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 The Best
Women’s Stage Monologues
of 2002

edited by D. L. Lepidus

MONOLOGUE AUDITION SERIES

A SMITH AND KRAUS BOOK

 Published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.
177 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755
www.SmithKraus.com

© 2003 by Smith and Kraus, Inc.

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: October 2003

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the plays repre-
sented in this book are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the
copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by
the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the
rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-Amer-
ican Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all
countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights,
including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public read-
ing, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of me-
chanical or electronic reproductions such as information storage and retrieval
systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages,
are strictly reserved. Pages 98–102 constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Cover illustration by Lisa Goldfinger

Cover design by Julia Hill Gignoux

The Monologue Audition Series

ISSN 1067-134X
ISBN 1-57525-327-5

NOTE: These scenes are intended to be used for audition and class study;
permission is not required to use the material for those purposes. However,
if there is a paid performance of any of the scenes included in this book,
please refer to the Permissions Acknowledgment pages 98–102 to locate the
source that can grant permission for public performance.
Contents

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, Leonora B. Rianda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

ALTER EGOS, Jon McGovern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

APRIL, Alison Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

AVOW (2), Bill C. Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

BANG, Laura Shaine Cunningham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

BEAUTIFUL BODIES, Laura Shaine Cunningham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

BINGO BABES, Isabel Duarte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

BLACK SHEEP, Lee Blessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

BLOWN SIDEWAYS THROUGH LIFE (2), Claudia Shear . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

BOOK OF DAYS, Lanford Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

BOYS AND GIRLS, Tom Donaghy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

CONTROL FREAKS (2) Beth Henley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

CRUISING CLOSE TO CRAZY, Laura Shaine Cunningham . . . . . . . . . 23

THE DEAD EYE BOY (2) Angus MacLachlan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

THE DYING GAUL, Craig Lucas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

FROZEN STARS (3), David Matthew Barnes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER, DO!, Brian Friel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

HOMECOMING (2), Lauren Weedman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

JAR THE FLOOR (2), Cheryl L. West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

THE LAST CARBURETOR, Leon Chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

LIMONADE TOUS LES JOURS (2), Charles L. Mee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

L-PLAY, Beth Henley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

LOOKING FOR NORMAL, Jane Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

MONTHS ON END, Craig Pospisil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

NOVEMBER (2), Don Nigro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

ORANGE FLOWER WATER, Craig Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

OTHER PEOPLE (2), Christopher Shinn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

REMBRANDT’S GIFt, Tina Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

SAVED OR DESTROYED, Harry Kondoleon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

SELF DEFENSE (3), Carson Kreitzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

SOMEPLACE WARM (2), Peter Macklin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

SORROWS AND REJOICINGS (3), Athol Fugard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, Prince Gomolvilas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

TRANSATLANTIC (2), Judy Klass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

THE TRIAL OF ONE SHORT-SIGHTED BLACK WOMAN VS.

MAMMY LOUISE AND SAFREETA MAE (3), Karani Marcia Leslie . . 86

U.S. DRAG, Gina Gionfriddo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN, Christopher Shinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

WHERE’S MY MONEY? (2), John Patrick Shanley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

WHITEOUT, Alan Newton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Foreword

If you have bought this book, or are thinking of buying this book, most
likely you are a student or aspiring professional actor always in search of
monologues to work on in class or to use for auditions. Or, maybe you’re
a teacher, looking for exciting new material for your students. It is my firm
belief that the monologues in this book will suit your needs perfectly.
For one thing, they are almost all from published, readily available
plays. (See Permission Acknowledgments section in the back of this book
for publisher information. If the play has not been published, though, I
have included information as to how to get the complete script from the
author. After all, you have to read the entire play to better understand the
piece you are working on.
And here’s another thing, although I have included monologues for
a wide range of actors, from teens to octogenarians, the lion’s share are for
younger actors — teens to thirties — because that’s who, by and large,
needs these books the most. Which is not to say that some of the pieces
for older actors aren’t fabulous. They are. The two monologues from Don
Nigro’s November come to mind, or one from Bill C. Davis’ Avow. And
there are some fine pieces for those of you “of a certain age” — something
for everyone from Smith and Kraus!
I have tried to give a sense of each monologue’s context with my brief
introductions to each piece; but, inevitably, you’ll have questions. Hooray!
Now you can read the whole play!
Well, kids, I’m off to being work on the 2003 monologue books. Oh
boy, I can’t wait — hundreds of more plays to read!

— D. L. Lepidus

vii
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL
Leonora B. Rianda

Comic

Helen, a writer, forty, is having a conversation with a character in her

novel, whom she has just killed off.

HELEN: “Look, Ma! Top of the world!” Wow. It’s so — clear from up here.
Look, look! My house — there’s my house! And there’s the freeway
I take every single goddamned morning to work for nine years!
(Pause.) Uh-oh. Altitude. (Tilts head back.) Nosebleed! Oh, not now,
now now — oh. Oh. OK. There. Maybe not. OK, I’m just light-
headed, afraid of heights, or, when I’m up so high, I wonder what it
would be like to jump. To fall. From so high a place. I’m attracted
to the edge, you know. Closer, closer — a little closer. There is noth-
ing to grab on to — nothing, just the sheer edge and then — aaaaaah-
hhhhh! (Pause.) Does one — faint — before impact? Imagine being
conscious, smashing into the earth — the body — the body — meet-
ing absolute resistance? (Pause.) Mmmmmmm, smell the air up here!
So clean and fresh — beyond their pollution, their noise, their —
needs. Uh-oh, dizzy. Breathe! Breathe. Relax. Mmmmmmm. (Pause.)
I’ve been coming up here for all the years of my life. Today that makes
forty. Today I am forty years old. Of course, when I was very young,
my father used to bring me up here. Only the altitude would make
him irritable. He’d point out targets below and see if he could hit them
with rocks. “See that weed over there,” he’d say, “I’m gonna hit it with
this rock!” All I could see was a large wildflower, orange like a rising
sun. I thought it was beautiful. “Watch!” he’d say. Zing! I have to
admit, he was pretty good. At that distance he could knock off quite
a few petals — a skinny stem left shivering in the clear clean air. Then
he’d point out to me where he worked, tell me again how much he
hated it, how much he hated all the stupid, sheepy people he had to
work with, how he was trapped — then he’d pick up really big rocks

1
 and heave them into the air. “Thunk.” Like a body hitting the earth,
“thunk.” Those rocks made such a hollow, heavy sound. “Thunk.”
Even before he died, I learned my way up here so I could be alone.
The older I get, the harder the climb. And today, it’s forty years of
climbing. Look! Look how clear it is today. This is how Noah must
have felt after forty nights, forty days of rain — to at last come to
rest on the earth again. Looking around and everything clean and fresh
and all his, all his! To populate! To go forth and multiply! What a
job! What a great job! To create and create and create, morning, noon
and night! Imagine! Surveying all that lies blow and knowing it’s yours,
all yours. That God is definitely on your side — there being no other
side for Him to take — Forty years and here I am. Dry land at last.
The ark has come to rest. My body touches the earth. And now what?
Do I throw rocks or go forth and multiply? The fast way down is over
the edge. (Balances on one foot.) “Look, Ma! No hands!” (Pause.) In
the brief time it takes to fall, I imagine I am flying!

