scrap of a screenplay:

AndyGHK sent 10 seconds ago

so we are going to screenwrite "fire." it's actually a stage play first, i mean before it's a movie.

the basic idea, which is all i've got so far, is based off the old saying "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. so it's a play called fire, and the characters yell it in a, one would hope, crowded theater.

stage opens. our hero, in chains, is up against the wall. maybe he's smoking his last cigarette.* 6 men in uniform have rifles trained on him. an officer, in an overdressed foppish sort of uniform, a david niven type, calls out "ready! aim"

a new character, perhaps an attractive female, maybe a woody allen type accountant type, runs out from stage left.

wait wait, you can't say that!

say what?

you were about to yell fire in (sweeps hand toward audience, breaking 4th wall) a crowded theater.

now if there's one thing everybody knows about the First Amendment, it's that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater.

[the men put up their rifles, puzzled] end scene 1.

• maybe, a minute before the curtain opens, our hero comes down the steps and tries to bum a cigarette off the audience in the first rows.

scene two tells the story of schenck v united states, and the triangle shirtwaist fire.