- Full Length
- Comedy
- Drama
- Treasures of Tutankhamun
- 1979
- NewYork City
- the Mob
- family
- sisters
- leaving home
- forgiveness
- Egyptology
- egyptology
On a cold November day in 1978, Ray, the Teamster truck driver responsible for moving the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, peeks into the crate carrying the Golden Death Mask of the "Boy King." From that moment on, as his life begins to go off the rails, Ray believes he is cursed. When his daughter Kelly meets Joey Vero on his motorcycle, the “forces of chaos” are unleashed as fate, love, regret and the Mob collide. Humorous and theatrical, The Boy King in Queens weaves Egyptian mythology through a 1970s New York City lens, to examine generational conflicts both contemporary and ancient.
Play Sample Text
SCENE SEVENTEEN: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, 2nd floor
JOEY & KELLY push open the door and sneak inside,
laughing like children and trying to be nonchalant.
JOEY
SHHHHH! Follow me. Right this way.
LIGHTS SHIFT as they walk down the passage way.
KELLY
What if we get caught?
JOEY
We’re not gonna get caught. You belong here. Act like you belong here.
LIGHTS SHIFT as they move through the exhibit.
KELLY
Oh my God. I had no idea what this was gonna be. It’s doesn’t seem real.
JOEY
Everybody thinks the Egyptians were obsessed with death – but they weren’t. They were obsessed with life. They were tryin to figure out what came before and what came after. And they wanted their dead to be prepared for whatever came their way. Because they loved them so much. They believed they would come back to life, every day.
KELLY
I think you’re the one who’s obsessed.
JOEY
See what’s inscribed on the back of that box, that’s called a shrine: and that’s King Tut, and that’s his queen. He’s got the bow, she’s got the arrow and she’s pointin at the duck, like, look Dummy, you missed one! They’re just kids. But they ruled a kingdom. Did they wanna be rulers, or did they just want to float down Nile and shoot ducks, and feel the sun on their faces and be free?
(beat)
His father died and he became Pharaoh when he was nine years old. I bet he wanted no part of that. But he took it on. He’s wearin the crown with the cobra. He became the ruler and he wanted to bring back the old religion. What the people wanted. But then he died at nineteen years old. His whole life ahead of him, erased. And he would have been forgotten, lost forever, like he never existed, if they hadn’t found his treasures. With his name written all over everything: The Son of Ra, Lord of Crowns, Tutankhamon.
(beat)
Look at the two of them. She’s giving him flowers. Look how she’s leanin on him. You can tell they loved each other. They thought they could rule the way they wanted and live a beautiful life together. But then he died young. Like, I always thought I might die young.
KELLY
No, don’t say that. Don’t say that.
JOEY
I’m not a Boy King. I don’t have to be Pharaoh. But I don’t gotta be nobody’s soldier neither. If I stick around here, maybe I will get sucked into this Life. But we can get on my bike and find our own Field of Reeds. What was the Nile, but a highway.
HE pulls her to him, kisses her. SHE throws her arms around his neck.
LIGHTS SHIFT.