2
ALTER EGOS
Jon McGovern

Comic

Lerlene is a country-western glamour girl, twenties to thirties. This mono-

logue is to the audience and is the first part of a much longer speech (in
case you’re looking for something longer . . . ).

Lights flash up as she turns and runs breathlessly downstage.

LERLENE: Ohmigod! I just had this — epiphany — I think that’s the word —
it was like a flash of just knowin’ — I had to get out! So, I just ran
out of my trailer fast as I could — I only took my merry-go-round
handbag and my two little dogs. I had to get out! The Bubbas were
drivin’ me crazy! When I say the Bubbas I mean my boyfriend Bubba
and his two kids. (Pause as the emotion builds up inside of her.) Bubba
(On the pouty verge of tears.) and Bubba — the man named his two
sons the same thing — which woulda been fine if they hadn’t been
twins! Oh those kids! Always wantin’ somethin’ — especially not
durin’ my soap-opera slash talk-show hours! First of all . . . (Her voice
moves into her seductive range.) I’m gonna be an actress. So soap op-
eras are like crucial actin’ lessons for me . . . (A sudden switch back to
the loud Lerlene we’ve met before.) . . . and, second, I need to see the
talk shows ’cause sometimes that’s the only way I get to see my fam-
ily! I mean, last week I missed my cousins BaSita and FaNita on Jerry
Springer! Anyway, the main reason I left is . . . ’cause . . . well . . . (Does
a Wonder Woman–style twirl.) I’m gon’ be famous! . . . a super-
model/singer/actress — triple threat! And I need to be in a situation
with a man who is going to support me in my career! ’Cause I’m on
my way . . . I’m in training, I practice like, um, runway walkin’ here
in the trailer park . . . it’s like . . . watch . . . (Runs upstage and strikes
her starting pose, then begins to walk.)

3
 One-two-work-bitch one-two and look and look and look and
look . . . I do Vogue covers, it’s like . . . chick chick (She poses.) Chick
chick (Another awful pose halfway between a cheerleading pose and a
porno still.) I’m ready . . . ready to be . . . discovered.

4
APRIL
Alison Fields

Dramatic

Eve is a single woman in her twenties, desperately seeking a commit-

ment from a man. Here’s she is talking about a man she recently met.

EVE: He helped me out. . . . I don’t remember walking until I look up and

realize I don’t know where I am. And I guess it starts raining about
that time. Summer shower, a regular downpour, and here I am in the
middle of a neighborhood I’ve never been to in the dark, all alone. . . .
So I find one of those covered bus stops and sit down to think about
all that has happened. It occurs to me, only then, how crazy I’m act-
ing, and I start to feel a little scared about where I am, and out of
nowhere this guy walks up to me. . . .
I don’t know why. I just start talking, telling him everything about
myself, about that night, and we sit together on that bench in the
rain for hours, until the last bus stops for the night. He laughs and
tells stories, and we smoke damp cigarettes from his pocket. I find
myself falling for him almost automatically. When he invites me back
to his apartment, I don’t feel uncomfortable. It seems like the most
natural thing in the world. He is safe and unsafe at the same time.
And so different from David, and all the men at work. . . .
. . . There was so much I didn’t think about. Just start follow-
ing him home in the rain. He lives in this old building in that neigh-
borhood, up three flights of stairs. This big white room, mostly empty,
except a couple of chairs and a sofa and a bed in one corner. He tells
me he hasn’t been in town for very long. We drink a bottle of cheap
wine and talk until dawn and when the light shines through his win-
dows we walk up to the rooftop and watch the sun reflect in the mir-
ror buildings and I think I can see everything, past the city and to
the bay. And we come back downstairs and make love. Sleep all day.
Wake in the afternoon and make love again. . . . It was only after
the second time that I finally asked his name. He said it was Simon.
5
AVOW
Bill C. Davis

Dramatic

Irene is an unmarried, pregnant woman in her thirties whose brother

wants to marry his boyfriend in the Catholic Church. Here, she is mak-
ing confession to their priest, to whom she is becoming increasingly
attracted.

IRENE: Uh . . . The affair. You know — what I told you about. The mar-
ried man. The reason I’m pregnant. I’ve been thinking about his wife.
She is still in love with him. She suspected — she came to my apart-
ment. I never answer the door when someone just stops by. I was in
a good mood — I guess I thought it was Brian, so I just answered
the door and . . . her eyes — they looked as if they were bleeding. I
was so pulled together. I said, “Yes? What is it?” I knew what it was.
It was hell. Hell was looking at me. Then out of nowhere she started
laughing. And I thought, “Oh great — this is going to be a real
episode.” But she was laughing because she thought I was going to
be a man. (Pause.)
She kept smelling someone else’s aftershave on him. She told me
that and then we both started laughing. She just couldn’t figure out
what mens’ names begin with I because she saw my initials on a slip
of paper. Then we started thinking up men’s names that begin with
I. “Irving,” “Ignatius,” “Isidore,” “Ian.” Then she suddenly got hys-
terical crying. I didn’t know what to tell her. And I felt close to her
because we had shared a laugh. I said I couldn’t help her. I told
her to talk to him about it. I had nothing to say. “This isn’t about
me. It’s about you and him. It’s not about me.” (Pause.)
It was up to the two of them to keep their marriage alive and
interesting and fulfilling. She wasn’t giving him the kind of love he
needed. (Pause.)

6
 What do you want? You want me to feel responsible for her?
(Pause.)
Godamnit! I do. I feel responsible for everything that will ever
go wrong with her for the rest of her life. If she gets cancer, if she
gets hit by a car, if she gets involved with a man that beats her — all
of it will be my fault!

7
AVOW
Bill C. Davis

Seriocomic

Avow is about a gay couple who are trying to get the Catholic Church
to bless their union with the sacrament of marriage. In this monologue
Rose, sixty, is having lunch with her gay son and her unmarried, preg-
nant daughter. She doesn’t know what to make of either of them.

