What We Were Thinking Of: Table of Contents
A Play in Two Acts
Across a historical panorama of the American scene, What We Were Thinking Of offers a drama of political and generational conflict played out against the backdrop of the impending Gulf War. It follows David Rich, ex-60s radical and renowned professor of literature, careening through a mid-life memory that excavates the moral choices and consciences of aging cold warriors versus their counter-culture adversaries and his own personal failings. When his one-time best friend, Bud, publishes newspaper memoirs of a famous 1971 campus bombing that seem to implicate him, David faces his reckoning.
Winner, Los Angeles Scriptwriters Network Screenplay Competition
Second Prize, Maui Writers Conference Screenwriting Competition.
► A “mature, resonant and emotional script that showed the seeds of mastery” — Jeff Arch, Oscar-nominated screenwriter for Sleepless in Seattle. ◄
♦︎ ♦︎ ♦︎
Introduction (May 31, 2025)
Act 1
“The words and the things we do” (June7, 2025)
“Where is my daughter? Who are my sons?” (June 14, 2025)
“The water's edge is a good place for secrets” (June 21, 2025)
“People are trying new ways to live” (June 28, 2025)
“Radical confessions” (July 5, 2025)
“You think your life will go a certain way” (July 12, 2025)
“I want to know who my father is” (July 19, 2025)
“What are you going to do? Who are you going to be?” (July 26, 2025)
Act 2
“Ghosts in every attic” (August 2, 2025)
“Secrets, David, they make you sick” (August 9, 2025)
“The risk, my brother — the risk is just a part of life” (August 16, 2025)
“Sometimes a price has to be paid” (August 23, 2025)
Conclusion: “We have to do something” (August 30, 2025)
What We Were Thinking Of. Copyright © by A. Jay Adler. All rights reserved. No part of this play may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.
