starts beating so fast and I can’t even breathe when I think about it –

JENNIFER
…Next Friday?

ANNA
Yeah.

JENNIFER
Okay, so we have a week.

ANNA
What?

JENNIFER
That’s plenty of time to figure out what you’re going to say.

ANNA
You’d help me?

JENNIFER
I felt terrible about the trolls. But mostly it just felt so good to be talking to her again.

40
 (to ANNA)
What’s the topic for the speech?
(to the audience)
She was supposed to talk about Building a Personal Brand. Which was tricky.

ANNA
In order to build a personal brand, you have to just be yourself. If you do that, then other people
will pay you. Especially if you’re a rich, thin, pretty white woman. If you’re not, well, there are
still lots of things you can do. You can work in an office, or at a restaurant, or at a bar, or – I
don’t know. I don’t know what else people do really. But if you’re not a rich, thin, pretty white
woman, you can still be yourself, but nobody’s going to pay you for it.

JENNIFER
She wasn’t going to give that speech.

ANNA
In order to build a personal brand, you can never just be yourself. You have to be this version of
yourself that you’ve crafted, and everything you do, you have to think about whether it fits. You
can never stop playing the part. It’s exhausting.

JENNIFER
She wasn’t going to give that speech either.

ANNA
Ugggghhh, Jennie, this is hard.

JENNIFER
I know.

CHORUS OF TROLLS
Lazy bitch.

Fraud.

ANNA
Let’s go out.

JENNIFER
We can’t. You have to fly to Portland tomorrow to give this speech, and we don’t even have an
outline –

41
 ANNA
If we don’t go out I won’t have anything to put on my socials. I can’t post content about sitting
here working on my speech.

JENNIFER
That’s true.

ANNA
(breaking character)
I actually think you were the one who said that, not me.

JENNIFER
What?

ANNA
You were the one who said we should go out so we could post.

JENNIFER
No, I don’t think that’s right –

ANNA
I’m pretty sure it is though.

JENNIFER
Okay, well even if it was my idea, you were into it –

ANNA
Of course I was into it, I was an alcoholic!

JENNIFER
Oh come on, you were not.

ANNA
You really believe that?
We were drinking a couple of bottles of wine every night –

JENNIFER
Okay, but that’s not –

42
 ANNA
And then I was drinking more after you went to bed.

JENNIFER
Okay, well I didn’t know that –

ANNA
Yes you did. You’d find the bottles in the morning.

JENNIFER
It’s not like I was counting how many bottles were in the recycling –

ANNA
Maybe you should have been.

JENNIFER
Well maybe you shouldn’t have been drinking them –

ANNA
Of course I shouldn’t, you don’t think I know –

JENNIFER
Okay – okay, this isn’t –
We’re not at the part of the story where this is –

ANNA
I think we are, though.

JENNIFER
We’re not.

ANNA
Okay, fine. You’re the one telling the story.

JENNIFER
Anyway, so, we went out –

ANNA
We went out.

43
 JENNIFER
We met some bankers who bought us some drinks and gave us some speedballs.

(Two BANKERS enter, with drinks and drugs. JENNIFER and ANNA and the
BANKERS drink them and snort them. The lights and the music go crazy.)

ANNA
Whooooooooo!

(ANNA and JENNIFER and the BANKERS dance, very fast. Then stop.)

JENNIFER
And by morning we were coming down hard. Anna was supposed to fly to Portland in a few
hours, and we still hadn’t figured out what she was going to say.

(ANNA and JENNIFER are slumped on the ground.)

ANNA
Jennnnniiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee.

JENNIFER
Annnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaa.

ANNA
What am I gonna do?

JENNIFER
I don’t know.

ANNA
What am I gonna say?

JENNIFER
I don’t know.

ANNA
I want a bacon sandwich.
Can I order a bacon sandwich, is that a thing?

44
 JENNIFER
Yeah, sure. Just get a bacon egg and cheese without the egg and cheese.

ANNA
You’re like a genius. You’re like an actual genius.

JENNIFER
Maybe you should just tell the truth.

ANNA
What?