ROSE: (Smiling.) So — here I am with my gay son and my unmarried preg-

nant daughter. It’s really exciting. I mean it’s nothing that I expected,
but the truth is that the unexpected things are the most important.
Those are the things we learn and grow from. I mean, if I got a car-
bon copy of me and your father I’d have a son who’d want to have
sex fifty times a day and a daughter who loves priests.
(Brian and Irene look at each other. Rose sees this.)
What? (To Irene.) You hate priests . . . (To Brian.) and you don’t
want to have sex fif . . ., well maybe you do, but I don’t want to know.
I don’t need to know. I’m at peace about all of this because I listened
to God the way Father Nash told me to listen. And God works much
differently than I thought. He’s very funny — and He doesn’t try to
make sense — He can’t. That’s not His job. There’s no point to His
trying to make sense to us — we have to make sense out of Him. (To
Brian.) I started lighting candles that you’d get married and have kids,
but then God straightened me out. He answered me by saying, “That’s
not the son I gave you.” I almost heard him. “Relax — Brian is part
of My equation. The world population has doubled in your lifetime,
Rose, and this is how I’ll slow things down.” So I stopped lighting
candles because I got an answer.

8
BANG
Laura Shaine Cunningham

Seriocomic

Sheila (thirties to forties) and her husband Len are visiting their old
friend Bev and her new husband Roy, who live in an underground, nuke-
resistant condo in (well, underneath) Utah. Here, she talks about Len’s
existential angst.

SHEILA: . . . This is typical. On the way here, we stopped for lunch at a

Howard Johnson’s, and Len insisted that we park the car at a spot
marked for the handicapped . . . you know . . . the signs with the lit-
tle wheelchairs. I don’t know why. There were plenty of spots. I said,
“Len, it’s going to be embarrassing when we get in and out of the
car, and people see we’re not crippled. It’ll look like we were trying
to hog a spot close to the restaurant.” He wouldn’t listen. Okay. So
we had lunch, and when we came back out, he confessed: He’s been
using their toilets too . . . with the handlebars. He says they’re big-
ger and better kept, but I think there’s more to it. . . .
There’s something really wrong with Len. Personally, I think it’s
totally linked to this economy. . . .
Well, just before we left, we stopped for cash at one of those out-
door bank slots. I don’t know how we let it happen, but we were to-
tally out of money, and it was midnight and there we were on Times
Square . . . under a full moon. . . .
So poor Len put his card in and the machine spit back a mes-
sage — “Transaction Not Completed.” (Her voice breaks.) It swallowed
the card too, then spit back another message, “Insufficient Funds.”
It was embarrassing — there were people behind us. It affected Len.
He took it personally. It’s too close to what he’s been working on . . .
his thesis “Psychonomics . . . Going Insane in a Crazy Economy.”
The truth is we’ve just been squeaking by. We’re close to broke. Our

9
 income is the same as our rent. I worked it out on a calculator and
it costs us seventy-seven cents a minute to exist . . .
That’s why I had to sublet the apartment. I hated to do it be-
hind Len’s back. But I found people to take it for more than we pay,
so we can actually earn money by taking this vacation. We just
couldn’t go on. I mean, the meter is always running. I have to buy
everything on charge cards. I use my American Express card to buy
milk. I buy all our food at Zabar’s. We’re living on lox. It’s eating away
at Len, at his pride, or whatever you want to call it. Most days, he
just sits on the sofa, shaking. He says, he’s “quivering from the cost.”
Every morning when he wakes up, the first thing he says is: “Should
I call in sick?” And I say “Don’t be ridiculous, what would you do
alone in this apartment all day?” And he says he wants to “concen-
trate.” I know that he really watches infomercials on AB development.
He starts to . . . babble . . . “just-lemme-alone-in-peace-and-quiet,
just-lemme-alone-in-peace-and-quiet.” To top it all off, he’s almost
totally impotent. He can only sustain an erection in his sleep. I’ve
found a doctor who can diagnose impotence. A woman doctor. A
friend of mine. She’s an expert on impotence. And she’s offered to strap
electrodes to Len’s penis and record his erections over a twenty-four
hour period, but no. He refuses to accept any help. Let’s face it, Len’s
in some kind of depression . . .
Len is in some kind of depression, and as long as it lasts, he’s no
use to me, to himself, or to you. So that’s why we can’t stay for dessert.
He just won’t be much fun until he finishes his thesis!

10
BEAUTIFUL BODIES
Laura Shaine Cunningham

Dramatic

A group of women, friends from college, now in their thirties, are at a

baby shower for one of their number, Claire, who is (mysteriously) preg-
nant. Here, Claire tells the story of how it happened.

CLAIRE: He didn’t comment we just greeted each other like old friends. . . .
The candle burned low . . . we smoked a little grass . . .
. . . and the room seemed all sparkly. The bubbles were irides-
cent; we played with them . . . Then we dried each other off . . . I
have these big, rough towels that feel so good. I heat them on top of
the radiator. . . .
Then we went into the other room . . .(She rises, moves away from
the group, reenacting the memory. Soft to group.) I can’t look at you and
tell you this . . .
Well, I’ll try. (Softer.) Oh I don’t know what happened next . . .
it gets fuzzy . . . I guess he turned on the radio. And I remember say-
ing, “Would you like to dance?” And he said . . . in this really low
voice . . . It was different from his usual one. . . . “Yes I’d like to . . .”
(She looks down, caught in the spell of memory and the
confidence. . . .)
We never did dance. I think we took maybe one step. And that
was it. We just stood there. It was as if we couldn’t wait to start . . .
kissing. I don’t know . . . it seemed . . . momentous . . . but I think
we could still laugh. My knees just went. I started to sink to the floor
and then . . . he whispered it into my hair . . . so low, I couldn’t un-
derstand a word except that he had asked a question . . . “Do you
like . . . something or other?” And I said, “Yes” . . . (Soft laugh.) Ap-
parently I was ready to agree to anything. Maybe he just said . . . “Do
you like me?” (She shakes her head.) I don’t know. . . . Anyway, I re-
member we were kissing . . . and I could feel the bristle on his upper

11
 lip . . . the feel of his cheek against mine. . . . And then, well, it seemed
accidental. Sometimes, it seemed as if we weren’t moving at all . . .
except for the tremble in our arms and then the tremble was inside,
too, and . . . (Her voice drops, she breaks off. Smile.) We fell asleep on
the floor and woke up later. It was very dark. I woke up first and
watched him sleep. He must have somehow felt me watching — he
opened his eyes right away. (Softest.) And I’ll never forget how he
smiled.

12
BINGO BABES
Isabel Duarte

Seriocomic

Mary is in her early forties. She is very bossy, very smart, and lives on
welfare. Here, she is talking to a homeless person (whom we don’t see)
who may be her husband.

