MONIQUE: [Chewing] This free cheese isn’t bad. Museums should give out more free cheese. PHIL: [Stops chewing] What? MONIQUE: Metaphorically. PHIL: Uh oh. [Chews] MONIQUE: See, usually we consider marketing for exhibitions as separate …

PHIL: You’re furrowing your brow. MONIQUE: I need a working title and a catchy organizing principle for this little civics exhibition I’m doing. PHIL: Try the Rule of Three. You might solve both. MONIQUE: Rule of what? …

PHIL: Look at this script. Is this too much text? MONIQUE: Yes. [Sips matcha.] PHIL: But you didn’t even look! MONIQUE: Don’t have to. PHIL: Why not? MONIQUE: It’s always too much. PHIL: True. MONIQUE: Why do we always start by assuming every exhibition needs text? …

MAAM ANNUAL CONFERENCE - COFFEE BAR. PHIL: My client is crazy! MONIQUE: Your donut looks good. PHIL: They have an awful touchscreen idea! MONIQUE: Mm. Worse than some I’ve heard?PHIL: Way worse, I know it! …

PHIL: This coffee is terrible. No wonder it was so cheap and fast. MONIQUE: Iron Triangle, baby. [Sips matcha] PHIL: Uh, what?MONIQUE: You know, that old saw: “Fast, cheap, or good — pick two.” That’s the Iron Triangle. Especially in exhibitions. PHIL: And coffee? …

MONIQUE: A huge tech revolution is coming to the museum world, you know. PHIL: Maybe. MONIQUE: What do you mean? PHIL: I’m not sure which tech revolution you’re talking about. But in my time, there have been hundreds of tech revolutions …

MONIQUE: I am a developer who would rather be a developer, and I work with people from development, who get funding from developers in development to make developments. SVEN: Uh, what did that mean? PHIL: Don’t encourage her…

MONIQUE: Remember that time a famous violinist played a Stradivarius in the subway, thousands passed by, and almost nobody stopped? PHIL: Yeah, it was an experiment for an article about context and public taste. MONIQUE: Right! But …

SVEN: You guys coming to my session, “Objects Speak for Themselves”? PHIL: Yep! MONIQUE: [Gestures with coffee] Yep! PHIL: [Mutters] So untrue. MONIQUE: No, I’m really going. PHIL: I mean his title. It should be “Objects Can’t Speak for Themselves.”

PHIL: I have to cut part of my project. MONIQUE: [Looks for barista] Why? PHIL: Out of time. MONIQUE: Why? PHIL: We didn’t have costs until now. MONIQUE: Why? PHIL: [Furrows brow] We didn’t get them estimated yet. MONIQUE: Why? PHIL: [Annoyed] We could only do it at the end! And why do you keep saying why?

PHIL: Sorry I’m late, I was on Zoom doing some painstorming. MONIQUE: You mean brainstorming. PHIL: What? No, I mean painstorming. MONIQUE: … PHIL: [Smiles] You’ve never heard of it! MONIQUE: What? Well, no, I mean … OK, I haven’t heard of it.

MONIQUE: That exhibition this morning felt like a $1 show. PHIL: Were we on the same tour? That felt like $5,000,000. MONIQUE: Exactly. [Eats blueberry.] PHIL: What? MONIQUE: You were thinking total cost. I was thinking cost per visitor.

PHIL: If only museums had this many guests. (Sips chamomile tea.)
MONIQUE: Museums don’t have guests.
PHIL: What?
MONIQUE: (Sips Americano.) They have visitors.

FADE IN:
INT. MUSEUM CONFERENCE - GRAB-AND-GO CAFE - DAY
PHIL: My client’s exhibition of rare letters isn’t working, and I’m supposed to tell them how to fix it!
MONIQUE: Not working?

Setting: Regional museum conference. Characters: Monique, exhibition developer at her second museum. Wise beyond her years. Phil, veteran independent museum consultant. Anxiety-prone. Our scene opens at the hotel grab-and-go.