Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT May 27th 2022

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Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a scene from the screenplay Awakenings, by Steven Zaillian, based on the book by Oliver Sacks posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Where does the conversation go from here?”

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Please join us for our next session Friday June 3rd at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Awakenings, by Steven Zaillian

INT. LEONARD’S DAYROOM – NIGHT
Leonard, alone at a table with a book. He glances up as Sayer sits opposite him, then down again at the book. 
		LEONARD	I can’t read anymore. The 
	words are written too slow. 
	I keep going back to the 
	beginning, to the beginning, 
	and trying... 

He turns back to the beginning, tries again, his eyes moving too quickly across the lines, “ahead” of the words. His hands and head begin shaking out of control and it’s all he can do to close the book. 

LEONARD	
           I’ve let the others down. 

SAYER 
           You have not.

LEONARD 
           I’ve let you down. 

SAYER 
           You have not. 

LEONARD	
           I’m grotesque... grotesque... grotesque... 

SAYER	
           Leonard, I won’t sit here 
           and listen to you talk about 
           yourself like this -- 

LEONARD 
           Look at me.
 
He is a man consumed by illness. With a voice that is flat and limbs that are bent and hands that are twisted and a grimace that can only hint at the great depth of the despair he is suffering. 

LEONARD	
           Look at me and tell me I am not. 

SAYER 
           You are not. 

It’s over and Leonard knows it. And though he won’t admit it, so does Sayer. Leonard barely gets the words out -- 

LEONARD 
           This... isn’t... me.

Hollywood Scripts, 1989.