Directed by Keith Davis

With Lisa Drostova, Charles Lewis III & Ryan Takemiya

RYAN: (with clip on mike) Hello and welcome to the most glamorous night in Hollywood. You’re streaming The Third Degree, and I’m your guest host and cultural commentator Ryan Takemiya. The stars are out tonight, so let’s turn up the heat and see who gets burned.

(holds up a placard: #oscarsnotsowhite, #amiright?) Finally! Oscars not so white. Am I right?

(inverts placard: #oramiwrong) Or am I wrong. Tonight, on the Third Degree: Where are all my asian peoples at? Sure, we win awards behind the camera, in production, in design. But when it comes to leading roles on screen, can you believe it has been 33 years since anyone of asian descent actually won an oscar for lead or supporting actor? Dev Patel, you turned in a Lion of a Best Supporting Actor performance, but it’s looking kind of lonely at the top.

(enter Charles, looking snazzy, with microphone)

CHARLES: (enthusiastic) Did someone say they were lonely?

(enter Lisa, snazzy too, with microphone)

LISA:  (enthusiastic) Not me. I’m with this guy!

RYAN: Hi! Um… Kinda on the air right now.  

LISA: Don’t we know it. We’re your guest-hosts.

RYAN: I have guest-hosts?

LISA: You sure do, tiger dad.

RYAN: I don’t have kids.

LISA: Oh my god, are you going to mansplain already?

RYAN: Um, I don’t think that’s how mansplaining works, but… Since I’m not about to mansplain mansplaining… After you.

LISA:  Well that seems… Fair.

(actual canned laughter. Ryan is nonplussed.)

CHARLES: Welcome ladies and gentlemen and snowflakes to the most diverse oscars ever! Can anyone tell me how the Academy did it?

LISA: Maybe, it’s because they decided in their wisdom, that All Races Matter.

RYAN: Huhhhh?

LISA: From the beginning the Oscars have been a force for social justice. Starting with the auspicious Best Picture Award for that equal-rights classic, Birth of a Nation.

CHARLES: Weren’t those plantation scenes breathtaking?

LISA: Diversity on parade. And the spirit of inclusivity didn’t stop there: Animal rights lovers were uplifted by the Best Picture Win of King Kong, while Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life brought validation and representation to our friends in the atheist community.

LISA: And who could forget the heroic stoicism of american expat Rick Blaine,

CHARLES: Immortalized by the great orator, Sir Frederick Douglass.

LISA: Yes, the famous Dogie, who famously said, on a warm night in Casablanca to his piano player Sam:

CHARLES: (a la Peter Sellers) “Mein Fuhrer! I can Walk!”

   (canned laughter)

LISA: Yes, the Oscars have always been inclusive, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, and more carbon dioxide is put out by one whingy liberal than two patriotic hummers!

CHARLES: Not that global warming is anything but a Chinese plot to steal our babies and raise them to eat with chopsticks. Isn’t that right, Ben?

LISA: That’s right, Kellyann.

RYAN: Who are you revisionist ignoramuses, and what are you spewing in front of my camera?

LISA: I’m your host, Kellyann Conway.

CHARLES: And I’m Doctor Ben Carson.

TOGETHER: And tonight is OscarsSoTrump. Where facts are for losers!

RYAN: No, it isn’t. And no, you are not members of the current administration.

TOGETHER: Yes we are.

RYAN: Dr. Ben Carson is probably at home drinking a warm glass of milk! And Kellyann Conway is on FOX news right now. I mean, look at my phone. She’s on Hannity right now.

LISA: (beat) Ohhhh. That’s just Kellyann Conway. I’m the real Kellyann Conway.

CHARLES: And I’m the real Ben Carson. And l lovvvve milk.

(laughter)  

RYAN: Wait Just one Nazi-Punching Minute! . Are you telling me every white female spokesperson is now named Kellyann Conway? And that every black male spokesperson is now named Ben Carson? And that journalism comes with a laugh track?

LISA: Safety in numbers, Ryan.

(laughter. Ryan is freaked.)   

CHARLES: I wanted to be alternative Clarence Thomas, but I then I found out he never actually says anything.

