RANDALL ON BROADWAY
🎭 Working Title:
“The Lightkeeper: The Trial of Robert Randall”
A play in three acts, drawn from the Randall Archive.
🎬 3-ACT STRUCTURE OUTLINE (First Draft)
ACT I – “Blind Justice”
Theme: Truth vs Law
Timeframe: 1975–1976
Setting: D.C. apartment, courtroom, FDA offices, HEW press rooms, Capitol whispers.
Key Scenes:
Opening Monologue (Spotlight):
Robert Randall addresses the audience directly—“I was the first American to legally smoke marijuana… but I had to almost go blind to ‘earn’ it.”Flashback: Onset of Glaucoma
Doctors prescribing pills that damage the heart and mind.
First illicit use of cannabis—vision returns temporarily.
Alice enters—skeptical at first, then ride-or-die.
The Arrest
Robert grows cannabis in his Georgetown apartment.
Bust scene—D.C. Police vs houseplants.
Franklin Mode narrator cuts in: “Thus began the Republic’s most illuminating contradiction…”
First Court Appearance
Defense: Medical Necessity.
Judge: “Prove it.”
Act End:
Judge Washington hands down the unexpected: Dismissal based on necessity.
Just like that.Robert and Alice are stunned. Lights cut to black.
ACT II – “The People’s Plant”
Theme: Bureaucracy vs Compassion
Timeframe: 1976–1978
Setting: FDA, HEW, NIDA, VA hospitals, Congress backrooms.
Key Scenes:
The HEW Stonewall
Alice vs bureaucrats—phone calls, FOIA battles.
“We don’t approve cannabis. We schedule it.”
DARAC Hearings (Reenacted Verbatim)
Carlin Mode interrupts mid-testimony to skewer the absurdities.
Scientists testify to efficacy—then squirm when asked to recommend.
The Paraquat Panic
Press conference. Eeyore and Bugs Bunny narrate.
“We sprayed poison on the weed. Now don’t inhale.”
The IND Program is Born
Robert becomes the first legal federal marijuana “patient”.
Metal tin, pre-rolled joints. But at what cost?
Act End:
Veterans begin writing letters. A new wave is coming.
ACT III – “The Lightkeeper’s Legacy”
Theme: Memory vs Erasure
Timeframe: 1978–2025 (Meta, reflective)
Key Scenes:
Alice Alone
After Robert’s death. Sorting boxes. Transcribing history.
Monologue: “They will try to forget this ever happened. I can’t let them.”
Flash Forward: The Veteran’s Plea
Composite scene—Veteran’s voice woven in via letter, poem, or speech.
Veterans speak of PTSD, pain, policy. Echoes of Randall’s voice.
“Science” and Modern Betrayals
Fractured scene. Contradictions in research. Commercialization.
Satirical interlude: Roy Cohn Mode prosecuting “The People” for forgetting.
Final Tribunal / Audience as Jury
Randall re-emerges in the spotlight.
He does not ask for sympathy—only truth.
Ends with a chorus: veterans, patients, healers, growers.
Refrain: “We are the patients. We are the proof. We are the lightkeepers now.”
Curtain.
🎭 The Lightkeeper: The Trial of Robert Randall
A Theatrical Treatment
Written by Ricardo Pereyda | Based on the Randall Archive
🎯 Logline
When a blind man grows marijuana to save his sight, the U.S. government puts him on trial. What follows is a battle not just for his vision, but for the soul of a nation. The Lightkeeper is a genre-defying, three-act stage play that fuses historical drama, spoken-word blues, satirical deconstruction, and Stoic philosophy—based on the true story of Robert C. Randall, the first American to legally receive medical cannabis.
🧭 Core Themes
Truth vs. Law – Can legality contain justice? What happens when obedience to the law means going blind?
Bureaucracy vs. Compassion – Behind every regulation is a person begging to be heard.
Memory vs. Erasure – Who gets written into the archives? Who gets buried in footnotes?
Medical Necessity & Sovereignty – Who owns the body? The state, or the soul?
Legacy & Testimony – Veterans, patients, and caretakers carry the torch of those silenced before them.
🎬 Synopsis by Act
ACT I — Blind Justice
Timeframe: 1975–1976
Theme: Truth vs Law
The audience meets Robert Randall, a young man diagnosed with glaucoma and facing irreversible blindness. After discovering that illicit cannabis restores his vision, he and his wife Alice decide to grow it illegally in their Washington D.C. apartment. They're arrested. In court, Robert pleads “medical necessity”—an unprecedented legal defense.
