Logline - After being disgraced, A famous playwright takes on an unscrupulous tabloid media mogul in a place we call the Tabloid World and beats him at his own game.

SYNOPSIS:

Tabloid

Screenplay and Music

By Marta Jorgensen

Additional music by Robbie Hager

Rhoda Haynes is quite happy with her life as a successful playwright, wife, and mother. Her husband, Hubert, is a congressman. Her daughter, Blaze, is an internationally renowned singer. But suddenly Rhoda, Hubert, and Blaze are all the target of fabricated scandals invented by crooked media-mogul Frenchy King. Rhoda and the audience have now crossed over into the “world of the tabloid”, a magical theatrical space where anything can happen .

Donny O’Connelly, a reporter for King Media, attempts to blow the whistle on Frenchy and his lyin’ rag. Unfortunately, Donny’s attempts fail and Frenchy sacks him. Nearly penniless himself, Donny becomes a manager of a local homeless shelter.

Unsatisfied with merely firing Donny, Frenchy plots to frame him for embezzling funds from the homeless shelter. When Rhoda reads this newest slander, she decides Frenchy must be stopped at all costs.

Rhoda, her family, and Donny, team up to dethrone Frenchy King with a familiar Christmas Carol-esque ruse, updated for the 21st century. Rhoda, Hubert, and Blaze disguise themselves as “ghosts' ' and warn Frenchy that should he not un-frame Donny within twenty-four hours, he will be condemned to hell. The ruse is a success, leading King to immediately try to un-frame Donny. But Frenchy finds that un-framing a man is much harder than he suspected. Twenty-four hours pass, and he now finds himself an inmate at Mr. Perry’s Poorhouse, a metaphysical “hell-on-earth” composed of the souls Frenchy has slandered. The world of Frenchy’s tabloid (aliens, bigfoot, and all) has come to life, and he must now live in it.

In the end, Frenchy escapes only after pawning his company for a dollar, and recanting his deceitful ways, proving that “fake news” can never beat the truth. Rhoda, her family, and Donny can now live their lives in peace.

TABLOID