           (laughter)

LISA: Why, Doctor Ben Carson, you do know how to light up a room!

RYAN: We’re not even in a room! We’re on the goddamn sidewalk fifty feet from the red carpet!

(laughter)

CHARLES: Well of course we’re on the sidewalk.

LISA: You wouldn’t want journalists actually covering a public event.

CHARLES: They can get so off-message.   

(laughter)

RYAN: Ok, just from a technical standpoint, how are you making that creepy laughtrack happen? We’re not even in a studio.

CHARLES: Haven’t you heard of Homeland Security’s new speaker system? It’s in all your cell phones.

LISA: Thanks, Peter Thiel!

CHARLES: It’s called the PanApptikon.  Get it?

LISA: And here I thought you people were supposed to be good with electronics.

(laughter)

RYAN: Seriously? That flavor of racism is like nineteen years old by now.

CHARLES: So’s my teenage daughter.

(laughter)

RYAN: Annnnd that’s not even a joke.

CHARLES: (whispered) She’s a hostage.   

RYAN: A what?

CHARLES: (whispered) My daughter’s a hostage!  

LISA: Whaat? Your daughter’s an ostrich?

CHARLES: A hostage!

(beat)

LISA: Oh my god. Oh my god. The same thing happened to my wife.

(beat)

RYAN: You have a wife???

(laughter)

LISA: (scared) Did I say wife? No! No, God No, Please, God no! I meant… I had an ostrich!

(laughter)

CHARLES: Same here.

RYAN: Are you saying your families are hostag-

LISA: OSTRICHES!

(laughter)

CHARLES: (signaling to remove phones) Isn’t that funny how we both have ostriches?

LISA: (removing phones, maybe giving them to audience) That are kept in cages. Like at the zoo. With keepers. But you still worry about them,

CHARLES: (starting to tear up) The ostrich that you raised from birth…

LISA: (starting to tear up) The ostrich that completed you.

CHARLES: Who you tried to give the world to.

LISA:  Who you swore to love and cherish, Till death do you part.

CHARLES: Or college.

LISA: Do you have a picture of her?

CHARLES: They made me burn it.

LISA: Me too.

(they lose it)

RYAN: Guys! Guys! Ben! Kelly! Are you telling me that… Everyone has ostriches now?

TOGETHER: (bawling) Yes.

RYAN: How could you let this happen?

LISA: It’s easy when you live in Los Angeles, Ryan. You can secede to Mexico if it gets too hard. But have you ever tried leaving Des Moines?

RYAN: Come with me.

CHARLES: To Des Moines?

RYAN: To somewhere safe.

LISA: Where is “safe”?

RYAN: I don’t know, the Japanese Embassy? The Canadian Border? Humboldt County?   

LISA: But our families!

RYAN: You can’t help them like this.  Come on.

LISA: Oh no. You see that?

(sfx: jackboots. Maybe red and blue lights.)

RYAN: Who are they?

CHARLES:  Homeland Security.

RYAN: Oh man. That is an awful lot of Nazis to punch.  

CHARLES: And just three of us.

LISA: What can we possibly do?

RYAN: We Even the odds! (to audience) Safety in numbers! (grabs his first sign, folds it in half ,so it just says “#amiright”) Am I right?

(ad lib – get the crowd on their feet – arms linked – facing back of house – all together)

RYAN: All of us make it out, or none of us make it out! Come on people! Say it loud, say it clear, Os-tri-ches won’t live in fear!

TOGETHER: Say it loud, say it clear, Os-tri-ches won’t live in fear!

WITH AUDIENCE: Say it loud, say it clear, Os-tri-ches won’t live in fear!

(Enter other Shotzcars actors from wings holding up protest signs: #OstrichesResist, #GetYourHeadOutTheSand, #AllOurEggsInOneBasket, #FreeMyChicks, Fuck Donald Trump, and so forth. Transition to end of evening, or to another show that begins with a rally. If the latter, as a tonal shift between productions, the signs can be double sided to accommodate the transition. E.G. “Fuck Tronald Dump” flips over to reveal End Credits for “The Ostriches” or Lead Credits for the next show.)

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