Dear Miss Ophelia by Maria Rio

One boy dressed in an officer's cap debates with a girl wearing butterfly wings while another girl with a satchel bag listens, annoyed.

Dear Miss Ophelia
St Julian’s School
Lisbon, Portugal

Comedy/ 18-20 Characters, gender flexibility; Ophelia is female, all other characters can be male or female/ One Act

Synopsis: Miss Happy, Mr. Hurry, Miss Shy and various other children in New York City have a problem: Nobody understands them, and their parents and teachers criticize them just for being themselves! They decide they’d like to try being someone else for awhile, and write to Miss Ophelia of the “Dear Ophelia” advice column to ask for help. When they don’t hear back, they embark on a journey to Ophelia Headquarters in Chicago to demand some answers.

Alarmed by their disappearance, the President of the New York City PTA hires a detective to find them. In the meantime, en route, the children meet an eccentric fortune teller who has a surprising message for them — they’re fine just as they are. Everybody has flaws — but flaws can sometimes be useful.

Arriving at their destination, the children find Miss Ophelia eating chocolate and watching romance movies with a box of tissues by her side. It turns out she doesn’t want to be herself anymore either. All day she has to give people advice, but she doesn’t have anyone to turn to for advice for herself. That’s why she’s stopped answering letters.

But the children have lots of advice for her. Take a break, don’t be so hard on herself, and soon she’ll realize — she’s fine just the way she is! And with that, the detective arrives, and the children all happily head home.

This delightful, imaginative play about self-accepatance and helping others was created with input from students at Space for Drama in Lisbon, Portugal.

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Maria Rio
spacefordrama@gmail.com
Ph: +351-929-026-268 (Lisbon, Portugal)

About the Playwright: “I grew up spending my summers in Lisbon around theatre and Fado, a Portuguese music genre. My grandfather, Varela Silva, had a 45-year acting and directing career and my grandmother, Celeste Rodrigues, was a Fado singer for 70 years. So I spent a lot of time around the performing arts.

“Very early on I realized working with children through drama was my gift, so I studied theatre at George Mason University and did a post-graduate program in Theatre Education in Lisbon. I had lived in the U.S. most of my childhood around the rich culture of Washington, DC, where I was always amazed by the many artistic community centres for children. Being around these places and having my American ‘you can do anything you set your mind to’ mentality, inspired a dream: To create a space in Lisbon in which children could be free to be themselves. They would use this space as a vehicle to find their inner expression without any type of judgment, and be the owners of their creativity.

“So, I created Space for Drama in 2017 and have passionately been on this voyage ever since.”

Dear Miss Ophelia was first produced by Space for Drama at St Julian’s School in Carcavelos, Lisbon, Portugal in June 2018.