JENNIFER
Like just say you drank a lot and did some drugs last night and now you’re really hung over.

ANNA
Oh my God, can you imagine? They’d kill me – they’d literally kill me.
Although it’s not like I know what else I’m going to do…

(Lights shift. A spotlight comes up on ANNA, along with the sound of applause.
AGENT enters in her skirt suit.)

AGENT
What the hell, Anna?
You’re trending on Twitter, your follower count is up – way up. You were tanking last week –
what happened?

ANNA
I–

AGENT
How the hell did you manage to turn this around?

ANNA
Well – I had this big speech, at the conference in Portland… and I guess people really liked it.

(The CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS re-enters.)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Is Anna Anastos the New Cat Marnell?

45
Anna Anastos: The Truthteller We Didn’t Know We Needed

An Authentic Voice in the Blogosphere

What Does Anna Anastos Have for Breakfast? (Hint, It Starts With G and Ends With In)

AGENT
This is amazing! Features in Buzzfeed, The Cut, The Man Repeller. You’ve managed to turn
your party girl rep into an asset. We’re going to pick up a whole new set of sponsors –

ANNA
We?

AGENT
With everything coming your way, you’re going to need somebody in your corner –

ANNA
Well, it’s too bad you fired me then.

AGENT
I – what do you mean, I never fired you –

ANNA
You literally just did last week.

AGENT
Oh, well, I might have said some things I didn’t mean. But you’re going to be getting a lot of
new requests – you’re going to need somebody to help you handle all of that –

ANNA
Am I?

(A NEW AGENT enters, dressed identically to the first but with higher heels.

The NEW AGENT stares down the AGENT until the AGENT drops her eyes and
hurries offstage.)

NEW AGENT
Great. Let’s get started.

46
 JENNIFER
Anna’s new agent had a different focus. Instead of sponsorship deals with makeup and jeans, she
was booking her for appearances at bars and nightclubs. Anna wasn’t just going out every night
for fun, she was going out every night because she was getting paid for it.

ANNA
Whooooooooo!

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Whooooooooo!

(ANNA and the CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS dance.)

JENNIFER
She’d manage to achieve what every blogger wanted.

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
Authenticity.

Relatability.

Anna Anastos: She’s Just Like Us.

JENNIFER
She moved into a suite at Madison Station. They comped her in exchange for spending a couple
of hours at their lounge every Friday night. The suite was huge – two bedrooms and a living
room with a view out over the rooftops of the Village, all the way to the East River. And she
invited me to move in with her.

ANNA
Come on. Your place is depressing as fuck. And we make a great team.

(Somebody tosses JENNIFER a suitcase from offstage and she opens it and
begins unpacking.)

JENNIFER
It was amazing. I got room service every morning. Green juice, gluten-free toast and a double
espresso. It arrived on a silver tray with a daisy on it. I’d eat in the living room, looking out over

47
the city, and then I’d go downstairs and ask the concierge to call me a cab to the office. Now that
I wasn’t paying rent I figured I could spend a little more on those kinds of things.

Anna was always still asleep when I’d leave in the mornings. She’d pull herself out of bed
around noon or one. Sometimes she’d spend a couple of hours editing photos to post to the blog
– but we weren’t blogging as much these days. Nobody wanted to read long, wordy posts with
artfully composed pictures… they didn’t have the attention span for that. Instagram was the
future, and Instagram wanted Anna out dancing, Anna in strappy shoes and sparkly earrings,
Anna taking selfies with Justin Bieber. And Instagram never turned off – we’d been publishing
three or four blog posts a week, but on Instagram people were posting 24/7. All the most popular
bloggers – “influencers,” people were starting to call them – were putting out content constantly.
And Anna was trying to keep up.

And of course she was drinking more than ever.

CHORUS OF TROLLS
What a sloppy mess.

Serious floozy vibes from L.O.A. in that black mini-dress.

I saw L.O.A. out last night. Her dancing is tragic. She looks like an electrocuted fish.

JENNIFER
I tried to talk to her about it a few times –

ANNA
A few times?

JENNIFER
At least a couple of times –

ANNA
A couple of times?

