BEYOND THE VELVET ROPES
The continuing saga of the inner workings of a typical museum:  MAP
survey, CAP survey, Integrated Pest Management survey, Automation
survey, Salary survey, sex with the intern after all

EPISODE 9:  Battle of the Budget

Cast of Characters: (in order of decreasing likelihood of ulcers)
Cynthia, the curator
Chris, the conservator
Peapod, the director
Imelda, the interpreter
Ryan, the registrar
Edward, the educator
ensemble as the trustees

Note:  This entire episode is in pantomime.  The characters' faces are
covered in Alberto VO5 to give them a monotone sheen.  No character
speaks.

Scene 1:  In the entry hall of The Museum.  No furniture is visible,
though the audience can see assorted props.  Cynthia's complete
collection of "Barbie, The Museum Series" is lined up in a semicircle on
the floor around her.  Having bought the first batch at the conference,
she was then compelled to add new models as they came on the market.
She pulls out Degas Barbie and adjusts her tutu.  Cynthia swore van Gogh
Ken (minus one ear) would be the last, but Picasso Barbie (with two eyes
on one side of her angular face) was too much to resist.

Cynthia sighs, places her collection into an imaginary box, and stands.
Over her striped shirt, she wears a chain-mail tunic made from
interlocking Plasticlips.  She grasps a helmet made from Mylar, Japan
tissue, and wheat paste, and sets it firmly on her head.  With her
white-cotton-gloved hands, Cynthia picks up her shield (the lid of an
oversized lignin-free textile box) and her extruded acrylic rod sword.
She walks toward the others, similarly attired, who are now visible on
one side of the stage.

The Museum Crusaders raise their swords and shields in unison and march
off.

Scene 2:  Edward "unhooks" an invisible velvet rope to allow the
Crusaders past the line of demarcation.  On the other side, Cynthia,
Edward, Imelda and Chris lower their Mylar face plates in preparation
for battle.

The group advances to the first zone, where devastation is all around.
The trustees already laid waste to the exhibitions and curatorial
budgets, and are in the midst of flaying  the programs department when
the Crusaders arrive.

Sparks fly in the clash between them as the trustees threaten to change
Imelda's job title to "Docent" so they don't have to pay her.  Peapod
enters and attempts to mediate, but he taken for a double-agent by the
Crusaders and they bombard him and the trustees until they agree to
$7.25 an hour, no benefits.

The fighting intensifies as the Crusaders advance toward the enemy
command post, located in the development department offices.  The
trustees catapult reams of audit reports at the Crusaders, who respond
with a flame-thrower made from Wei-to spray cans and nitrate film.

Through the smoke, the Crusaders are horrified to see their comrade,
Ryan, staked to the photocopier.  They surge forward and overwhelm the
trustees with the thought that if Ryan goes, nobody will be left to
re-number each of the six million artifacts with a four-digit prefix and
prevent the otherwise inevitable Y2K Armageddon.  The trustees agree to
a cease-fire.

Scene 3:  Though they saved Ryan and at least a portion of the funding,
the Crusaders suffered a casualty.  When the smoke cleared, they
discovered the trustees were dressed in costumes from the collection.
This was too much for Chris to bear, and he succumbed in a fit of
apoplexy.

Cynthia, Edward, Imelda and Ryan stand around Chris in center stage.
They place his shield, sword and helmet atop his lifeless body.  The
surviving Crusaders raise their swords in unison and clash them together
at the tips.  As the single spotlight shines down upon their faces, we
see the tracks of their tears reflecting off the Alberto VO5.

The lights fade.

The end.

********************

Happy New Year, Museum-L'ers!

from Melanie Solomon
[log in to unmask]

(search for past episodes in the Museum-L Archives under "soap" and my
old e-mail address, [log in to unmask])

Thanks to scooterp for the idea for this episode.

Of the reading of episodes 1-8 at the AAM Conference in L.A., thanks to
Janice Klein for organizing the whole thing.  The gender-bending
performances brought a tear to my eye.  I just stopped crying about them
this week.  My only regret (well, above and beyond "edible" guava jelly
canapes) is that I failed to have you all autograph the program card to
forever commemmorate the experience...

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