Chandler Levinthal

Student Production Dramaturg

DeRon S. Williams, Ph.D., Dramaturgy Supervisor

Untitled Dream Girl

by Emm Socey

About Emm

Emm Socey (they/them) is from Indianapolis and Richmond, Indiana. They are a senior theatre major at Loyola University Chicago. After being in the playwriting class offered in the spring of 2023, they wrote Untitled Dream Girl. They are a person who feels they are in a period of constant transition. Due to the constant changing in their life, they wanted to play into the transitions of life and create a “coming of age” story, thus creating Untitled Dream Girl. Emm says that in their play, they reiterate adopting what is standard or expected or desirable does not necessarily resolve one’s troubles. Emm credits movies like Juno, Away We Go, and Together Together for highlighting their love to what can be described as a transitional period. After movies, they realized musicals like Company, Fun Home, and Merrily We Role Along also fell into this category. They call attention to Booksmart, Frances Ha, Licorice Pizza, and Larz and the Real Girl for the exploration of ideas of extended youth and trying to achieve one’s full potential. Said scripts are the kind that Emm has been drawn to and have been very much inspired by. They don’t know if they are or will be successful in achieving any sort of similar feeling in their own work, but that is a challenge they accept and are excited by.

Untitled Dream Girl

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Untitled Dream Girl 〰️

In Untitled Dream Girl, two characters go into heavy detail about the information and characters in the famous 1975 movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, famous for its (at the time) controversial subject material and characters. The outfits and characters of the movie have long since been used as Halloween costumes and party themes since the movie’s release. Rocky Horror’s famous songs like Science Fiction/Double Feature and Time Warp still have crowds jumping out of their seats to sing along. To this day, thousands of theaters across America will have midnight showings of the movie for crowds of all ages to come and watch with a shadow cast (see glossary at the bottom) in front of the movie screen. Costumes are always encouraged. Rocky Horror is a film for everybody. It is not catering to one particular group of people, but rather a film to be enjoyed by people who are looking to embrace change, absurdity, and have fun. In Untitled Dream Girl, embracing change within ones self and with your surroundings is what the play follows and accepts.

Peter Hinwood at Rocky.

Left to right: Columbia played by Nell Campbell, Magenta played by Patricia Quinn, Dr. Frank-N-Furter played by Tim Curry, and Riff Raff played by Richard O’Brien.

Brad played by Barry Bostwick and Janet played by Susan Sarandon.

Meat Loaf as Eddie.

An important aspect of Emm’s Untitled Dream Girl is gender fluidity and gender identity. DG, the primary character of Untitled Dream Girl, develops questions regarding their gender and if they identify as a woman or not. The idea of pronouns and finding your own grows increasingly more complicated when the world around you is constantly changing and DG experiences that. DG’s Shut-In Friend is non-binary and offers their support and knowledge on how to navigate identifying as non-binary.

  • This is an adjective used to describe something that could be considered over-the-top, eccentric, ridiculous, unexpected, striking, and/or out-of-the-ordinary. “Camp” has now made its way to mainstream media. The Met Gala’s theme of 2019 was camp. Memorable looks were Jared Leto carrying a model of his own head, Zendaya’s light up Cinderella gown, and Kendall and Kylie Jenner dressing in all orange and purple gowns and feathers.

  • Gender fluidity refers to change over time in a person’s gender expression or gender identity, or both. That change might be in expression, but not identity, or in identity, but not expression. Or both expression and identity might change together.

  • noun: a livestream of an event over the internet.

    verb: to transmit or receive live video and audio coverage of an over the internet.

  • The perspective of a notionally typical heterosexual man considered as embodied in the audience or intended audience for films and other visual media, characterized by a tendency to objectify and sexualize women.

    1. Not relating to, or composed of, or involving just two things.

    2. Denoting, having, or relating to a gender identity that does not conform to traditional binary beliefs about gender.

  • The performance of a film by a group of amateurs at the same time as it is screened.

  • Discriminating on the basis of a person’s size.

  • Not only a song in the popular Rocky Horror Picture Show, the sword of Damocles means that something bad seems likely to happen to you. The saying stems from Damocles, who was a courtier for Dionysius I of Syracuse during the classical Greek era, being offered to sit on the throne of Dionysius. Damocles excitedly accepted Dionysius’ proposal. Dionysius arranged for a sword held up by a single hair of a horse’s tail to be placed above the throne so that anyone who sat in it would feel the impending doom that Dionysius felt. Once Damocles became aware that riches and luxuries are not the only thing that comes with power, he quickly got off the throne.

  • People who have never seen a Rocky Horror show are called “virgins” and are occasionally publicly called out by some of the performers and emcee’s of the show. Sometimes they are made to wear a huge V on their cheek written with red lipstick, hold random objects, and are called up on the stage to play games and do tasks with the cast.