JENNIFER
At least once.
It was two p.m. on a Saturday. Anna had just woken up. We’d been drinking together in the
lounge the night before and hadn’t come back up to the suite until four. Anna had brought a guy
up with her –

48
 (A GUY enters.)

But he left after she threw up on his shoes.

(ANNA throws up on his shoes. The GUY exits.)

As soon as she woke up, she called down to room service, and started making mimosas.

(One of the FOLLOWERS wheels in a cart with champagne and orange juice.
ANNA fills a glass almost to the brim with champagne, pours in a drop of orange
juice, and drinks it.)

JENNIFER
Anna – I’m worried about you.

ANNA
You didn’t say that.

JENNIFER
What did I say?

ANNA
Well, first you said, make one for me.

(ANNA makes JENNIFER a mimosa.)

And then you said –

JENNIFER
God, my head hurts.

ANNA
And then you said –

JENNIFER
Anna, I’m worried about you.

ANNA
No.

49
 JENNIFER
Anna, you can’t keep going like this.

ANNA
No.

JENNIFER
Anna, the manager came to talk to me last night. He’s going to kick us out if you get that drunk
in the lounge again.

ANNA
You weren’t worried about me, you were worried about your free hotel suite.

JENNIFER
That’s not fair. I just, I felt like that might be a way to start the conversation –

ANNA
So he kicks us out. I’ve been kicked out of places before.

JENNIFER
Okay, well I haven’t. I gave up my apartment, and it’d be really hard for me to pay a broker fee
right now.

ANNA
Oh, I could take care of that, don’t worry.

JENNIFER
That’s not the only thing I’m worried about.
(aside to ANNA)
I did say that.

ANNA
Okay…

JENNIFER
You’re drinking a lot.

ANNA
Yeah, so are you.

50
 JENNIFER
I know, but only on weekends. You’re drinking a lot every night.

ANNA
That’s literally my job.

JENNIFER
Okay, but maybe –

ANNA
That’s who I am.

JENNIFER
It’s not who you are –

ANNA
Look.
(She Googles herself.)
“Anna Anastos is an Unapologetic Party Girl.” That’s the first thing that comes up. That’s from
the New York Times – you going to argue with the New York Times?

JENNIFER
It’s not that I’m going to argue –

ANNA
Neither am I.
Have another mimosa.

(JENNIFER does.)

So yeah – that was the only time you tried to talk to me about it.

JENNIFER
Well, you obviously didn’t want to hear it –

ANNA
Who wants to hear that they’re an addict?

JENNIFER
You weren’t an addict –

51
 ANNA
Really?

JENNIFER
Maybe you were drinking too much, but that’s not –

ANNA
Okay, so in your version of the story, I’m someone who wears pink, and I’m not an addict.
I like the Anna in your version. I like her much better than the Anna in theirs.

CHORUS OF TROLLS
Mess.

Trainwreck.

Ridiculous whore.

JENNIFER
I stopped going out with her as much after that. She still invited me, but I felt like she didn’t
really mean it. She’d say things like –

ANNA
We’re going for drinks at Club Spa. You can come if you want.

JENNIFER
Or –

ANNA
I’m hosting at Milieu tonight, but you’re probably busy.

JENNIFER
And a lot of times I was busy – I’d started talking to a new guy, James.

(JAMES enters and puts an arm around JENNIFER’s waist.)

He looked just like Brandon except that he wore glasses.

(JAMES is played by the same actor as BRANDON, wearing glasses.)

52
He was curious about Anna, of course –

(JAMES cranes his head around JENNIFER to try to see ANNA. JENNIFER
slaps him on the nose like a puppy and he retreats.)

But I didn’t really want her anywhere near him. I always went over to his place rather than
bringing him back to our suite.

(Lights shift.)

That’s where I was when I got the call that Anna had overdosed.

(Beat. Then ANNA starts laughing.)

ANNA
I’m sorry – I’m sorry. It’s just you’re trying to make it all dramatic, with the long pause and the
moody lighting.

