conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a plot for a book about Gould, Fox, Karen entitled Speed-the-Plow.. End with the sentence '\nThe play ends with Gould straightened out and ready to pitch the Doug Brown film with Fox.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Speed-the-Plow: The play begins in the office of Bobby Gould, who has recently been promoted to head of production at a major Hollywood studio.\nHis job is to find suitable scripts to bring to studio head Richard Ross to be made into big Hollywood movies.\nHis longtime associate, Charlie Fox, has arrived with important news: movie star Doug Brown came to his house that morning interested in making a movie Fox had sent his way some time ago.\nGould instantly knows to arrange a meeting with the studio head, wanting to deliver the news personally that such a big star who usually works with a different studio is keen to make a movie with them, which is sure to be a financial success.\nGould thanks Fox for bringing the project to him when he could have gone "across the street" to another studio.\nFox says he is loyal to Gould on account of the many years he has worked for him.\nWord comes back that the studio head is flying to New York City for the day, so they will have to meet with him tomorrow, which could present a problem because Doug Brown wants an answer by 10 o\'clock the next morning.\nGould assures Fox that it will work out.\nFox is beside himself about the big break he has gotten, which could finally make him a player in Hollywood after years of toiling in obscurity.\nIt could also make him rich.\nHe requests coffee and Gould asks his secretary to get some.\nAs they wait, Gould tells Fox about a book he has been asked to give a "courtesy read" to, meaning that it is not seriously being considered to be made into a film because the author is "an Eastern sissy writer".\nGould\'s secretary, Karen, arrives with the coffee and the two men ebulliently chat with her about the movie business and their experiences related to it.\nKaren is only temporarily filling in for Gould\'s regular secretary and is new to the ways of Hollywood.\nGould asks her to make lunch reservations for them and she leaves.\nAfter she\'s gone, Fox comments on the secretary, teasing him about trying to seduce her.\nFox thinks that Karen is neither a "floozy" nor an ambitious girl trying to sleep her way up the Hollywood ladder, so it would be hard for Gould to bed her.\nGould thinks he can and the two make a five hundred dollar wager to that effect.\nFox leaves, soon to be seeing Gould at their lunch appointment.\nKaren returns to discuss the lunch reservation.\nGould asks her to sit and begins to tell her about the movie business.\nHe tells her about the book he has been giving a "courtesy read".\nUncorrupted and naïve, she asks why he is so sure there is no hope for the book.\nGould offers Karen a chance to take part in the process by reading the book and delivering to him her opinion of it him that night at his home.\nAs she leaves, Gould asks her to tell Fox that "he owes me five hundred bucks".\nThat night at Gould\'s apartment, Karen delivers a glowing report on the book, a story about the apocalyptic effects of radiation.\nAs he is seducing her, Gould speaks warmly toward her, offering to bring her under his wing at the studio.\nKaren says she wants to work on the film that this book is made into.\nGould says that even if the book is good, it won\'t make a successful Hollywood movie.\nKaren admonishes him for simply perpetuating the standard Hollywood formula instead of taking a creative risk.\nWhen Gould protests, Karen says that she knows Gould invited her to his place in order to sleep with her and aggressively starts to seduce him into taking her to bed, and into pitching the book instead of the Doug Brown film.\nThe next morning Fox is back in Gould\'s office, excited about their upcoming meeting with the studio head.\nGould surprises Fox with news that instead he is going to be pitching the Radiation book, without him.\nThe passive Fox initially takes the news with good humor, but gradually becomes more and more aggressive.\nHe chides Gould for preparing to throw both of their careers away by pushing a movie the studio will never agree to make.\nGould says that he has been awake all night and feels the call to "do something which is right".\nFox suspects that Gould spent the night with Karen and that is the reason for his delirium.\nGould denies this, but an increasingly enraged Fox physically attacks him and continues his verbal assault until Gould tells him to go.\nFox agrees to leave, but only after he gets the chance to ask Karen a question.\nKaren enters and eventually admits to being intimate with Gould the night before.\nGould and Karen continue to stand together as a team until Fox gets her to admit that she would not have slept with Gould had he not agreed to green light a movie based on the Radiation book.\nWith this, her ambitious motives are revealed and Gould is in shock.\nShe tries to hold on to the plans they had made, but Fox will not allow it, telling her to leave the studio lot and never come back.\nAs she leaves, Fox throws the Radiation book out the door after her.\nThe play ends with Gould straightened out and ready to pitch the Doug Brown film with Fox.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Speed-the-Plow
  Which is the most reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest? "That philosopher," Pen said, "had held a great place amongst the leaders of the world, and enjoyed to the full what it had to give of rank and riches, renown and pleasure, who came, weary-hearted, out of it, and said that all was vanity and vexation of spirit. Many a teacher of those whom we reverence, and who steps out of his carriage up to his carved cathedral place, shakes his lawn ruffles over the velvet cushion, and cries out that the whole struggle is an accursed one, and the works of the world are evil. Many a conscience-stricken mystic flies from it altogether, and shuts himself out from it within convent walls (real or spiritual), whence he can only look up to the sky, and contemplate the heaven out of which there is no rest, and no good.
