i don't usually do this...

...but I'm in a playwriting class and it'd be kind of fun to share my idea - you can comment on it if you want. I am always very tight-lipped about these things, but I'm trying something new with this play, so, why the heck not? Don't pay attention to how the treatment is written, or that the name of the town is stupid, please. You can tell how good it is by the phrase "after a minor catastrophe," which is purposely nebulous because I have yet to figure that part out...sigh...

Taking into account the relatively small size of Dusk, Michigan, and the worsening economy, the County decides to close the Dusk Police Department and place the town under the umbrella of a nearby town’s police department. Upon hearing this, long-time Dusk resident John “The Turk” Delacerna – renowned in both underworld and criminal justice circles as the “biggest small-time crook of all time” for his characteristic overly-complex Rube Goldberg-esque crimes for utterly pedestrian spoils like watches and toasters – declares that in seven days, as a final coup de grace to the police who arrested him so many times without ever securing a conviction, he will commit his greatest crime to date, and then vanish for good. Lucy, a cop in her late forties with ties to the Turk stretching back to her grandfather and father – both of whom were policemen and were obsessed with trying to put the Turk away for good – announces that, before the seven days are up, the Turk will finally be behind bars at the Dusk Police Station for good.
To achieve her goal, she hounds the Turk, who agrees to let her keep an eye on him every evening, provided that she will join him for dinner. Over the course of the week, the Turk’s demands rise: first dinner, then dinner and drinks, then a dance after dinner to his favorite record. In turn, he agrees each night not only to allow her vigil, but to answer her questions, and reveal his secretive past.
Each night as he tells his story, scenes from his past as a child of the carnival are presented to show how as a child the Turk, after much persuasion, got his father, a carnie swindler famous for his techniques, to teach the young Turk his most effective and famous trick, “the Big Steal.” There is one catch to the instruction, however: that the Big Steal is never to be used to bankrupt a man, or to leave him without a nickel to get home on. The Turk, in his youthfulness and desire to impress a young woman, beings swindling customers for all they have. After a minor catastrophe, the Turk’s father casts him out, and the Turk vows to never again steal anything a person couldn’t afford to lose.
Over the course of the week, Lucy becomes swept up in the Turk’s stories and finds herself becoming attracted to him and his larger-than-life mystique. As the week comes to its close, she begins to assume that the Turk’s greatest crime was, in fact, to steal the heart of his most fervent police pursuer. She is, of course, wrong, as the Turk successfully absconds with the entire now-redundant, soon-to-be-closed Dusk Police Station and vanishes.

Thoughts?