JENNIFER
I’m not –

ANNA
But like it’s something they all saw coming. Like there’s nobody in here who didn’t see that
coming. Is there? So I just think it’s kind of funny that you’re standing there telling them what
happened like it was some kind of terrible surprise.

JENNIFER
Well it was – for me, it was a terrible surprise. I didn’t see it coming –

ANNA
You should have.

JENNIFER
That isn’t fair.

ANNA
That’s like the only possible way this story was going.

53
 JENNIFER
What do you mean? You had this… incredible life, you were young, you were gorgeous, you
were successful –

ANNA
I was drunk, I was out of control, I couldn’t maintain a relationship –

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
You were relatable

You were aspirational

You were influential

CHORUS OF TROLLS
You were fake

You were narcissistic

You were trash

ANNA
We were telling a story about me – and maybe you got so caught up in the story you actually
started believing it. You actually started believing I was the girl whose lips were always glossy,
whose lashes were always coated in Cle de Peau, who got drunk every night but who didn’t have
a problem.

JENNIFER
I mean, maybe I did. But what was I supposed to have done?

ANNA
You were supposed to have known better. There’s a difference between being a follower and
being a friend.

(Beat.)

JENNIFER
I was your friend.

54
 ANNA
Then you were supposed to have known better. But you know what? – I don’t think you wanted
to. Like you said, you were pretty invested in me as a brand… and part of my brand was that I
partied. If I stopped partying, then maybe all the rest – the freebies, the fame, the followers –
maybe all that stopped, too.

JENNIFER
That’s not fair.

ANNA
Then why are you having me say it? You’re the one telling this story, remember?

(Beat.)

JENNIFER
She was in a coma for almost a week.

ANNA
(to the audience)
You’re probably picturing some kind of Sleeping Beauty situation. Beautiful girl, eyes closed,
hair spread out over the pillow. But there isn’t anything pretty about alcohol poisoning. My skin
was yellow, I had bruises under my eyes, and a scar on my chin from where I hit it on the
bathtub. They had to shave part of my head. I looked like a monster.
(to JENNIFER)
You don’t know, because you never came to see me –

JENNIFER
I tried. I couldn’t.

ANNA
They wouldn’t let you in?

JENNIFER
No, I just – I couldn’t. I went to the hospital. Twice. Once I got all the way to the door.

ANNA
You got to the door and then you, what – just turned around and left?

JENNIFER
I just couldn’t see you like that – like what you’re saying.

55
 ANNA
But I was there. Whether you wanted to see me or not – I was there, and I was alone.

JENNIFER
I know.

(Flower arrangements and hospital gift shop balloons begin to rain down on
ANNA.)

CHORUS OF FOLLOWERS
We’re praying for you, Anna.

Get well soon!!!!!

Heart heart heart heart heart.

ONE TROLL
What do you want to bet this is all a hoax to get her numbers up?

(The CHORUS OF TROLLS turn on the troll who spoke.)

CHORUS OF TROLLS
Too soon.

Not cool.
(Beat.)

JENNIFER
The first time I tried to go and see her was on a Monday. The second time was on a Thursday.
She died on Friday.

ANNA
You’re doing that thing with the moody lights again.

JENNIFER
Well that’s how I feel, okay?

(Back to the audience.)

56
After she died I stopped eating. I lost fifteen pounds in a few weeks. There’s a photo of me at
the funeral. I’m a mess but I look great. I’m wearing a black Prada dress that was Anna’s – I’d
lost so much weight that I actually fit in her clothes, and I wore them a lot –

ANNA
My best friend’s dead, might as well raid her closet!

JENNIFER
No! It’s just – it made me feel better –

ANNA
Of course it did, I have nice stuff.

JENNIFER
No, I don’t mean like that. It made me feel closer to you, somehow –

ANNA
Aww, that’s so sweet. Did it make you feel closer to me to keep living in my hotel suite?

JENNIFER
That was only for a few weeks, ‘til I found a place.

ANNA
Oh, right… and how did you pay the broker fee? Was it with the money you made from selling
stories you wrote about me to Vogue, and Elle, and New York Magazine? Let me guess –
writing those stories made you feel closer to me, too.