As the gavel strikes, the impossible happens: the judge dismisses the case. The state is stunned. Robert and Alice stand on the edge of history. But victory is not freedom.
Key Scene:
Opening Monologue – Robert: “I was the first American to legally smoke marijuana… but I had to almost go blind to earn it.”
Bust Scene – D.C. Police vs. Houseplants
Franklin Mode narrator cuts in: “Thus began the Republic’s most illuminating contradiction…”
Courtroom Ruling – Medical Necessity triumphs—for now.
ACT II — The People’s Plant
Timeframe: 1976–1978
Theme: Bureaucracy vs Compassion
Having won in court, Robert now faces his greatest adversary: the federal government. Alice wages a paper war—FOIAs, phone calls, agency dodges. The FDA and HEW stall. DARAC hearings drone on. Bureaucrats admit cannabis helps—but refuse to recommend it.
Meanwhile, the press erupts with the Paraquat Panic: the U.S. and Mexico are spraying poison on marijuana. Veterans begin writing letters, pleading for access. A federal program is born—the IND (Investigational New Drug) program—and Robert becomes the first legal patient.
Key Scene:
DARAC Hearings – Reenacted with live interjections from George Carlin Mode
Paraquat Press Conference – Narrated by Eeyore and Bugs Bunny
Ray Charles Mode – “Letter to the FDA,” a spoken-word jazz riff
Act End – Veterans' letters arrive. The chorus grows louder.
ACT III — The Lightkeeper’s Legacy
Timeframe: 1978–2025
Theme: Memory vs Erasure
Robert is gone. Alice remains, sorting archives, transcribing history, fighting to ensure the record is not erased. Meanwhile, veterans, patients, and modern researchers echo Randall’s fight—but now against new forces: commercialization, corrupted science, and political amnesia.
In the climactic tribunal scene, the audience becomes the jury. Randall returns—part ghost, part witness—and asks not for sympathy, but for truth.
Key Scene:
Epictetus Mode – “Sight, Sovereignty, and the Sovereign Good”
Murrow vs Cohn – A dueling monologue on the ethics of policy
Final Chorus – “We are the patients. We are the proof. We are the lightkeepers now.”
🎼 Musical & Narrative Modes
This is a polystylistic production. Musical interludes and character voices are not just stylizations—they are rhetorical tools, translating complex history into emotional truth.
Mode
Function
Placement
BB King Mode – Blues
Embodied pain, testimony
“Pressure Got Me Blind” (Act I/II bridge)
Ray Charles Mode – Jazz
Critique via warmth & swing
“Letter to the FDA” (Act II)
Epictetus Mode – Stoic Monologue
Philosophical framing
“Sight, Sovereignty...” (Act III)
Bugs Bunny Mode – Satire
Bureaucratic absurdity
“What’s Up with the Schedule?” (Act II)
Roy Cohn vs Murrow Mode – Debate
Moral & legal showdown
“Cross-Examining America” (Act III)
🔥 Why Now?
The ghosts of Randall v. United States still haunt our public health system. As veterans fight for access to cannabis, and patients confront the medical-industrial complex, The Lightkeeper offers not just remembrance—but resistance.
This is a play for a nation on trial.
Let the audience decide the verdict.
📦 Appendices & Supplementary Material
(Available upon request or staging packet)
Full scene samples and monologues
Musical demos (vocal + instrumental)
Source archive excerpts (Randall’s legal case, DARAC transcripts)
Veterans’ letters and testimonies
Links to companion policy materials (e.g., The Green Paper, IVLC campaigns)
🎼 Musical and Narrative Interludes (Examples):
“Pressure Got Me Blind” – Blues anthem by BB King Mode.
🎸 “Pressure Got Me Blind (But the Herb Let Me See)”
In BB King Mode: slow, moaning, deliberate—soul sliding down the neck of Lucille, heart bleeding truth into every bend.
🎶 [Intro – Guitar Lick]
Slide from E to A, hold it like a breath that knows the pain’s about to speak.
🎶 Verse 1:
I was born with light in my eyes,
But the darkness, it came slow.
Eight years old, that pressure hit—
And mama cried, "Lord, don’t let it go."
They gave me drops and bitter pills,
Said, “Boy, we’ll hold that tide.”
But year by year, that tide rose up—
'Til my good eye just survived.