MARY: Good afternoon. (Beat.) I said, “Good afternoon!” (She walks around,
observing her surroundings.) It’s almost evening. Shouldn’t you be up?
How about sitting at least? . . .
Just want to make sure it’s you. (Beat.) Don’t get your feathers
ruffled on my account. (Beat.) Fine. Be like that. Pretend I ain’t here,
But I know you can hear me. I saw you stir. . . .
Oh, don’t be mad ’cause I haven’t come in a while. You know
how busy things get sometimes. I got two girls to raise, in case you’ve
forgotten. . . .
Things are great with us, just like always. We’re doing pretty good
all things considered. There’s only a small problem, and who doesn’t
have problems? I wouldn’t even call it a problem; it’s more like a rough
patch. How’s the sandwich? . . .
You’re welcome. (Beat.) Look, I’m a little worried about our kids.
What mother isn’t? But I can’t take it lightly, no way I’m gonna do
that. This is one thing in my life that I got to get right ’cause I’m
done havin’ any more. What’s there for me without my girls? Just Peg.
Unless she keeps going out with Bag of Bones. That’ll kill our friend-
ship, that’s for sure. Her and our girls are all I’ve got in this gigantic
universe, which is more than most people got. But to hear Sharie
talkin’ earlier today, you’d think they hated how I am. What’s not to
like about me? (Beat.) Exactly, but just go ask our girls, and they’ll
come up with somethin’. When did Sharie start getting all those airs
and Jen begin not spendin’ any time at home? When? They got it
into their heads to make me over, and I’m going to let ’em,

13
 otherwise . . . (Beat.) Look, I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to
do this ever again, but I’m going to try one more time. I don’t miss
you so much, but the kids do. I’m way over you, for years now. I ain’t
asking for me. Nope, not at all.
(Mary waits for a response.)
Come back. (Beat.) Think about it for a minute. . . .
Fine with me if you decide to turn down the offer your girls are
making. I don’t care. It’s them you’d be hurting, not me. But if you
do, it’ll be the last time I come here pleading for them, that’s for sure,
so think about that. . . .
The good thing about you coming back home, should you de-
cide to of course, would be that the girls would want to re-do you,
and they’d help you too. I don’t mean no offense, but you’re the one
who needs it more than me anyway. Just come home. We’ll find some
way of helpin’ you. We’ll walk back with our heads held high. Let’s
just walk back. (Beat.) I’m going to give you just a little more time
to mull it over. (Beat.) Just another minute or two.

14
BLACK SHEEP
Lee Blessing

Comic

Elle, a woman thirties to forties, is describing a dream she has had to

Carl, a visitor to her home. Her husband is a movie producer.

ELLE: I had the strangest dream last night. Do you dream? I only have night-
mares. At least, I never remember happy dreams. Last night I dreamt
that Max and I were in the guest house on the floor, and we were —
(Recoiling at the recollection.) Oh, ugh. Oh . . . oh — ugh. Ugh! Why
do we dream, Carl? I mean, why do we? (After a beat.) Max isn’t so
bad. It’s just that he wants to make movies. And he’s rich, so he can
waste his time any way he wants. At first he got his father’s friends
to invest in movies he directed himself. Small budgets — a few mil-
lion, nothing more — but still. They stunk so bad. Not horrendous.
I mean, everybody’s movies stink a little, right? That’s just how movies
are — they stink a little. But his. Really stunk. I should know, I’m in
the business. I was the slutty one in All the President’s Hookers? Did
you see that? Not in prison I guess. Anyhow, by the time I met Max
he was in another end of the industry. We hit it off right away. As
friends, I mean. If he wants to nail me, we’ve gotta be married. I’m
not like the other girls he’s had — I get a ring. I mean, look at all
this shit around here. Wouldn’t you hold out? Max’s family made some
of their money in diamonds. Can you imagine the fucking ring? It’s
gonna happen, too. He really wants to do me. It’s almost funny.

15
BLOWN SIDEWAYS
THROUGH LIFE
Claudia Shear

Comic

Blown Sideways Through Life is an autobiographical one-woman show

in which Ms. Shear describes in hilarious detail her multitude of sub-
sistence jobs. This is one of them.

CLAUDIA: I’m gonna study fencing with Mr. Barta. Advance advance ad-
vance retreat retreat retreat LUNGE. Putting aside the $23.00 I
needed each week from the limp piles of my tip money. When I com-
plained to Mr. Barta about his chronic lateness he said “Please Clau-
dia, don’t make a scenery.” I run from work, my horrible proofreading
cubicle, changing into my tights in the cold corporate toilet, running
for the R to skid into the stinky woody floors of the Clark Center,
the sound of the drums the drummers nodding nodding to the beat
of the drums, the documents forgotten the fluorescent sweating it-
self out of my body as my teacher Charles Moore tells us “You have
to dance like this, like you have a big jewel of your grandma’s right
here and you want everyone to see it” and if you hesitated and looked
around he would say “don’t look at your friends, your friends are
wrong.” Sneaking off the floor of the restaurant, “can you cover the
last two deuces for me I’ve got to go to my French class.” Je dois aller
a la l’ecole. Running to my sanctuary at the Alliance Francaises,
hunched over my exercise books with the ladies who lunch.

16
BLOWN SIDEWAYS
THROUGH LIFE
Claudia Shear

Comic

Blown Sideways Through Life is an autobiographical one-woman show

in which Ms. Shear describes in hilarious detail her multitude of sub-
sistence jobs. This is one of them.

CLAUDIA: I once had a job as a nude model for a painter — not just some
guy, but a great painter — a grand, absolutely eccentric, obsessed
painter — a genius, I think, with the occasional chilling gaze of the
true monomaniac. “Art should have a smell — a smell — because
then if it was bad . . . no one would have it in their house” I was al-
ways whining “C’mon give me a painting” “Give you a painting, give
you a painting, I can’t give you a painting — Do you know how im-
portant a good painting is? Do you know how much a good paint-
ing is worth?” “Well, give me a bad one” “No I can’t do that.” “Why
not?” “Because — the bad ones are my enemies.” Huge sky-lit stu-
dio with jazz on the radio and the whole place filled with this empty
quiet light. It was the absolute safest place I’ve ever been, which is
strange, I guess, considering I was buck naked on a large table piled
with old bedspreads, the muscles in my back all tense and twisted
and being really conscious of being really naked — feeling all breasts
and skin and hair with someone — with a man staring at you that
intently — Paul standing there, brushes in his hand and pockets ab-
solutely still — stare stare stare soft grunt LUNGE PAINTPAINT-
PAINT. It was great. You are actually part of the art as it’s happening —
like being a piano or a toe shoe. And to be beautiful — Oh I really
loved being beautiful, not just pretty like a girl at a table at Raoul’s
wearing a size 6 dress from Barney’s, laughing with her wineglass as
her eyes flicker to see who is watching but beautiful, beautiful like a
woman in a painting.

17
BOOK OF DAYS
Lanford Wilson

Seriocomic

Martha (about fifty), an ex-sixties radical, now teaches at the local col-
lege. She is very sardonic about the legacy of sixties “liberation” and what
the new generation of young people has done with it.