  Directed by Gregory Mosher; sets by Michael Merritt; costumes by Nan Cibula; lighting by Kevin Rigdon.
  Gould's office. Morning. Boxes and painting materials all around. Gould is sitting, reading, Fox enters.
  GOULD: If it's not quite "Art" and it's not quite "Entertainment," it's here on my desk. I have inherited a monster.
  GOULD: Listen to this... (Reads:) "How are things made round? Was there one thing which, originally, was round...?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide two more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: GOULD: To make something, to do something, to be a part of something. Money, art, a chance to Play at the Big Table... Hey, you're here, and you want to participate in it. (Pause. Siddown. (KAREN sits.) Charlie Fox comes in and he's formed a relationship with Doug Brown. Doug will leave his studio and do a film with us. Charlie Fox brought it to us, brought it to me really. And in the Highest Traditions of the Motion Picture Industry, we're actually going to make a movie.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about GOULD, I'll.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: GOULD: To make something, to do something, to be a part of something. Money, art, a chance to Play at the Big Table... Hey, you're here, and you want to participate in it. (Pause. )
  GOULD: I'll tell you one. Siddown. (KAREN sits. ) Charlie Fox comes in and he's formed a relationship with Doug Brown. Doug will leave his studio and do a film with us. Charlie Fox brought it to us, brought it to me really. And in the Highest Traditions of the Motion Picture Industry, we're actually going to make a movie.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: FOX: Well, I can help you out on that. You ever come on the lot again, I'm going to have you killed. Goodbye. See you at the A and P.
  FOX: You're goddamn right, not. And what if this fucken' "grace" exists? It's not for you. You know that, Bob. You know that. You have a different thing.
  FOX: Hey, what'd you want me to say, Bob, you "Owe" me...? (Phone rings, FOX answers it. Into phone:) We're coming... (Hangs up.) Because we joke about it, Bob, we joke about it, but it is a "People Business," what else is there... ?
  FOX: Well, so we learn a lesson. But we aren't here to "pine," Bob, we aren't put here to mope. What are we here to do (Pause) Bob? After everything is said and done. What are we put on earth to do?
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: What are we put on earth to do? You ever come on the lot again, I'm going to have you killed. Goodbye. See you at the A and P.
  FOX: You're goddamn right, not. And what if this fucken' "grace" exists? It's not for you. You know that, Bob. You know that. You have a different thing.
  FOX: Hey, what'd you want me to say, Bob, you "Owe" me...? (Phone rings, FOX answers it. Into phone:) We're coming... (Hangs up.) Because we joke about it, Bob, we joke about it, but it is a "People Business," what else is there... ?
  FOX: Well, so we learn a lesson. But we aren't here to "pine," Bob, we aren't put here to mope. What are we here to do (Pause) Bob? After everything is said and done.FOX: Well, I can help you out on that.