JENNIFER
You want me to stop wearing your stuff? – I’ll stop –

(She starts taking off the clothes she’s wearing and throwing them towards
ANNA.)

You want them back? Here!

I don’t want them. I don’t want any of this. Just take them back, take all of it back.

(She is standing in her bra and underwear.)

57
You want to, what, to make me feel bad? You’re the one who fucked up your life! You’re the
one who screwed everything up and left everyone else behind to pick up the pieces. You had
everything anyone could have ever wanted –

ANNA
You think so?

JENNIFER
Yes! You had it and you threw it all away. So you know what, just get out, get out of my head
and get out of my life. I don’t want to tell this story anymore.

(ANNA stands amid the pile of JENNIFER’s discarded clothing. She looks at
JENNIFER for a long moment. Then she nods and exits.

JENNIFER begins quietly tidying up the stage – folding clothes, putting cards and
balloons and flower arrangements into neat piles. She finds an alcohol bottle,
considers drinking from it, then decides against. She finds the clothes she was
wearing at the top of the play and puts them on.

She finishes tidying, looks around, shrugs, nods. She looks out at the audience
like she wants to say something else but can’t find the words. She shrugs again
and turns to go.

As she is almost offstage, ANNA pokes her head out again.)

ANNA
Can I just say one more thing though?

JENNIFER
(turning back)
Seriously??

ANNA
Oh come on, you’re the one who brought me back here to say it. If you actually wanted me to go
I would have been gone.

(Beat.)

JENNIFER
What do you want to say?

58
 ANNA
I just, I was wondering why you’re writing a play.

JENNIFER
I don’t know, I’ve always kind of wanted to write one. And I thought –

ANNA
You thought if you wrote about me you could get it produced. You thought you could keep on
using me, using my story –

JENNIFER
No –

ANNA
Oh come on, just admit it. You took my clothes and you took my apartment and you took my life
–

JENNIFER
That’s not –

ANNA
And you’re using it to get what you wanted.

JENNIFER
That’s not what this is!

ANNA
Then what is it?
I know you feel like maybe there was something more you should have done –

JENNIFER
I don’t feel –

ANNA
And so maybe you’re trying to tell a version where there wasn’t, ‘cause if you tell it that way
then it’ll get fixed in your mind and you’ll start to believe it.

JENNIFER
That’s not –
I’m not trying to tell a version – I’m telling what happened –

59
 ANNA
You’re telling some of what happened. That’s the thing about telling a story, right? – you decide
which parts to leave out. You leave out the fact that you never quite forgave me for what
happened with Brandon – that when you told me to talk about how I was hung over, it was
because you wanted me to fuck up, to get laughed off the stage – that you were so mad when that
wasn’t what happened –

JENNIFER
I wasn’t –

ANNA
Yes you were!

JENNIFER
Okay maybe I was! – maybe I felt like you didn’t deserve to have everything just –

ANNA
What did you think I deserved? Did you think I deserved to die? Did you think I deserved to
choke on my own –

JENNIFER
No!

ANNA
Are you sure?
Because I think maybe some part of you wanted this to happen. And now maybe you feel terrible
about it, so you want to tell a story where I come back and tell you it wasn’t your fault.

JENNIFER
Are you going to tell me it wasn’t my fault?

ANNA
I don’t know, am I?

JENNIFER
Say it.

ANNA
It wasn’t your fault.

60
 JENNIFER
Say it like you mean it.

ANNA
(sounding totally sincere)
It wasn’t your fault.
Do you believe me?

(Beat. She really, really wants to, but)

JENNIFER
Fuck!

(ANNA laughs.)

ANNA
You’re a writer, Jennie – you should know that’s not how it works. Characters take on a life of
their own. They want to tell the truth, and it doesn’t work unless you let them –

JENNIFER
I’m letting you tell the truth!

ANNA
You think so?

JENNIFER
Okay fine! – tell me it’s all my fault! – tell me you’re dead because I should have been a better
friend!

ANNA
It’s all your fault. I’m dead because you should have been a better friend.

