Date of Award

4-8-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The idea for this play was first hatched in June of 2010. It was summer in Greencastle and with no cable TV and no air-conditioning my roommate and I found the time for many heated, interesting discussions. My roommate was a particularly enterprising individual; his goal was to start a business on the town square, open a convenience store that would tap into Greencastle’s largest market: the DePauw students. Greencastle is a veritable ghost town in the summer. The discussions with my roommate often centered on the topic of this abandonment Greencastle undergoes every May of every year, and the subsequent toll it takes on the local economy. My roommate, as an entrepreneur, had much to say about the trials and woes the presence of a large corporation like Wal-Mart affected on the small businesses in Greencastle: how Wal-Mart killed competition, how Wal-Mart made it nearly impossible for the small-business owner to profit. We bemoaned materialism. We didn’t have air conditioning, and the draught of 2010 was about to roll through with the onset of July (we eventually got the AC fixed). We both did not own a means of transportation other than one bicycle between the two of us. We didn’t have cable TV; to us the excesses and the evils of materialism seemed to lie far off on Wall Street, or at least as far away as SR 240. “Should call a bomb threat into Wal-Mart on Black Friday,” my roommate said. “Really take a chunk out of their sales, you know?” At the time, this sounded like a great idea. But as we belong in the category of “educated but theoretical” men, my roommate and I never did manage to make that phone call. Thus a play was born. I will spend a few pages explaining the genesis of How To Blow Up A Wal-Mart Without Getting Caught and Without Blowing it Up, and my writing process, which will lead me into the various influences I drew upon and the esthetic choices I made to build this play.

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