Reena has her entire life ahead of her. She has loving parents, a
caring boyfriend, dreams of becoming a nurse after high school, and on her seventeenth birthday
her parents give her her first car. But what started as a day of joy ends in senseless tragedy as
Reena, carelessly speeding on her first joyride in the new car, crashes into a tree, injuring her
boyfriend and paralyzing herself from the waist down.
While Reena's initial reaction is one of determined optimism, cruel reality soon drags her down
into a dismal depression. Her boyfriend has left her, unwilling to date a girl confined to a hospital
bed. She is forced to come to terms with the fact that her paralysis is so severe that she has no
chance of recovery, she falls behind in school, and she sees her dream of becoming a nurse crumbling
before her eyeswhat doctor needs a nurse to assist him who can't even stand up?
Fortunately, Reena doesn't have to deal with the tragedy alone. Reena is far from the first
person to become paralyzed, and there are people out there that understand her plight and want
to help. In this case, help comes in the form of a girl her own age, also paralyzed. She helps Reena
understand that her life is far from over and teaches her that the only way to conquer paralysis
is to embrace it as a part of who you are.
If the director and cast choose, "wheelies"riding a wheelchair on its rear wheels
and doing tricks can be incorporated into the finale. Warning: Doing "wheelies" is a
dangerous activitiy. Always have somebody close behind the person doing a "wheelie" to prevent
accidents and injury.
One act; several scenes will be represented by various properties and lights; Present time.
Others by Jackson: Rag Dolls, Amazing
Grace and Her Jellybean Tree
See also: Awareness Plays for Young Adults,
Personal Relationships