VALLEY DWELLERS

VALLEY DWELLERS is a script that describes a play in three acts based on the recent lives of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, the stars of MTV’s reality hit The Hills. Download VALLEY DWELLERS and put on your own production.

Act One begins on November 19th, 2009 the day before Heidi undergoes ten cosmetic plastic surgeries; drastically altering her appearance. The remainder of Act One follows Spencer and Heidi, chronologically, through their everyday lives while the post on Facebook, Tweet, eat brunch, converse with friends, and film scenes for the finale season of The Hills. Act One concludes on May 18th, 2010 with the airing of The Hills episode, “This is Goodbye.” This is the last episode in which Heidi and Spencer participate, effectively marking the end of their reality TV careers.

Act Two consists of Heidi and Spencer watching a verbatim re-enactment of “This is Goodbye.”

In Act Three, two lovers, H. and S., discuss what they have just watched and strive to find its meaning within themselves.

Article Clipping by Rosalie Currier "Acting Real," The Sturgis Journal, 12/13/11

ARTICLE TEXT:

Play Explores the question: What is Reality?
John Lennon once said, “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
That could describe a play written by Sturgis High School alumnus Matt Kalasky.
In an effort to explore the reality of reality TV, Kalasky wrote, “Valley Dwellers.” It will be performed at 7p.m. Friday at Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Company, Sturgis.
Kalasky, a 2004 Sturgis High School graduate asked his former orchestra teacher, Eliot Gitelman, to find a cast of 12 current students to perform the show.
It isn’t a typical play. For one, cast members will read their lines, and not once will they make the audience think otherwise. In addition, they have had only one week of practice. That’s all part of Kalasky’s plan.
“Valley Dwellers” is based on MTV reality couple Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from “The Hills,” Kalasky said.
Kalasky took much of the script from actual shows, quotes from magazine articles, and tweets from Twitter. The three-act play covers Nov. 20, 2009-May 18, 2010.
The first act takes place Nov. 20, 2009, when Heidi underwent 10 plastic surgeries to completely change her look, Kalasky said. It was all to make her into the person she was trying to be as a reality TV star.
The second act is set on May 18, 2010. Act 3 is a conversation between two characters attempting to make sense of what they just saw, Kalasky said.
As strange as it may sound, “there is a school in New York City that teaches you to be a reality TV star,” Kalasky said.
The stars play a caricature of themselves, he said, but Heidi and Spencer went beyond by turning themselves into the characters they are playing.
Kalasky, a master’s level art student at Tyler School of Art at Temple University, is actually a sculpture.
Rather than try to explain the reality TV phenomena and these stars, he decide to explore it on stage.
“I could write a paper,” Kalasky said. “But writing a play and seeing what happen in more productive, more interesting, and more approachable.”
As he looks at pop culture, Kalasky said reality TV “is really popular for a specific reason. Not just because it’s cheaper.”
The high school students who will take the stage have the same opportunity to reinvent themselves or “play themselves” in different scenarios every day.
They can play one version of themselves at school, another on Facebook, another on Twitter, and yet another on a blog, Kalasky said.
Rather than mocking Heidi and Spencer for taking such drastic measures to be their “other self,” Kalasky wanted to explore what it means.
“It’s more productive conversation (going) beyond making fun of them,” he said.