RESISTING FASCISM ~ We Must Not Give Up the Fight! by Roger Powers

Roger Scott Powers is a peacemaker, pastor, and playwright. Roger began writing short plays in 2022, after taking a writing workshop with playwright Kate Snodgrass. His first play, The Algebra Lesson, was selected for the 2023 New Mexico New Works Festival. Whale Watching, his second play, premiered at the Gulfport Community Players’ 2023 Summer One-Acts Competition in Florida and received that year’s Cathy Award for Favorite One Act Play. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

ABOUT THE PLAY
We Must Not Give Up the Fight! is about a family grappling with what the new administration may mean for the future of the country and what, if anything, they can do about it. The daughter, Sophie, a 21-year-old college student who has been studying nonviolent social movements in her sociology class, has a lot to teach her parents about possible responses! Will they take her seriously? Will they follow her lead and take action, or will they remain passive, believing that they are powerless?
The play draws from some of the lessons identified by Timothy Snyder in his short book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Tim Duggan Books, 2017), as well as what I learned about the power of nonviolent action through my work at the Albert Einstein Institution during the 1990s www.aeinstein.org

     ~ Excerpt published by permission, all rights held by the playwright.

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(LIGHTS UP. HELEN and SOPHIE, wearing winter

coats and hats, enter from stage right.)

                HELEN

Here I am! All ready! Did you get any sleep?

                SOPHIE

A few hours. I’ll nap on the bus.

                HELEN

Do you have everything you need? 

 

                SOPHIE

I think so.

                HELEN

Well, then, let’s go!

(HELEN and SOPHIE begin to exit stage left.

CHARLES, also wearing a winter coat and hat,

enters from stage right.)

                CHARLES

Hey! Wait for me!

                SOPHIE

Dad? You said you weren’t coming!  

 

                CHARLES

I slept on it and changed my mind. What kind of husband and father would I be if I didn’t support the women in my life who want to change the world for the better? 

 

                SOPHIE

Thanks, Dad! (She hugs him.) I love you!  

 

                CHARLES

I love you, too!

                HELEN

We’d better go! We don’t want to miss the bus!

(Arm-in-arm, they exit stage left.)

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