MARTHA: I can’t for the life of me understand what the hell is going on
with these kids today, I just saw a girl walking out of the pharmacy
with her body pierced and stapled in every possible — rows of silver
rings and studs through her lip, her cheek, her eyebrow, on her neck,
her nose, her belly button — You know damn well she’s got one on
her clit . . .
I’d like to see her drop that in a dish at airport security. And I’ll
bet you a dollar she’ll be in my Freshman English Composition class
this fall. Still they’re not as bad as — I swear half my kids don’t know
they’re alive. They live a calm, sexless denial of every human impulse.
What is that? In the sixties we — well the late sixties, we rejoiced in
our bodies, but the option now seems to be between self-mutilation
and total denial of your existence. (Mocking.) And after all the in-
discriminate sex and the endless ingestion of drugs we endured to set
them free. We didn’t put ourselves through those perilous experiments
for ourselves. We did it for them. For our children. And our children’s
children . . .
Good. Slopping barefoot and naked through the rain and mud
at Woodstock. For what? Liberation! To make our country free! And
look at what the Perforated Generation has done with it. I’ve got to
get myself another story. I have thoroughly worn out Woodstock,
haven’t I?

18
BOYS AND GIRLS
Tom Donaghy

Seriocomic

This compelling comedy about same-sex parenting is about two couples:

male/male and female/female. In this monologue Shelly, a woman in her
twenties to thirties, is on the phone with her mother. During the con-
versation, she reveals that her girlfriend has left her.

SHELLY: Hi, Mom, it’s me. I wanted to go over the plans for your trip. I
have the itinerary here. Because I paid for the tickets. I can send you
a copy. It’s just how they do it. It’s just how it’s done and there won’t
be confusion at the airport, no. I’ll send you everything in advance.
You’ll have it on your person. So you’re flying into Rome. No, it’s just
outside the city, it’s — mmm — (She looks.) — it’s called da Vinci,
it’s near the beach and then you — no, you’re staying in the city in
Trastevere. If Daddy wants to bring his bathing suit, fine, but Rome
doesn’t have a beach and the hotel doesn’t have a pool. Should I be
relaying all this to him, instead? Fine. You’re welcome. You don’t have
to keep thanking me. Really, Mom, stop or we’ll have to talk later.
You sent me that jelly as a thank you and I don’t have time for all
this gratitude. And I think — you know what I think? Forget it. No —
you know what I think? It’s some fucked up way of making me feel
guilty somehow for being able to treat you and Dad so well. Just ac-
cept it and be grateful, tell your friends and don’t keep feeling the
need to express this forced gratitude. (She listens.) She’s fine. He’s fine,
he has the sniffles. Well, it’s his birthday soon and then you can come
over. No, he’s on a business trip in Vancouver. He’s been over ex-
tending a bit lately and he’s been gone a lot and — no. We’ve hired
someone. A nice guy who has training. He’s Swiss so he keeps every-
thing running. I know you like Reed, everyone likes Reed, but we
need this professional who’s more consistent. That is what is impor-
tant for a child. (She listens.) Good, so everything’s working out and

19
 you fly into Rome and from there a bus to Umbria. Which is beau-
tiful. It’s where Bev and I — when we first met and we couldn’t af-
ford Tuscany. I was still an associate and Bev was waitressing and we
thought, ok, so not Tuscany, but someday! And then Umbria. So beau-
tiful. How could Tuscany be better? And we thought maybe we found
a, uh, new place. A new way. To do things. Based on disappointment.
Which sets you off to someplace . . . unimagined . . . and — and —
and — she’s left me, Mom. She took Georgie. We were at the beach.
I don’t know what I’ve done. I yelled at Reed but I don’t — I don’t
think that’s it. It’s been . . . I don’t know what to do — we haven’t
been sleeping together and — what do I do? Mom? Mommy? (She
listens.) Uhuh. Uhuh. Uhuh. Okay. No, okay. Okay, sure. Then —
have a good trip. No, we don’t need to talk before you go. I’ll have
Sonia send you all the info. She’s my new assistant. She puts up with
me, but I think it’s cause I pay her. I just wanted everything you had
with Daddy. That’s all. Okay. Send him my love. And — and — to
you too.

20
CONTROL FREAKS
Beth Henley

Comic

Sister Willard is a classic, eccentric “Henley-esque” character. She has what

might be called (indeed is) Multiple Personality Disorder. She is about
thirty. In this monologue, “SP” is Spaghetti, one of her other personal-
ities. “P” is another, named Pinkie. Sister has no knowledge of Spaghetti
or Pinkie. Pinkie is aware of Spaghetti, who knows all about Pinkie and
Sister. Quite a challenge, eh?

SISTER: (Sister/Spaghetti/Pinkie.) [SIS] Where’s my face? Where’s my face?

What have they done with my face? I can’t stand around here with-
out a face that is not going to work, everything must work, let it work
out. Please, I am begging you. Drench, drench. “Can’t you straighten
up and fly right?!” Fly — fly — / (Sister races to the window. The noise
from the shake machine stops.) [SP] I fell out a window. I fell out a win-
dow. I wanted to fall and crack open my skull./ [P] What would be
inside? Oh, such surprises: tangerines, necklaces that sparkle, gold
teeth, fine ribbon, chocolate wrapped in red foil. All my brains are
treasures. How wonderful what I see. I could weep with joy. Rain-
bow tears drift from the window. It’s an outrage. Who will catch the
tears? No one is below; I am crying colored tears and no one is
below . . . I smell something. Something bad./ [SP] You don’t./ [P] I
can’t help it, I do. I have to tell the truth. To thine own self be true./
[SP] I don’t think so./ [P] I do./ [SP] Yeah? Well, you’ve never once
gotten up and braved the light of day without lying your whole heart
out. You tell yourself, I’m not gonna die; what I do is important; my
life is good; I’m gonna have a nice day. Ah, ah, ah! That’s better. Now
I can rise to my feet soaked in the cum of canards and meet the day.
Hello, day! Tweet, tweet. The birdies are chirping./ [P] Ooh, aren’t
those baby birdies sweet?!/ [SP] I’d like to snap their scrawny necks.

21
CONTROL FREAKS
Beth Henley

Comic

Sister Willard is a classic, eccentric “Henley-esque” character. She has what

might be called (indeed is) Multiple Personality Disorder. She is about
thirty. In this monologue, “SP” is Spaghetti, one of her other personal-
ities. “P” is another, named Pinkie. Sister has no knowledge of Spaghetti
or Pinkie. Pinkie is aware of Spaghetti, who knows all about Pinkie and
Sister. Quite a challenge, eh?

Sister: (Spaghetti/Pinkie.) [SP] I gotta be careful. I gotta watch my mouth.

