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Logline -
Six weeks before his wife dies, a man finds a stolen Picasso sealed in his living-room wall. Selling it would secure their autistic son's care for life. His wife refuses to tell him what to do, and the men who lost blood over the painting already know where he lives.
Faith Burrows has six weeks.
For thirteen years, a small dark frame has hung on the living room wall of a modest house in Torrance — one of Faith's own clown sketches, in a heavy frame her father built. Her husband has walked past it every day of their marriage. Her children grew up under it. Nobody has ever asked what it is.
Someone is asking now.
As the family gathers around a dying woman — a son who needs money, a daughter who keeps a packed bag in her car, a sister who has been rehearsing the same speech since 1987, and a youngest boy who answers every question completely and truthfully — Faith gives her husband one last instruction. It is the only thing she leaves him, and it could mean two entirely different things.
A mystery-drama about legacy, greed, and the difference between what a family owns and what a family is.
Runtime: 2 hrs. with intermission
Cast Size: 8M 4W
CHARACTERS
DAVID BURROWS — 60. Faith's husband of thirty-five years. Senior facilities superintendent for the City of Torrance, four months from retirement after thirty-one years. He earns a comfortable six-figure salary and has a pension waiting, but fixes things rather than replacing them. Has spent three decades shimming a chair to correct a floor.
FAITH BURROWS — 56. Painter and elementary-school art teacher of twenty-eight years, now on medical leave. Dying of a brain tumor. Funny, unhurried, immovable. Has been making a joke out of her father's crime since 2012 and hanging the joke where she can see it from the kitchen.
CLARKSON BURROWS — 34. Eldest son. Charm as a business instrument. Was going to fly. Keeps a plastic flight yoke in a storage unit on Artesia for a hundred and eighty dollars a month.
CLARA BURROWS — 26. Middle child. Warm, clumsy, avoidant. Keeps a packed bag on the passenger seat.
CHRISTOPHER BURROWS — 24. Youngest. High-functioning autism. Draws clowns. Answers questions completely, which everyone in this family mistakes for sweetness.
AUNT GRACE — 61. Faith's older sister. Loud because she was never listened to. Has been rehearsing the same speech since 1987.
SCOTT — 27. Clara's boyfriend. Programmer. Mentors kids on Saturdays and gets fingerprinted every two years so that their mothers will let them sit in a room with him.
KATHY — 36. Clarkson's wife. American-born Romanian. Daughter of the fourth man out of the museum in Rotterdam — the one who never got paid. Patient, genuinely likeable, and three years into a job that keeps her on planes.
JULIO — 68. The gardener. Thirty-one years in this yard. Pulled the Rotterdam job with Faith's father in 2012 and has been standing near his daughter ever since.
THIEF 1 and THIEF 2 — Romanian. Old associates from Kathy’s father’s criminal network.
FBI AGENT — An amplified voice, offstage and plays the FBI Agent who takes Kathy.
FRANK WHITMORE — Faith and Grace's father. Thief. Died 2014. Never appears and is in every scene.
Picasso Lives Here - A Play in Two Acts
Picasso Lives Here - A Play in Two Acts
SETTING AND PERFORMANCE
Torrance, California.
The play uses one unit set divided into three permanent playing zones. The central Burrows living room remains the visual anchor throughout; two smaller side areas are revealed by light and minimal furniture. Full scenic changes are neither required nor intended.
CENTER — the Burrows' living room and dining room. It should feel lived-in, hard, and loved anyway: crowded, warm, and hung with Faith's paintings, which read as a wall of witnesses rather than decoration. Among them, one small clown sketch hangs slightly apart in a heavy dark frame. The central unit also contains the sideboard, mantel, window, front door, back door, kitchen entrance, front-hall opening, hospital-bed position, good armchair, and dining table.
STAGE LEFT — the backyard and Faith's garage studio. The backyard uses a bench, rose trellis, and a framed or translucent house window. For the studio, the garden falls into darkness, and an easel, unfinished clown painting, paint cans, and stacked canvases establish the converted garage.
STAGE RIGHT — Clarkson's apartment. Cool light, one modern chair or sofa, a low glass table, and the framed photograph of Clarkson with Faith are sufficient. Nothing else is needed.
THE DINING ROOM (Act One, Scene 2) — the central living room one year earlier, with the hospital bed struck, the good armchair restored, a long table carried in, and the light made warmer. The transformation is the point.
THE GRAVESIDE (Act Two, Scene 3) — a narrow rain light downstage and one low headstone or grave marker can be rolled on and off. The living room remains dark behind it.
IMPLIED AREAS — the kitchen, bedrooms, garage entrance, front hall, and upstairs remain offstage or are indicated by the permanent doorways. They are not additional sets.