Theme: Your priority in life is demonstrated by where you invest your time.
Characters: Four women
Length: 5 – 6 minutes
Scene/Props: Health club setting with stationary bike, rowing machine, hand weights.
Synopsis: Three ladies with different motives embark on a weight training program with a personal trainer. But the personal trainer is more like a drill sergeant that pushes them beyond their level of endurance. So they quit the work-out and go for yogurt instead.
Excerpt:
A stationary bike, rowing machine, and hand weights are arranged to represent circuit workout stations. DORIS jogs in and then jogs in place as she waits for those following her. She wears a shirt with the words, PERSONAL TRAINER on it a whistle around her neck. In trails SANDY, JANET and LINDA. Sandy wears old, baggy cotton sweats, Janet wears contemporary work-out attire and carries a small athletic bag on her back. Linda is a fashion statement of the latest brand name apparel.
DORIS: Left, right, left, right, get those knees up! Left, right, left, right. Suck in those stomachs! Left, right, left, right, fall out!
(Linda, Janet and Sandy collapse to the floor in a heap panting for breath. Janet pulls a box of tissues out of her bag.)
JANET: (blows nose) I signed up for personal training not personal persecution.
SANDY: Really. I don’t have to pay for this kind of abuse. I get it at home for free.
LINDA: It’s a good thing they have valet parking. I’m already too tired to walk to my car.
(Doris shakes her head with disgust.)
DORIS: Looks like I’m gonna have to down grade into whimp mode. All right. My job is to get you in shape. This is circuit training. So pick a station and start exercising. I’ll come back and tell you when to switch. And remember, no pain, no gain.
(As Janet, Linda, and Sandy each take a work-out station, Doris blows her whistle with a ear splitting shrill and the ladies begin. Doris nods with satisfaction and jogs off stage. When she’s gone, they slow to a stop. Janet grabs another tissue and blows her nose.)
SANDY: You know, on the T.V. commercial for this health club, everybody was smiling. It looked like fun.
JANET: (sarcastic and nasal with nose in tissue) Oh, yeah. I’m having a great time. I thought exercise was supposed to help allergies. (She pops a pill from the bag.)