(Beat. This doesn’t hit JENNIFER the way she thought it would.)

JENNIFER
Huh.

ANNA
You don’t believe that one either?

61
 JENNIFER
I thought I would – I was really afraid I would, but…
Huh.

ANNA
You should have been a better friend. You should have talked to me more about my drinking.
You should have come to the hospital.

JENNIFER
Yeah.

ANNA
But that’s not – there was a lot more to it than that.

JENNIFER
Like what?

ANNA
There were people literally telling me every day that they wished I’d die, for one thing.

(She stares straight at the trolls. The trolls feel uncomfortable, drop their eyes.)

It wasn’t all their fault either. I mean, it didn’t help. But I think I just got so… stuck, after a
while. Not that I did this on purpose exactly, but.
You were saying how it was exciting, when we could start telling our own stories. And I mean –
you’re right – it was. But then it changed, it got so… all-consuming… I got stuck telling those
stories all the time. I couldn’t ever just be a weird complicated boring person. I couldn’t ever just
sit around in dumb pajamas –

(ANNA cues the CHORUS OF TROLLS.)

CHORUS OF TROLLS
How is this bitch a style icon?

So off-brand.

ANNA
We made this… person… and then I had to keep playing her all the time. I couldn’t ever stop, I
couldn’t ever… change. I couldn’t ever grow.

62
 (Beat.)

JENNIFER
That must have been really hard.

ANNA
You should know, right?

JENNIFER
What?

ANNA
You’re just as stuck as I ever was.

JENNIFER
What do you –

ANNA
You’ve been “Building a Personal Brand” too. Anna’s best friend. But Anna’s dead now, and
you’re still telling this story – not just telling the story, you’re writing a play that’s going to be
done over and over, every night.
I mean if you need to write about me to work through some stuff – I get it. But why a play? After
you published that Vogue piece Joe Sloane was practically begging you to turn it into a book –

JENNIFER
Fuck Joe Sloane, he didn’t want me before –

ANNA
Okay, but why not write a book for someone else? It’s not like there’s any money in theater.

JENNIFER
No, I know. But I like the fact that it’s live, that people are going to be there. It’s like we can
have an actual conversation –

ANNA
But you’re not having a conversation. You’re just standing up here and talking. And then when
you get done talking you’re going to wait for them to clap.

(Beat.)

63
 JENNIFER
Okay, so what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with wanting people to watch me, and – clap
for me, and –

ANNA
Nothing – there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just – it’s not enough. And we get stuck there.
(Beat, then, to the light board op)
Can we bring up the lights? Is she the only one who can do stuff with the lights, or can I do that?
(The board op shrugs.)
Can we bring up the house lights and just – look at each other? She’s writing this thing where
you’re sitting in the dark and looking at us and we’re not looking back. And I don’t think that’s
good, I think it does something to you, to have people looking at you when you can’t see them. It
probably does something to you both ways, whether you’re the one being looked at or the one
doing the looking.
Can we bring up the lights? I want to see you. I want you to see each other. It might feel a little
weird, but I want to try.

(The board op brings up the house lights.)

Cool. Thank you. Hi.

(She says hi to a few specific audience members, waits for them to say “hi” back.
If they don’t, she points at them – yes, you, hi – until they say hi. She picks an
audience member and asks them)

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

(She responds to whatever they say. She picks another audience member and asks
them)

What’s your hair care routine?

(And responds. She picks another audience member)

I love that shirt. Where did you get it?

(And responds. This can go on for a little while, if people are having fun with it.
The actress playing ANNA can add more questions. And then when she’s ready,
she can go and sit on the edge of the stage.)

64
Can we try something? Can we pretend like we’re back in Portland, and we’re all at that blogger
conference, and I’m about to give a speech? Because I actually really want to talk to you about
building a personal brand. I didn’t do a very good job of it last time, and I think I’d do better
now. I know it’s too late, but can we just pretend for a minute?

(She waits for the audience to assent.)

