"And I'm just wondering why, specifically, did you cry 'wolf' on the days when there was no wolf?"
"Well, 'cause everyone knows wolves are bad. Big and bad. You know?"
—Evil Stepmother and the Boy Who Cried Wolf
Big Bad is a play written by Alec Strum and licensed by Pioneer Drama. It showcases the courtroom trial of the Big Bad Wolf, with the Fairy Godmother and Evil Stepmother as attorneys, and the characters of The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
There are two versions of this play: the standard version, and a musical version with six songs added in. The play also has three different endings, in which the audience gets to decide the Wolf's fate.
This play provides examples of:
- Bitch Alert: In the musical, Evil Stepmother has her own entrance music.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Fairy Godmother.
- Bratty Half-Pint: The Boy Who Cried Wolf, to the extreme. To the point of admittedly breaking the law for his own entertainment.
- "Hey, can I go? I gotta go flush some live fish down the toilet."
- Cloudcuckoolander: Judge Wise Old Man.
- Downer Ending: The guilty and innocent endings are supposed to make the audience doubt their decision, so they end up fulfilling this trope.
- Fairy Godmother: Ms. Fairy Godmother is an interesting example, as she's portrayed as shrill and demanding, to the point of coming off as less sympathetic than Evil Stepmother.
- Happily Ever After: Inverted. In the guilty ending, the Boy Who Cried Wolf reveals he's not sure Wolf was the one who took his sheep; and in the innocent ending the Wolf decides that maybe he'll think about reforming. The closest thing to a happy ending the hung jury ending, but even then it's subverted due to being so open-ended.
- Maybe Ever After: The hung jury ending.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Fairy Godmother is a lawyer, of all things.
- Twist Ending: The guilty and innocent endings, which are written to make the audience doubt their decision.
- Wicked Stepmother: Naturally, Evil Stepmother is implied to be this. Although it seems she's decided to change for the better, since she tells Wolf she needs to talk to her stepdaughter before the final verdict is delivered.