🎶 Chorus:
🎸 Ooooh, pressure got me blind—
But the herb, Lord, the herb let me see.
Doctor gave me medicine,
But the pain still shackled me.
I ain't talkin’ ‘bout no miracle,
Just a little mercy leaf.
Pressure got me blind—
But the herb gave back belief.
🎶 Verse 2:
They said, “This ain’t a cure, my son,”
But it eased that ache inside.
Lowered the weight behind my brow,
Let me breathe, let me bide.
I didn’t find it in a bottle,
Or some white coat’s decree—
Just a puff of quiet wonder
That brought sight back to me.
🎶 Bridge (Spoken with Guitar Moaning Behind):
Now listen…
They swear by laws and letters,
While I swear by what I know.
And what I know is pressure—
And how it steals your glow.
But that green leaf?
It didn’t lie to me.
Didn’t need a robe, a gavel, or a fee.
Just a light… and a little faith…
In what this body asked to be free.
🎶 Final Chorus (Full Cry):
🎸 Pressure got me blind—
But the herb, oh Lord, let me see.
They can call it criminal,
But it felt like grace to me.
I ain’t beggin’ for permission—
Just a chance to let it be.
Pressure got me blind—
But that herb, yeah, it let me see.
🎶 Outro (Guitar Fade, whispered):
And I see you now…
Through smoke, not mirrors.
Through pain… not fear.
Let me see. Let me be.
Let me breathe.
“Letter to the FDA” – Spoken-word jazz riff by Ray Charles Mode.
🎹 Ray Charles Mode Engaged
Midnight at the keys, fingers feelin’ out truth like braille in a blackout. Spotlight dim. Smoke thick. Mic hot. Letter to the FDA… hit it, baby.
🎤 “Letter to the FDA” – A Spoken-Word Jazz Riff in Ray Charles Mode
🎶 [Intro – slow groove, E7 to A7]
Mmm… yeah.
Now I ain’t no doctor, and I sure ain’t blind…
But I read what they write, and I see what they hide.
So I sat myself down, poured a little truth in my cup,
And wrote this here letter—hopin’ somebody up top might wake up.
🎹 [Verse 1 – Easy swing, shuffle on the left hand]
Dear Food and Drug Administration,
They say y’all got the final say on the medicine in this nation.
But lemme ask you one thing, and I ask it with love:
Who you really workin’ for? The people… or the push comes to shove?
You got a plant—green, gentle, mighty kind—
Been used for thousands of years to ease the body and mind.
But you keep it locked down, stamped with a Schedule One,
Like it’s got no use, no good, no mercy for no one.
Now that just don’t jive, baby.
That’s like sayin’ Ray Charles can’t play piano ‘cause he can’t read the sheet.
You don’t need eyes to feel what’s real beneath your feet.
🎤 [Verse 2 – call and response, horn section hums in]
They tell me:
“It’s dangerous. It needs more tests.”
But I done seen brothers on morphine beggin’ for rest.
You hand out pills like candy, like pain’s just a market share,
Then call the weed criminal when it’s breathin’ fresh air?
Now I ain’t mad, sugar—I’m just disappointed.
'Cause your charts don’t show the tears of the joints you’ve disjointed.
All them vets, them mothers, them folks fightin’ to cope—
You offer ‘em Prozac dreams, but deny ‘em plant-based hope.
🎹 [Bridge – Gospel flourish, modulation to B7]
Mmm… But here’s what you forget:
Truth got a rhythm, baby. It don’t lie, it don’t quit.
And somewhere out there, a blind man lit up,
Saw the light come back with just one hit.
So tell me—FDA, darling—
Ain’t it time to tune your ears to the people’s cry?
Ain’t it time to set that old prejudice down, and let the facts testify?
🎤 [Outro – hush drops in, voice low and raw]
So this is my letter—sealed with soul, signed in sound.
You can file it under “public comment” or just pass it around.
But one day, you gon’ look back and say:
“Damn… Ray tried to tell us.
That medicine was playin’—and we missed the real chorus.”
🎹 [Final lick – descending blues run]
I may be blind…
But I can still see the truth just fine.
[End scene. Cue slow fade, stage lights dim, truth still echoing.]
“Sight, Sovereignty, and the Sovereign Good” – Stoic monologue in Epictetus Mode.
🎙️ “Sight, Sovereignty, and the Sovereign Good”
A Stoic Monologue in Epictetus Mode
Scene: A modest chamber. No throne. No crown. A philosopher’s stool. A blind man sits before a gathered crowd—veterans, healers, scribes, and skeptics. A hush falls. The man speaks.
