ACT 5. The Bonfire That Reignited St. Louis

What happens when community becomes the currency?

New here? Go and check out ACT 1.

EXT. COMPTON RESERVOIR PARK – DAY

An OPEN PERFORMANCE SPACE carved into the urban fabric of St. Louis. Raw, concrete beauty meets wild foliage. A geometric STAGE leads into a glowing PORTAL. Living murals envelop the crowd, each segment a work-in-progress painted by local artists.

CAL ‘THE BROKE’ BILLIONAIRE (50s, guarded, skeptical) walks alongside WYOMING SCHMETTERLING (60s, wild-eyed, poetic). They move toward the SONGA MANSION across the street.

CAL
How’d you hear of me?

WYOMING
Everyone in St. Louis knows you, Cal.

CAL
But I still don’t know why you asked me here.

WYOMING
I once saved your number in my phone as ‘Broke Billionaire’—thought your voicemail said you were going broke. Turns out it was just a bad connection. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The connection’s breaking. And we need to fix it.

CAL
You think this fire’s going to fix St. Louis?

WYOMING
I grew up in your mall, Cal. Had my first kiss there. It was a time when people still gathered. When people shared social moments—not social media. That’s what we’re trying to build again.

They walk up the steps of the GOTHIC 19TH-CENTURY SONGA MANSION in the heart of St. Louis.

CAL
So this is some kind of nostalgia play?

WYOMING
No. It’s a future play. A family reunion disguised as a TV show. A fundraiser disguised as a miracle. We start right here—with fire and story—and we use The Workshop to do it.

INT. SONGA MANSION – CONTINUOUS

They enter a multimedia recording studio and creative playground where families dream, and talent feels home.

FORBES NASH, the former CMO of Disgracebook and Wyoming’s half-brother, finds them. He beckons them forward for a tour. Cal and Wyoming follow Forbes through…

Walls lined with storyboards and community blueprints. Rooms humming with instruments and laughter. A HOUSE BAND rehearsing in the ballroom. CHILDREN choreographing a dance in the hallway.

FORBES
This is what happens when you give people back the stage. Everyone becomes an artist again.

Cal stops, taking the scene in. He looks behind him—the two brothers gone. He catches the backs of them as they enter…

A wide chamber lined with projection screens and acoustic tiles. The ceiling glows dim blue.

WYOMING
What kind of town do you want to build, Cal?

Cal looks inward, considering the question.

CAL
All I know is I’m afraid for my children and grandchildren growing up in this world with its current trajectory.

Forbes nods along.

FORBES
So, what do you want more of—and what do you want less of—in your life, then?

CAL
It’s a tough question to ask someone in a position like me. What’s the point of more, when you already have more than enough?

FORBES
How’s about something real?

Cal likes the sound of that.

WYOMING
You know, in a world plagued by artificial intelligence and relationships, real is the new luxury.

FORBES
Whatever your town looks like, we can help you build it. The Workshop can light the fire that shows this city the way. A bonfire that brings St. Louis back to life.

Forbes triggers campfire soundscapes from hidden speakers.

CAL
You think people will show up?

WYOMING
They will… Just watch —

Wyoming hits the room’s control board, triggering a descending projector screen.

WYOMING
Long before screens, people gathered around the village fire to share songs and stories. They shared a connection. What if art is the only way to get our communities communicating again?

The projector streams a rendering of a ‘Songa Bonfire’ at The Workshop. An intergenerational multimedia musical gathering around a bonfire—yes, a real fire.

INT. THE WORKSHOP – BROADCAST

The WORKSHOP is a reimagined warehouse-turned-cathedral-of-culture in a suburb of St. Louis. Exposed brick. Massive steel trusses. Holograms of dancers from across time shimmer between walkways. Projected murals shift in real time to music. Light sculptures pulse in harmony with live drumbeats.

FORBES (V.O.)
We're building on what was here before. 1904. The World’s Fair. Forest Park lit up like a dream. The whole world came here—to St. Louis—to imagine what was possible.

WYOMING (V.O.)
We’re not starting from scratch—we’re remembering who we are.

The stage is filled with families from every corner of the city: its business elite, its artists, its dreamers, and doers—creating something larger than themselves.

