Billboard

by Michael Vukadinovich

Drama / 2m, 1f / Interior Set Andy, a recent college graduate weighed down by student loans, gets paid a great deal to tattoo a corporate logo on his forehead. His artist girlfriend Katelyn is not impressed, his liberal best friend thinks he's crazy, and now he has to live with it. The decision has both tragic and comic consequences as he comes to learn that the logo is more than just ink on his skin. But Katelyn sees a very unique artistic opportunity. She sees his body as an example of the ext

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This actually happened: in 2005, a man named Andrew Fischer auctioned advertising space on his forehead on e-Bay and made about $50,000 in two months. Michael Vukadinovich's play Billboard uses this idea as its starting point. In it, a young man named Andy, deep in debt thanks to student loans and other expenses, decides to raise some cash quickly by having a corporate logo tattooed on his forehead for a year. We never learn the amount of money involved; he says the main reason he's done this seemingly crazy thing is so that he can afford to buy his girlfriend, Katelyn, an engagement ring.

But Katelyn's not buying it. She's immediately repulsed and incensed by the tattoo, first because she realizes that she'll have to look at her boyfriend for a year in this mutilated condition, and second because she's appalled that he would "sell out" in this fashion, and third because she's sore that he didn't consult with her before making this decision. Her points are valid, and are generally echoed by Damon, Billboard's third character, Andy's unfortunately cliched goofy best friend.

Yet, Andy's point--about needing money, about being romantic enough to do something this drastic in order to be able to afford to get married--are never taken seriously at all. Vukadinovich stacks the deck entirely against him; it's tough for the protagonist of a play to survive this kind of an onslaught from his own creator. Billboard spends most of its time exploring Katelyn's decision to turn Andy into a piece of art (she's a struggling painter), and though it was never clear to me exactly what she could do to make Andy's forehead into anything more than a pale copy of most of Andy Warhol's oeuvre, her efforts are well-received. Katelyn now has the option of exploiting Andy (which is a very different proposition from Andy exploiting himself) for commercial gain; and somehow we're supposed to be on her side. I wasn't. In the end, Andy concedes that Katelyn was "right" and agrees to appear as a living art work in her show.

It's unsatisfying drama, especially given the great potential of the premise, which the real Andrew Fischer understands in his very creepy postmodern way, though Vukadinovich seems not to.

[M. H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing. Preachy. Political. Andy has tatooed a logo on his forehead; he's a walking billboard. And he's being paid for it. He starts out believing that he is using the system, but then, maybe, always, it's the system that uses us. (likely MPAA "R" for strong language)

Note: good for college age students. a lot of monologues, mostly of the story-telling variety.