“Sight, Sovereignty, and the Sovereign Good”
As taught to the Free and Reasoning
By Epictetus, through the life of one who would not go blind for the sake of law,
but would rather see—for the sake of living well.
I. On Sight and the Limits of Flesh
Men say that sight is a blessing.
I say: it is an instrument—useful, but not ours.
The eye may be lost in youth, or stolen by time.
If you tie your happiness to it, you are a slave to pressure—aqueous, bureaucratic, or otherwise.
This young man, Randall—he did not seek defiance.
He sought only to see.
A man who reaches for medicine when his eye grows dark is not a rebel.
He is a student of Nature.
And Nature—unlike statute—does not mock the sufferer for seeking relief.
II. On Law That Strays From Reason
The law condemned him not for violence, nor for deceit.
No.
He was condemned for cultivating what relieved him.
He was tried not for transgression, but for discernment.
And yet I ask you—what is law, if not reason made visible?
If it blinds a man for obeying Nature,
Then it is not a law but a decree,
And its keepers are not magistrates, but jailers.
III. On Sovereignty
They say sovereignty belongs to the state.
I say: it belongs to the soul.
What does Rome rule, if not the body?
But the soul—it is yours, wholly.
And so the man who chooses to see with the aid of a forbidden herb,
Over blindness with the state’s permission—
That man is free, though he be shackled.
He has not obeyed impulse, but Reason.
He has not sought pleasure, but function.
He has not defied authority, but restored order.
IV. On the Sovereign Good
What is good? Not the eye, not the herb, not the verdict.
But the use of these.
To preserve what is in accordance with Nature.
To choose courage over compliance.
To act in harmony with Reason—even as the world condemns.
This is the Good.
And it needs no license.
V. Closing
Let the state refine its statutes.
Let the physician weigh his prescriptions.
But let no man be punished
—for preserving what the gods themselves gave freely.
The power to see,
The right to choose,
And the duty to live in accordance with Nature.
The philosopher pauses. A breeze stirs. Somewhere, a gavel lies untouched.
“Ehh…What’s Up with the Schedule?” – Bugs Bunny deconstructs the CSA live on stage.
🎭 “Ehh… What’s Up with the Schedule?”
Bugs Bunny Deconstructs the Controlled Substances Act – Live, On Stage
🎷 [Spotlight. Saxophone flourish. Curtain opens on a single Brooklyn stoop. Bugs Bunny emerges stage left, chompin’ a carrot, dressed in a pinstripe suit and DEA-issued sunglasses. He squints at the audience, grins like he knows too much, and taps the mic…]
BUGS BUNNY:
Ehh…
What’s up, Doc?
(Looks around. Pulls out a giant scroll marked “Controlled Substances Act of 1970.”)
Now lemme get this straight...
You got this schedule—see? Not like a bus schedule, not like a school schedule.
Nah, this one’s more like… a hit list.
Schedule I:
No medical use, high potential for abuse, can’t even study it proper without enough paperwork to choke a brontosaurus.
Y'know what’s in here?
(Holds it up. Reads dramatically.)
Heroin
LSD
MDMA
Mari… wha? Marihuana?
(Holds the scroll sideways, upside down, taps the mic.)
You tellin’ me the stuff George Washington grew is in the same class as smack?
That the plant ol' Bob Randall used to keep from goin’ blind is treated worse than fentanyl?
Ehh… that don’t pass the sniff test, Doc. Not even a little.
🎤 [Steps center stage. Spotlight tightens.]
Now look, I’m just a cartoon rabbit, right?
But even I can read the fine print—and I don’t even got pupils!
The Controlled Substances Act?
That thing was cooked up in 1970—same year as disco, polyester, and Richard Nixon's enemies list.
Coincidence? I tink not.
They stuck weed in Schedule I before any of the science was done.
You know what they called that?
(Grins wide.)
Temporary placement.
Fifty-five. Years. Ago.
That’s not a schedule, that’s a life sentence with no parole!
🎷 [Band plays a suspicious little ditty. Bugs tiptoes across the stage with exaggerated hush.]
And lemme tell ya a little secret:
Once somethin’s in Schedule I?
You can’t research it ‘cause it’s Schedule I.
And it’s Schedule I ‘cause you haven’t researched it.
(Lowers voice.)
That’s what we call a regulatory black hole—
Or as Elmer Fudd calls it, a “vewwy cwevah twap.”