Speaking in evil./ (She slaps herself.) [P] Don’t hit me!/ [SP] Shut up!
I will if I want to!/ (She slaps herself and pulls at her hair.) [P] Ow!
Ow! Ow! Stop it! You’re hurting me./ [SP] Then, shut up. (She stops
beating herself and sighs with exhaustion — as Sister.) Oh goodness.
Goodness. (Tiptoeing around the yard.) I don’t know who I am any-
more. There’s this real sense I am lost. I have gotten lost. The path
has disappeared and the berries have been eaten by the wren. I’m out
here all alone and I can’t even call because I don’t know what name
to call. Who would come and get me? What is I called for them and
I called and then I was forsaken. (The shrieking sound of cats howling
blares across the sky.) [SIS] My cats! Where are you? I hear you. Garfield?
Plums? (Sister discovers her two fat cats crammed in a tiny cage hidden
between the bushes.) Oh, there you are! Why, they’ve caged you up.
Put you in a cage. Not to worry. Cages can be good. You have bars.
Something to hold on to. Solid. You’re not lost. You’re there in the
cage. People can watch you. But they can’t touch. They may throw
peanuts. Peanuts can hurt. But they can’t kill. If you’re in the cage.
Good kitties. Good kitties. (Sister returns the cats and goes to check her
soggy underpants.) Still wet. Dripping wet. I can’t wear pants that are
this wet. Dry, will you . . . I gotta doll up. I’m setting my cap for the
guest. Carl’ll be proud of me. He’ll see I’m really good-looking. He’ll
see I can get a man.
22
CRUISING CLOSE
TO CRAZY
Laura Shaine Cunningham

Dramatic

Carolee is a country singer (age flexible). Here, she is confiding to her-

self and to the spirits in the room.

CAROLEE: (Speaking nonstop, with broken energy.) My mouth’s so dry, I can’t

talk. (Accelerating.) Nine times in the hospital this year. Nodes. Ain’t
suppose to sing, that’s how come I’m on the road, doing two shows
a night, in thirty-six cities. I got letters from doctors all over the world,
say, “Carolee, don’t sing, don’t speak, don’t even open your mouth.”
There’s one doctor so big, he’s too big for the Mayo Clinic, that’s how
big he is, took one look down my throat, and said, “Don’t even open
your mouth for a year, Carolee, don’t speak, even to me.” (Pause.) So
I kind of nodded at him, then went right back on the road, I can’t
do my people that way. God respects you when you work, but He
loves you when you sing. (She roots through the piled bedding.) Where’s
my nerve pills? (She finds a baggie, pops a pill.) I thank God, I’m not
on dope. (She swallows a few more pills.) This is just Percodan, for my
back. (She takes another one.) Clears your head real good, too. I just
had a sharp thought. (She blinks.) It was passing through. (She shakes
her head, woozy.) Well, it’ll come back. Always do. (She gropes along
the vanity shelf, accidentally knocks off one Styrofoam head.) Didn’t like
that one much, anyway — I had another kind of nerve pill, it was
better than most. It was the only one could stop my bad dreaming.
(She squints at audience.) You ever dream you were dead? And it was
so real, you was surprised to find you wasn’t? Only you wake up, it
ain’t that different? (She shivers.) I have been having dreams so bad,
I can’t sleep. I’m afraid to put down my head, that’s the truth. (Shud-
der.) I was wearing my violet dress, I was in a wine-color coffin, in a

23
 wine-color room. Everybody in the business come pay their respects.
They was all around me, whispering, “Oh ain’t it sad, don’t she look
sweet?” But they was drinking beer and eating chicken legs, too. Earl
Wayne. Norbie. The Duker . . . Honey Bascomb. They was all there,
saying how great I was, but it was a bunch of bull. They were all just
thinking — “Now, she’s dead, even her old albums will sell.” (Thought-
ful.) Well, it worked for Elvis. He gone gold. (Sigh.)
I had to lie there, listening to all their bull, like they wasn’t the
ones put me right where I was. And they were saying, (Imitation sim-
per.) “Oh, don’t she look beautiful, ain’t she finally at peace.” Mean-
while, they got the new album piled up outside the funeral home door.
Too bad I can’t get out of my coffin and sign them. And you know,
the entire time, the entire time, I’m just laying there, waiting for him
to come in. (She squints at the audience.) And you know which one.
There’s only one ever really makes you crazy. Oh, there’s some can
get you going, make you a little nuts, but there’s only one, can kill
you. And don’t you know? He don’t even show. He done me dead
like he done me alive. (Angry.) And now they want me standing next
to him in the auditorium lined up with all a them, so we can be the
Cavalcade of Fools . . . I can just see it. Him and me, crowned fools
of country music, salutin’ to our own stupidity. Winding up with
Amazin’ Grace. (Croaking lyrics.) “Oh, I’ll fly away . . .” (Bitter.) I’ll
fly away, all right. I’ve flown. (She shudders.) I’m dying. This old bus
is going to be my hearse. I’m dying, and there’s nobody to care.

24
THE DEAD EYE BOY
Angus MacLachlan

Dramatic

Shirley is a “trailer trash” woman in her twenties with a possibly retarded

son she had when she was fourteen and an abusive boyfriend. She is a
drug addict and alcoholic. Here, she is doing the best she can to pray.

Shirley sits alone, talking softly, casually.

SHIRLEY: Thanks. Thanks. (She giggles.) That’s all I can think of to — just —
it’s such a gift, God, I don’t know what I’ve done — but — thank
you. (She takes a few breaths.) Hmm. I’ve been thinking of Mr. Pee-
bles. He needs help, man, really. He’s been such a bastard to me. I
know he hates women. I know he hates me. But I got to learn to keep
my mouth shut around him so I don’t lose this job, you know. So, if
you could — I got to stop contradicting him in front of the customers.
Even when he’s completely fucking wrong and stupid and I know he’d
make a better deal if he listened to me. — But I’m just the recep-
tionist so — what do I know . . . But — if you could give him some
wisdom. Or insight. You know? That would be good. And me a longer
fuse. That would be really good. ’Cause — I don’t want to blow it,
you know — But he is such an asshole. (She pauses.) — Any of it.
Umn. Can you — Can you — Um, just help me to believe in all this
shit/stuff? More? Like . . . love. (She giggles softly.) You know. What
Billy sees. You know? What my life could be. What it is, right now.
All of it. ’Cause — you know I am, man. I’ll be going along OK,
kind of wobbly but pretty good, and then — bam — it’s gonna creep
up out of the basement and come up on me. This — thing — in me.
And I — I really — I just want to get rid of it. I do. Kill it. ’Cause
it’s a motherfucker. God. (She stops.) So, what do I do? God? When
it comes on. The voice. That crap. It’s so ugly, and weak and — fa-
miliar. So — familiar — How can I change it? What do I do? I — I