They play violins, djembe, banjo, synth. Gospel singers harmonize beside rappers and untrained youth. Jazz floats into rock and roll, melts into funk.

Music. Movement. Meaning.

WYOMING (V.O.)
In biology, culture is the cultivated environment in which an organism grows. For humans, culture is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the media we consume, and the people in our lives.

FORBES (V.O.)
Happiness comes effortlessly when we change the culture we live in. If the people around you—and your loved ones—are happy, you’ll be happier too.

Cal, Forbes and Wyoming enter ‘The Workshop’, no longer watching from The Songa Mansion. Cal looks around in awe.

360-DEGREE CAMERAS stream the Compton performance onto a central screen. Families, patrons, skeptics, and believers sit on layered platforms. Rugs. Lanterns. Neon.

FORBES (to Cal)
The old mall, your old mall, has recently gone the way of our community and media: it’s fractured. In many ways, it’s a microcosm of St. Louis itself—divided by culture, race, and economic fault lines.

They walk past a collection of refugees and retirees. Skeptics and seekers. Hands held. Meals shared.

A sculptor and a tech CEO share a canvas. A coder plays percussion. A pastry chef improvises a beat with a violinist. Each one takes a turn, steps back, invites another to solo.

WYOMING (CONT'D)
Why don’t entrepreneurs collaborate like musicians do, giving each member of their entrepreneurial band a solo, and their moment in the spotlight? What if 'The Workshop’ could be that spotlight.

The FIRE CHIEF sits with his family, watching the bonfire intently, while basking in its glow with his daughter.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS receive NOTECARDS. On the back: “Put a check in the box if you want us to sing your story.”

As MAY DOVE MUNNIE, family office maven from the city’s old moneyed vanguard, steps on stage. She grabs the microphone, the family band backing her up.

Anyone, and everyone, can be an artist here.

MAY DOVE (trembling)
I didn’t plan this. I thought I’d just watch tonight. But... it’s the anniversary of my father’s death. One year today.

A hush falls. The band begins to play—gentle chords, a soft rhythm. May closes her eyes. Her voice is raw, searching. She begins to sing.

SONG: “BELONG, BE STRONG, REACH FAR”
We are the source of love...
The heart will calm the mind...
Reach far, belong, be strong...
Leave no one behind...

🎧 Listen below to “Belong, Be Strong, Reach Far.”
To unlock the full Songa catalog
of original music, become a paid subscriber.

The screen behind her comes alive—archival photos of St. Louis, her father’s face, images of families reuniting. May’s voice cracks with emotion, but she pushes through. The band swells.

She finishes. Silence. Then, applause. Standing ovation. She walks off stage, joining Wyoming, Forbes and Cal.

WYOMING
That’s the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Cal and May Dove shake hands, exchange introductions.

CAL
So, think this actually works, huh?

MAY DOVE
It did for my family. And it will for others. I know it.

Cal stares at the room alive with music, strangers turned kin. Children hand tambourines to elders. A mural from Compton Reservoir Park blooms onscreen. May Dove’s lyrics echo through the space.

MAY DOVE
Songa brought our family’s joy back that we’d lost. Our family office was telling me my net worth was increasing... so where had my self-worth gone? I had no dreams. Just shareholder value. But who are society’s real shareholders?

CAL (re: surrounding St. Louis families)
Us.

WYOMING
We spend our entire lives searching for a place where we belong.

He turns to May.

WYOMING
While you were singing, I couldn’t help but think... What if we light a fire—and create a place where others feel like they belong?

Cal walks toward the dancers, ready to join the crowd. He stops and looks back.

CAL
I think I know what I want my town to look like now.

FORBES
Oh, yeah?

CAL
Yeah. More moments like this. Fewer meetings of the mind... and more gatherings of the heart.

FORBES
Then bring the Bonfire to The Workshop. You light the flame. We’ll do the rest.

CAL
Sounds too good to be true.

WYOMING (CONT’D)
Some offers aren’t too good to be true. They’re just true.

FADE OUT INTO A PORTAL, A DOOR WITHIN THE WORKSHOP:

SUPER: “THE CODE IS 2112.”

CUT TO BLACK.

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Before you move on to ACT 6,
climb the paywall and listen to
“Belong, Be Strong, Reach Far”.
Shaped by heartbreak, lifted by hope.