Script

Audition Central: Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs before Dark KIDS

Script: Otto

SIDE 1

OTTO
One summer day, in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, a mysterious tree house appeared in the woods

SAPLINGS
Really! How did it appear? Who put it here? And what does it do? And

STUMP
Okay, that s it! New Forest Rule. Scrawny little sapling trees only get to ask one question during story time.

OTTO
Now, now, remember Stump, you were once a curious little sprout, too.

STUMP
(sarcastic)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and all the world was new.

ALL TREES
(overlapping)
Oh, Stump! Don t be such a grump. Yeah! Don t be such a grump!

STUMP
Listen, I may be a leafless, trunkless, old tree stump, but I do know one thing: if you re going to tell a good story, you can t go skipping ahead to the end! And we ll never get to the end if we don t ever get to the beginning, so please, Otto, my main Oak, on with the show!

SIDE 2

JACK
Nobody will ever believe our story.

ANNIE
The trees might.

JACK
(laughing)
Right. We better go before Mom starts to worry.

(ANNIE, stalling, straightens out the other books. JACK helps her.)

SAPLINGS
But wait! What about Henry? And the gold medallion that Jack found? The one with the  M on it? What does the  M stand for?

STUMP
Maybe it stands for mystery?

SAPLINGS
Or mystery person! Do you think it stands for  mystery person ? And who is the mystery person?

OTTO
Let s save a bit for tomorrow, shall we?

(ANNIE moves to the ladder, but stops before she climbs down.)

ANNIE
Jack, promise me. Tomorrow.

JACK
Yep.

ANNIE
We ll come back to the woods

JACK
Yep.

ANNIE
And we ll climb back in the tree house

JACK
Yep.

ANNIE
I can t wait to find out what happens next.

SIDE 3

OTTO
Then everything was still. Absolutely still.

(OTTO exits. After a moment, JACK slowly peeks his head out of the tree house window.)

ANNIE
What happened to us?

JACK
I don t know.

(ANNIE joins JACK at the window.)

ANNIE
Wh-where are we?

(JACK looks at the picture in the book and then out the window.)

JACK
I don t know, but, look& the picture in the book looks like the  picture out there&

(ANNIE looks at the picture, then back outside.)

ANNIE
Yeah, exactly like it.

JACK
This can t be real.

(ANNIE still looking out the window, sees HENRY, the Pteranodon, who flies on stage and lands next to the tree house.)

ANNIE
But he s real, he s very real.