FACEBOOK INVITE (excerpt) by Gab Reisman

Facebook Invite Gab Reisman Draft 1.7 7/3/20 Characters Emilie Devon Darryl Alonzo Brit Steve Reese They are all the ages of the ensemble- early 20s-early 30s.

Note Probably they are sometimes talking to each other and sometimes talking to the audience.

Probably the RSVPs/wall posts are not said to anyone directly.

When they are talking to you, they are absolutely charming the pants off of you.

Facebook Invite. Reisman. 7/3/20

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EMILIE I had a birthday party last week. It was a bonfire. I invited like 90 people.

Then I made a Facebook invite too.

Not like a blowout, just people I actually cared about. People I wanted to see.

Like a fun, full moon bonfire birthday party for me. I’m 29.

Maybe a third of the people I emailed were like/ DEVON Oh dang I’m booked!

EMILIE Maybe fifteen were like/ DARRYL I am so there!

EMILIE And Facebook- you know FacebookALONZO Interested.

BRIT I got another thing I need to go to but then maybe!

EMILIE I got a patio table, and all this firewood, I put on music, put my hair up- The house looked great.

I looked great. The fire Looked Great.

And I waited, with my roommate. I ate fondue Two people showed up. From all those friends I invited.

Which.. I get it, people are busy~ We’re all so busy.

STEVE Had to work late / sorry REESE Sorry I am exhausted!

EMILIE But those two people and I an my roommate sat by the bonfire and had a deep talk about politics and our upbringings and do we want kids and the skills each of us would bring if we had to band together in an apocalypse.

DARRYL I wrote a play.

I’m not really a writer but I wrote this play and it got into Louisville Fringe!

Facebook Invite. Reisman. 7/3/20

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So I did it man- I went all out. Got my friend to direct. We found this dope group of actors.

The play is about George Washington Carver. On his birthday REESE How do I get a ticket?

STEVE I have a ticket!

DARRYL Where he’s looking back on his life and career and all the things he figured out he could make with peanuts? I told everyone I know to come see it. All my work friends, my old school friendsEveryone!

And the actors Killed it.

I mean it’s my first play, so I can’t quite say, but I’m pretty sure they Killed it.

And it was like IN a festival. So people saw it for sure.

But not, like a lot of people I knew? I mean my mom came, and my boyfriend BRIT Wait did I miss this?

DEVON I thought it was next week!

BRIT I went to my ex’s wedding last June.

This ex: I Loved them. Like hardcore loved them, and our relationship was a super-hot, long distance garbage fire. A lot of on-again-off-again, a lot of will we won’t weWe were in an on-again phase a couple years ago when they said they couldn’t come visit me because they’d met this girl on Tindr?

EMILIE #boo last weekend BRIT But we stayed friends, because lesbians and chosen family and of Course I was gonna go to their wedding.

DARRYL Omg Congrats!!

DEVON Y’all look amazing/

Facebook Invite. Reisman. 7/3/20

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BRIT Of course I was gonna look amazing.

I made my dress, flew to Colorado, rented a car, I drove out to this farm…

I was the only one of our friends who made it. Everyone else was like their new wife’s family.

My ex was likeEMILIE Omg. Thank you so much for coming. It means so much you came all this way REESE #feelingit STEVE Sending love REESE My friend Niki passed away.

She’d had depression since like high school. She’d been on medication, tried meditation and yoga and elimination diets and did all this therapy.

But she would get in these Dark spaces.

Three years ago, on her birthday, she took a whole bottle of Sonata. Then she called her boyfriend but by the time they found her But she’s still on Facebook.

So every yearSTEVE Happy birthday girl, miss you DEVON Gone but not forgotten REESE The day before she died she went around and labeled everything in her apartment with the names of all her friends and family.

A bunch of us who’d grown up together, we went out to her memorial and her brother gave us all the things she’d labeled.

EMILIE Thinking of you today REESE I got this photo strip of us, that we’d taken in a photobooth at a bar there a few years back, when I visited her in LA? I wasn’t expecting it.

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DARRYL Wishing you were here, Nikki REESE Her memorial was like a wedding. There was a dinner and people stood up and made speeches.

And when it was over we all went out to a bar, all her friends from way back and we got So Drunk together.

We talked about what we were doing now- our jobs, our neighborhoods, if we were gonna go to grad school, a trip to Cambodia someone took.

We didn’t talk about her.

We took more photobooth photos without her.

BRIT This page is now a memorial. Please leave your favorite memories of Nicole DEVON I love Instagram. I love knowing what everyone is doing. I love seeing people’s rinsta lives- their birthdays and boyfriends and dogs and their brunch choices.

STEVE Sometimes DEVON This year all these people I knew were at the Tonys. I loved it.

Then all these people I knew were at the Emmys.

I loved it!

STEVE Sometimes late at nightDEVON I love knowing so many successful people.

And I love their stories, how they go from one thing to the next to the next. How they put it out there and a day later it’s gone?

STEVE Sometimes when I’m in bed and I’m scrolling, I don’t even know if I’m still seeing anything still. I don’t know what I’m looking for and it’s So late I need to get up and brush my teeth I don’t know why I can’t stop. I’m scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

I remember there was something before this.

There was a time before this but I don’t remember what I did. Was it TV? Was that it?

Did I used to watch TV all night?

Facebook Invite. Reisman. 7/3/20

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ALONZO When I was a kid, my parents would throw these parties- big parties in our little house.

They would tell all their friends. I don’t know how- maybe they would call up people on the phone or tell them when they saw them at the farmer’s market?

This was before email.

Before people used email like that.

Sometimes it would be a birthday party but sometimes it would be for whatever- because there was a band they liked coming through town. Or because it was Mardi Gras.

We didn’t even live in Louisiana, but they had Mardi Gras every year. My dad would make a big pot of gumbo. A big pot of red beans and so many people would come.

The house would be Full of people. The kitchen would be packed and they’d be playing records or someone would be playing the piano.

Everyone would be talking loud, laughing over each other, spilling wine and the dog would be licking it up, making the rounds, stealing bread and us kids would Run around the house.

The house would be so stuffed with people we would have to climb through their legs.

There’d be dancing in the living room sometimes, adults smoking cigarettes out on the front steps, smoking weed in the backyard.

The debates.

The laughter. The light pouring out of the windows.

The parties would go until late.

I would fall asleep to the music playing downstairs, the din of all those people as it slowly came down to the final few stragglers, talking on into the night.

A Tuesday night.

Mardi Gras was always on a Tuesday night.

I don’t have that now. Those sort of parties?

Like I don’t remember the last time…

I mean yeah though. People are busy