25
 just feel like I’m — I know I’m “powerless over people, places and
things” — I just — I need your help, OK? OK? Just — expand me.
Expand my — heart. Tear it open. Go ahead. Just give me real
strength — Not this bitch crap but — real. ’Cause I’m — I’m so —
I’m just so afraid . . . it’s going to — Just — What I want is — make
me better. You know? Keep me going. Keep the door closed. Keep
the dead dead. (She pauses. Softly.) For Billy. God. For my man. Who
loves me. (She breaks down.) Don’t let anything fuck it up. (She stops
herself crying.) I’m just . . . scared I’m going to — That, you know,
it’s all just an illusion and he’s really gonna get to know us and it won’t
be what he thinks we are and he won’t like what he sees when he sees
us, just like every other fucking man I ever brought — Fuck. (She
pauses.) Make us clean. (She stops.) I’m so grateful, God. Thank you.
I just want to believe in the good Shirley-Diane. The one he loves.
That I don’t even trust is there. ’Cause — God — I’m happy. (She
stops and laughs.) Don’t let any of us fuck it up. Anyone. Especially
me. But. Anyone . . . OK? OK? OK. OK, man. Over and out. I love
you. (She smiles, crosses herself like a Protestant who’s seen it in movies,
bops up, and goes.)

26
THE DEAD EYE BOY
Angus MacLachlan

Dramatic

Shirley is a twenty-three-year-old “trailer trash” woman with a nine-year-

old son named Soren, to whom this horrifying monologue is addressed.
She is very high and very drunk, and she slurs her words.

SHIRLEY: What do you do? Think. . . . Something spilled. Think. . . . No!

Not your shirt. Something spilled. Think. . . . It’s wet! . . . God. You
use a paper towel. . . . Why do I even have to even tell you? . . . What
are you — Don’t use the sponge you clean the dishes with on the dirty
floor. Think! Are you retarded? My God, Soren, are you a retard? (She
giggles.) Do I need to take you to have your head examined? You’re
nine years old. . . .
You’re not a baby. Oh — get up. Do I have to show you? Do I
have to take you by the hand? Do I have to show you how? Like you
were a baby? Come here. Come on. (She takes him and drags him in
the kitchen and stands in the doorway, pushing him in.) Get it. . . . Just
a couple. Rewind it. You got to think of trees. Soren. You know, they
have feelings, man. And when they, when we kill all the trees, there
won’t be no air. And you’ll kill everyone on this planet. You want that?
What’s wrong with you? Now wet one. One. One. . . . You’re splash-
ing all over! Wipe that up now. . . . You know I got this job inter-
view. You start this on purpose. You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t
you? You’re torturing me on purpose. . . . Come on. Grab up those
others now you pulled them off the — Think of the trees! Have some
consideration for life, will you?! (She jerks him by the arm back to the
spill.) Get down! (She kneels down over him like two wrestlers ready for
a match.) What do you do now? . . . SOREN! Use what God gave
you! You’re not a vegetable! You’ve got a brain. Use it. You’re not an
idiot. What’s wrong with you? What is the matter! Goddamnit. Wipe
it. (She bends over him and wipes with him. They almost look like two

27
 dogs humping — Shirley over him, on him.) Get. It. All. I’ve got to
show you how to wipe up a spill? I’m supposed to be there by — Fuck,
I’m telling you — no more Nestle’s Quik. Ever. Never again. Never!
Ever! Ever, ever! Over there — get it all, or it’ll be sticky and draw
ants. You want that? You want to live with ants crawling in your bed?
You’ll fall asleep and they’ll get in your ears and eat your eardrums
and crawl up in your head and eat your brain out. I had a friend that
happened to — she was . . . (She pulls him up.) Are you smiling at
something I said? Goddamnit, I’ll wring your fucking neck. What
did I say? . . . I was making sense, wasn’t I? Come on. Fuck. What
did I — Wasn’t I? (She jerks him around to face her, then she shrieks.)
Oh shit! Oh no. Goddamnit! You just got it on me! (She throws the
paper towels down and stands.) There’s a spot on my fucking skirt! I
got a spot! There’s a spot. I got a spot. Hand me that — I got noth-
ing else sexy to wear! . . . Don’t! Stop it. Why are you doing this? (She
bursts into tears.) Why did I — I’m so stupid stupid! (She grabs him
and shakes him over and over.) Why do you hate me? You’re a monster!

28
THE DYING GAUL
Craig Lucas

Dramatic

Elaine, a woman in her thirties, directly addresses the audience about

a problem in her marriage.

ELAINE: The screening turns out to be surprisingly interesting, a project

Jeffrey fought for under the old head of production — and the scores
are good, and we all ride back together and laugh and celebrate our
new friendship and their joint project, and after we drop Robert off,
after we get back and put the children to bed and Jeffrey and I have
made love, he was unbelievably excited. Jesus, it’s . . . it’s a little . . .
well, it’s new having him enthusiastic about . . . another human
being . . . not just sex, I mean, but . . . and it’s another, possibly one
more part of his life I won’t get to share in. Oh, I know Jeff likes men.
And I’ve never minded what doesn’t threaten . . . us. But . . . the way
he kissed me . . . just now . . . I have to find some way in, a means
to join in whatever it is they . . . have or don’t have . . . A way — . . .
Well, I don’t have to decide what it is I’m going to be exactly, do I?
I find my little online manual . . . with the house dark and all of the
valley stretched out and flickering like phosphorescent fish, the tiny
lights on the sound system and the fax machine, the security system,
the pool, the walkways, all the faint glowing electric underpinnings
of our lives which hint at the excitement I feel as I figure out how to
make up a new screen name . . . and sign on now as: (Types into her
laptop.) Skinflute7. Profile: “33. Venice Beach. Landscape architect.”
Find my way to Men4MenParkBench. I know he has to have a more
salacious moniker than Rob131, but is it one of these? MrThick: Med-
ical professional. HornyZack: Favorite quote: “If I blow your mind,
you have to promise not to think in my mouth.” I don’t think so.

29
FROZEN STARS
David Matthew Barnes

Dramatic

Amy, twenty-two, is a college student who is desperately in love with a

self-destructive man. Here, she is telling the concerned mother of her
boyfriend why she is so worried about her son’s dangerous behavior.

