Edith Angel                                                            

                                                                     screenplay synopsis by
                                                                            Lorraine Parish

                                                  “Walter Mitty’ meets ‘Harold and Maude”.

Edith McCurdy — a plain, timid, middle-aged bookkeeper at Milford Motors, the town’s namesake used car lot — is like an old kicked-around can, or so  it seems. Her fellow workers, predominately chauvinistic males, are forever asking prying, dirty questions as to the non-existent hot dates she had over the weekend. Edith, missing nothing, plays along with their crass Monday morning routine. But little do they know, it’s part of her private fun. For Edith, it’s just another day, another role she plays in one of her many “shows”.

At the end of each workday, in her drab little coat, Edith slumps out of Milford Motors' back door. She feels her coworkers' contemptuous stares, but she doesn't care: she is on her way home to her incredible, fabulous, wondrous world of costumes and adventures.
In the evenings, and sometimes through the night, Edith, a secret tech wiz, scours the internet for recent deaths — but not just any deaths: she searches for folks with problematic families; folks who led long, fascinating lives, preferably in far-flung places. The farther “flung” the better; the less the family knew the relative the better, and the more the family misunderstood them the better.

Her goal is to enlighten the family of the one who has passed, to shine a kinder light on their dearly departed; to show they were goodhearted and generous, not the miscreant or whatever, the family believed them to be. To accomplish this, Edith, using her research, poses as an intimate old friend of the dead relative. And this invented "friend" fits brilliantly into the departed’s past. Edith becomes the family's heroine who rides in and saves the day — the day they never saw coming and the savior they never knew they needed.
   
The scenes at the family wakes are hilarious with Edith gleefully impersonating her made up over-the-top characters; on occasion, she'll even masquerade as a man. These bogus personalities are helped made believable by the ensembles she wears from her own costume closet: an amazing room chocked full of hats, clothes, pocketbooks, wigs, makeup and more. Incredibly, the family members fall for her delightful, outlandish charades. And witnessing their transformation from resentful individuals into more empathetic ones is priceless.

So, every Monday morning like clockwork, Edith McCurdy trudges back to her real world, boring book keeping job at Milford Motors and the dreadful little people who work there.  And their snide “hot weekend date” comments like “Was he stiff Edith, how stiff was he?” take on a whole new meaning!

What is Edith’s motive besides having zany, crazy, harmless fun? Why the charades?  Simple; she’s an angel. A wacky, charming angel just doing her divine messenger’s job of making the world a kinder, gentler place for us all.

                                                        Edith Angel is conceived as a limited series. Registered WGAE 2019