You want to know one of the funny things about being dead? It’s that everyone who’s still alive
is gorgeous. Old, bald, covered with warts – it doesn’t matter. You catch the light and reflect it
off your skin and I don’t ever want to stop looking. You shine. I see you sometimes looking in
mirrors, plucking hairs and smoothing lines and frowning at your reflections, and sometimes it
makes me laugh and sometimes it makes me sad because you don’t know.
Another funny thing about being dead is you can’t smell anything. You can see, and you can
hear, but everything kind of smells the same – a little bit bland and sweet and dusty. Kind of like
creamed corn, from a can that’s been sitting on the shelf too long. You can’t touch anything
either, or taste it. Sometimes I sit and think about touching someone’s lips – not even kissing,
just running my finger along them, feeling the skin like crinkled paper and the softness
underneath it. I can think about that for hours. It’s not like I have a whole lot else to do.
I really miss having a body. I didn’t know I would. When I was alive my body felt like a prize,
but not a prize I’d earned. It felt like a prize I was supposed to give away, like some kind of…
big gold cup, and I spent all this time thinking about whether it was polished, whether it
gleamed, whether whoever won it was going to feel lucky. When I was the one who was lucky,
because it was already mine, and I didn’t have to give it to anyone, not if I didn’t want to. One of
the funny things about being alive was I never realized that.
I wasted a lot of time. Everyone did. Everyone’s favorite thing to do when they’re dead is to sit
around talking about all the time they wasted. We spent all this time inside, looking at screens.
Looking at people but not reaching out to touch them. And now that I can’t go anywhere, or
touch anyone, it’s crazy to think that I did that. To think that I wasn’t just out running around
hugging people, all the time, because people are so beautiful. And they’re complicated and they
don’t make any sense and they’re inconsistent… and none of that matters, none of that matters as
much as the fact that we could touch each other, for a while, and then one day we couldn’t
anymore.
So okay. Building a personal brand. I mean I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m not saying get off
social media, or – the internet or whatever. That would be sort of ridiculous, right? I’m just
saying don’t get stuck there. Don’t spend all your time trying to fit yourself into little square
boxes. I mean you’ll probably end up wasting your life, one way or another – but don’t waste it
that way. Don’t waste it trying to be smaller, or shinier, or to make more sense.

(She breaks away from the audience, to JENNIFER)

65
That was a really good speech.

JENNIFER
Oh. Thanks.

ANNA
It was – probably the best speech in this whole thing, and you gave it to me.

JENNIFER
Yeah, well –

ANNA
You shouldn’t have done that.

JENNIFER
Why not?

ANNA
This shouldn’t be a story about me anymore. I’m dead. It’s time to move on.

(Beat.)

JENNIFER
Should I do the speech over again, do it myself this time?

ANNA
God, no – don’t make them sit through that.

JENNIFER
Okay.

ANNA
I think you should let me go, though, and finish this up on your own.

JENNIFER
No – Anna – don’t.

ANNA
I’m going to have to sooner or later.

66
 JENNIFER
…Yeah.
I know, I just –
I miss you.
I mean maybe there’s all the other stuff too, all the stuff you said. But I also just really… miss
you.

ANNA
Yeah. I know.
(A moment.)
Do you want me to stay, or… ?

JENNIFER
No. You’re right. You should –
Just do it quick so I don’t –

ANNA
Okay.

JENNIFER
And don’t come back, even if I –

ANNA
Okay.

(She exits. After a moment)

JENNIFER
Come back!

(She doesn’t.)

ANNA!

(Nothing. JENNIFER starts to cry. She wipes at her eyes. To the audience)

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

(To the light board op)

67
Can we turn the lights down again?

(The house lights dim.)

No – not just on them. On me, too.

(The stage lights dim.)

Yeah, that’s good. Thank you. That’s better.

Actually, can we keep going? Can we just turn them all the way off?

(All the lights go out.)

It’s kind of nice, isn’t it? Nobody looking at anybody else. Just all being here in the dark
together.
Do you think – could we just… stay like this for a few minutes?
I know we all have a lot of things to do, a lot of things to figure out –
But just for a little while. Just for a little while, could we… sit here and breathe?

(They sit there and breathe. For a little while. And then the play is over.)

68