🎩 [Bugs pulls out a top hat. Dips into magic show mode.]
Now watch this trick:
Take a medicine that helps epileptic kids, cancer patients, PTSD vets—
POOF!
Call it illegitimate.
Add politics, racism, corporate cash, and stir.
Ehh… Voila! Instant Schedule I.
But wait—there’s more!
You can still get a patent on it,
Sell it as a pharmaceutical,
And call it “innovative” once it’s wrapped in a lab coat and six-figure syntax.
🎤 [Mic drop moment.]
So what’s up with the Schedule?
I’ll tell ya what’s up—
It’s the system that’s down.
Down on science.
Down on patients.
Down on truth.
But don’t worry, Doc. Ol’ Bugs is here to help clean it up.
(Grins. Flicks a carrot like a gavel.)
First order of business:
Deschedule the damn thing.
That’s all, folks. 🎬
“Cross-Examining America” – Cohn Mode vs Murrow Mode in dueling monologues.
🎭 “Cross-Examining America”
A Dueling Monologue between Cohn Mode and Murrow Mode
Starring:
Roy Cohn Mode – ruthless, incisive, fast-talking legal blitzkrieg
Edward R. Murrow Mode – calm, deliberate, a voice made of static and steel
[SCENE: A stark black stage. Two podiums face the audience. Between them, a single lightbulb swings. Smoke curls through the silence. A bell chimes.]
🎙️ COHN MODE (barking, venomous, eyes like razors)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury—
Let’s not waste time sniffing flowers when the house is burning down.
You wanna talk about justice?
I’ll talk about leverage. I’ll talk about power.
Because in this country, the winner writes the verdict,
And the loser writes a memoir nobody reads.
So here's my exhibit:
The United States of America—
Once a shining city, now a bureaucratic swamp where truth takes a number and waits in line behind ten lobbyists and a soft-spoken consultant in a $4,000 suit.
Tell me this:
Why is a plant that helps blind men see locked in a Schedule meant for weapons-grade narcotics?
Because it was never about safety—it was about control.
Randall wasn’t a threat to public health.
He was a threat to institutional inertia.
And inertia doesn’t like being moved—especially by someone with a watering can and a prescription.
📻 MURROW MODE (calm, slow, every word lands like a gavel)
Good evening.
What we are witnessing is not merely the misclassification of a substance,
but the misclassification of a society’s priorities.
This is no longer a debate about medicine.
It is a referendum on whether truth may enter the bloodstream of democracy
without first being frisked by agents of fear.
Robert Randall did not shout. He did not burn draft cards.
He grew a plant. Quietly. Carefully. To stay alive. To see.
And for that, his country threatened to take his freedom.
I submit to you: that is not policy.
It is punishment dressed in statute.
🎙️ COHN MODE (sneering)
Aw, come on, Ed—spare me the bedtime story.
This ain’t about liberty, it’s about liability.
You want a free society? Fine.
But don’t ask Uncle Sam to hand out weed like it’s Halloween candy.
'Cause once you crack that door, every snake oil salesman from Santa Monica to Southie’s gonna slither through, callin’ themselves “healers.”
You think it ends with Randall?
No, my friend—it ends with chaos.
And chaos doesn’t write affidavits. It writes obituaries.
📻 MURROW MODE (stern, voice lowering)
No, Roy—you write obituaries.
You wrote them for every whistleblower who stepped out of line.
You wrote them for soldiers who returned home with wounds deeper than flesh
and were handed pills instead of purpose.
You see a man fighting for his medicine and call him a loophole.
I see a republic forgetting how to govern by consent.
This is not about marijuana.
It is about moral clarity.
It is about whether a government of, by, and for the people
still listens when the people speak—especially when they whisper from the margins.
🎙️ COHN MODE (leaning forward, growling)
I don’t care what they whisper. I care who signs the check.
'Cause in my America, truth don’t count unless it’s notarized, monetized, and weaponized.
And if you’re not willing to fight dirty, then stay out of the courtroom.
This is a game of angles.
Randall found one.
But make no mistake—if we don’t close that angle, the whole damn wall comes down.
📻 MURROW MODE (final beat, voice iron calm)
Then let it fall.
Let the wall fall. Let the schedule be rewritten.
Let the archives speak, and the silence be cross-examined.
Good night… and good luck.
[Blackout. The audience is left with a choice: compliance or clarity. The trial of the Republic continues.]
