The Color of Friendship
(This script was used at the first F.U.N. night.)
Gloria: Good evening and welcome to F.U.N. night. F, U, N. That stands for Families Uniting the Neighborhood. I’m so glad to see all of you here and I hope that you brought some friends and family and neighbors. I brought some friends with me tonight. Would you like to meet them?
Mercy Me come on out here and say "hello!"
Mercy: Well, Mercy Me! Look at all my friends who decided to come!
Gloria: These are all your friends?
Mercy: Of course, they’re mine. Whose did ya think they were?
Gloria: You don’t know all these people, Mercy. I’m sure there are some folks here that you’ve never even met before.
Mercy: I met them. Of course I met them… just now. (To audience:) How do you do! My name is Mercy Me. See, we’ve been introduced. Yep, we’re friends.
Gloria: Now wait a minute! They know your name, but you don’t know their’s. You haven’t learned any of their names yet. How can you say that they’re all friends of your’s if you don’t even know their names?!
Mercy: Picky, picky. All right. (To audience:) I’ve got to learn your names, so help me out. On the count of three, I want all of you to yell out your name. OK. One, two, three… (Audience responds.)
How do you do? Pleased to meet you. OK, now we’re friends.
Gloria: You didn’t learn all of their names!
Mercy: Of course I did! There’s Bob, over there. That’s Shirley. There’s Jill and Mark.
(Ad lib with questioning about names.)
Gloria: Well maybe you do know some of the names already, but that doesn’t mean that you’re automatically friends! Friendship is more than just knowing somebody’s name.
Mercy: Well, what is friendship then?
Gloria: It’s sort of hard to explain, but maybe I can show you. I want you to meet someone and you can both demonstrate how friends are made.
Mercy: OK. Fair enough. I’m ready.
Gloria: Hey, Milo! Come on out. There’s someone I want you to meet.
Milo: (Pops up.) Oh, hi Gloria. How are you?
Gloria: I’m fine; thanks for asking. Milo, I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is Mercy Me. Mercy, this is…
Mercy: Who is that? He really has funny hair. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Gloria: Uh, Mercy, when you meet someone for the first time…
Mercy: His hair is bright yellow! And it’s sticking up all over. And he’s really a strange color; not nice and blue like me. He doesn’t even have antennae.
Milo: (Staring speechless; mouth open and shocked.)
Gloria: Mercy! That’s no way to go about making a friend. You make friends by looking for similarities and by talking to people and listening to them.
Milo, why don’t you give it a try?
Milo: Well, I don’t know if I want to be friends with her. She said I was a weird color! And look at her! She’s blue! Now that’s weird.
Gloria: Mercy… do you have anything to say to Milo? (Nudges her.)
Mercy: I’m sorry Milo. I shouldn’t have said that. Red is really a very nice color.
Milo: And I guess blue’s OK, too.
Mercy: So, how do you do? My name’s Mercy. Mercy Mee.
Milo: I’m Milo. Milo Yo. Nice to meet you.
Gloria: Good job. You’ve introduced yourselves. Now find out if you have any similar interests.
Mercy: Well, how do you do that?
Gloria: You find out what both of you like to do… what your favorite foods are… what school you go to. You know; stuff like that.
Mercy: OK. Hey Milo! Shopping spaghetti at El Camino! (Spoken as one fast sentence.) What about you?
Gloria: What in the world is shopping spaghetti?
Mercy: I just told Milo what I like to do; my favorite food and where I go to school.
Milo: Oh, I get it! Soccer sushi at Arcade!
Mercy: Hey! How about this one? Pink puppy pajamas!
Milo: Really? Well, you know what I think? Turquoise turtle T-shirts!
Gloria: Really? Well you know what I think? I think you both are completely bonkers! What in the world are you guys talking about?
Mercy: We just told eachother our favorite color, the kind of pet that we own, and the kind of clothing that we feel most comfortable wearing.
Gloria: How did you know that?
Milo: Well, it was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? I mean… "pink puppy pajamas!" What else could she mean by that?
Mercy: Of course! You know my brother has a turtle too.
Milo: I have two turtles! My two terrapin are twins; they hatched out of the same egg. Oh, and they love to be tickled.
Mercy: That’s great! You have two twin ticklish terrapin turtles!
Mercy & Milo: (Both crack up laughing.)
Gloria: It looks like you two have done a good job of making friends.
Mercy: This is fun. Do you have any other friends that you want us to meet?
Gloria: As a matter of fact, yes I do. I have a very important friend to introduce to all of you! His name is Jesus, and he wants to be your best friend.
Milo: Does he already know our names?
Gloria: He knows more about you than anyone else does. He calls all of us by name. God knew us even before we were born. He even knows how many hairs we have on our heads.
Milo: Well, with Mercy, that’s pretty easy. she doesn’t have any hair.
Mercy: Yeah, but I’ve got two antennae.
Gloria: Yep. Two antennae and lots of friends. Let’s sing a song with all of our friends.
Song: "Shake Another Hand" or "What A Friend We Have in Jesus"
(By Ruth Gilmore; copyright 2001.))
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copyright © 2000-2009 Ruth Gilmore