AMY: What am I supposed to do? I know he’s in trouble. And he won’t

stop. I told him once that he was the man I wanted to spend the rest
of my life with — and it’s true. He’s different than anyone I have ever
known. The guys I went out with before were all about money and
their cars and how much their daddy did for them. I didn’t want dan-
ger, but I wanted something more. My friends think I’m crazy for
going out with Carlos. They don’t understand it. To them, they just
see a Mexican, a drug dealer, a thug. But Carlos is good to me. He’s
just really messed up right now. And I’m scared. I’m scared of the fight-
ing and the drugs and the guns and the sound of Carlos crying when
he thinks I’m asleep. I keep thinking about what I would do if he got
killed. That’s why I’m coming to you, Gloria. You’re his mother. I need
your help. If we don’t save him — Why is it so difficult for him to
see beyond all of this? Okay, so he doesn’t want to be some corpo-
rate guy in a tie. I’m fine with that. But he’s so much better than all
of this. He’s so smart. He just doesn’t believe in himself. He doesn’t
believe me when I look at him and I tell him that I love him. He just
thinks I’m some crazy white girl who felt sorry for him. But I’m telling
you, Gloria, I love Carlos more than anything or anyone in this world
and I don’t want him to die. I need you to help me. For me. For
him . . . and for my baby. I don’t want to be a widow, Gloria. I just
want to be in love.

30
FROZEN STARS
David Matthew Barnes

Dramatic

Lisa is an eighteen-year-old woman: intelligent, articulate, ambitious,

and emotionally strong. Here, she is in a Mexican restaurant telling her
boyfriend Eddie why she is so determined to go away to college, despite
his objections.

LISA: You’re wrong! I’m fucking scared! I don’t wanna end up like my
mother. I see her face every day of my life and it makes me sick in-
side. I just look at her and I see my future. If I stay here, she is what
I will become. She hates her life, because she never had one. There’s
nothing left of my mother but a broken heart. Esta muerto! She mar-
ried my father because she didn’t have a choice. But I do! I’m getting
the fuck outta here, while I still can — and if you can’t understand
that, then it’s your own damn fault! No man is going to hold me back
from what I want — not now, not ever! Chances like this — they
don’t come along every day for a girl like me. Look at where I come
from! Look at my family! My brother is either locked up or fighting
in the streets! My mother has to clean houses for the rest of her life!
My father can’t even read and he hates the world! I’m not going out
like that! I don’t want to be a fucking statistic! . . . I never wanted to
hurt you. Believe me. I love you, Eddie Cervantes. I wouldn’t have
the courage to do this without the faith you put in me. But I need
you to understand this.

31
FROZEN STARS
David Matthew Barnes

Dramatic

Miss Carlisle (twenty-eight) is a high school guidance counselor who truly

cares about her students. Here, at a women’s medical clinic, she tells one
of her female students about her past.

MISS CARLISLE: It’s going to be okay, Lisa. I’ll be right here when you get
back. You won’t be alone — not like I was. The smell of this place
reminds me of when I was here. I was three years younger than you,
but just as ambitious. I was fifteen and I got pregnant — by my
brother’s best friend. His name was Freddie and he had the cutest dim-
ples I had ever seen. His front tooth was chipped and he was a little
shorter than me, but that didn’t matter. What mattered is that I had
a boyfriend. That finally, somebody had picked me and I felt special.
He made me feel beautiful and I had never felt that way before. He
worked at an ice cream parlor by our house. He used to bring me
blueberry milkshakes. Everyday after work, he’d come over to our
house. I used to watch from my bedroom window upstairs. I would
sit there and wait until I saw him walking up my driveway. And he
always had a blueberry milkshake, wrapped up in a brown paper bag
for me. Things got crazy because the first time we had sex, I got preg-
nant — what luck. Freddie wanted to marry me, because he felt it
was the right thing to do, but I didn’t love him. I didn’t love any-
body — I was only fifteen. My mother was there for me through the
whole pregnancy. She convinced me that giving the baby up for adop-
tion was the best decision. I can’t say that I regret it. I mean, I was
so young and there was so much that I wanted to do. I didn’t want
to spend the rest of my life in the ghetto. So I gave the baby away. I
never even saw her. But I heard her cry. In fact, sometimes . . . I still
hear it . . . the sound of my baby crying.

32
GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER,
DO!
Brian Friel

Dramatic

Daisy, a woman in her early forties with a severely retarded daughter,

is here talking about an offer her cash-strapped novelist husband has had
for his manuscripts from an American university.

DAISY: Oh, no, he mustn’t sell. Of course he mustn’t sell. There are rea-
sons why he wants to sell and those reasons are valid reasons and un-
derstandable and very persuasive. A better place for Bridget. Escape
from the tyranny of those daily bills and the quick liberation that
would offer. Maybe a house with just a little comfort. And if David’s
offer is as large as he suggests, then of course the most persuasive rea-
son of all: the work has value — yes, yes, yes! Here is the substantial
confirmation, the tangible evidence! The work must be good! I’m not
imprisoned in the dark anymore! Now I can run again! Now I can
dare again! (Pause.)
Yes, it is so very persuasive. I convinced myself I believed in all
those arguments, too — I think because I knew they were so attrac-
tive, almost irresistible, to him. But we were both deluded. Indeed
we were. A better place for Bridget? But Bridget is beyond knowing,
isn’t she? And somehow, somehow bills will always be met. And what
does a little physical discomfort matter? Really not a lot. But to sell
for an affirmation, for an answer, to be free of that grinding uncer-
tainty, that would be so wrong for him and so wrong for his work.
Because that uncertainty is necessary. He must live with that uncer-
tainty, that necessary uncertainty. Because there can be no verdicts,
no answers. Indeed there must be no verdicts. Because being alive is
the postponement of verdicts, isn’t it? Because verdicts are provided
only when it’s all over, all concluded.

33
 Of course he mustn’t sell.
And now I’m going to pour myself a little gin. And only half an
hour ago I made a secret vow to give up gin forever and ever and to
switch to health-giving red wine But there you are — the road to
hell — touch of a slut — and so we stagger on — . . . To the Nec-
essary Uncertainty.

34
HOMECOMING
Lauren Weedman

Dramatic

Homecoming is a one-woman play in which the actress plays several

different roles. Here Lauren, a teenaged girl, is talking to her adoptive
mother, Sharon, about who her birth mother might have been.

LAUREN: I wanted to ask you about my real mom. . . . There! That was
easy! . . .
No, you know what I’m talking about. And, I’m not asking be-
cause it’s some like, big huge, like trauma for me or something. It’s
not that. Because if anything, mom . . . I’m proud of it. You know,
like in school, when we come back from summer vacation . . . and
the teacher asks everybody, “So, what’d you do over your vacation?”
I’m always like, “I’m adopted.” And everybody goes “oh my god,
adopted girl.” “Can I borrow your pencil adopted girl?” So, it’s not
that it’s some big . . . it’s just that um, it’s just that I um . . . I don’t
know what I look like. Ya know what I mean? It’s like every time I
see a picture of myself I look like this big white squish. And, well,
people at school keep asking me about it. Like, like, like Wendy and
Grandma. Grandma said you tried to get my medical records for me
because you were scared I was inbred or something like that. So, ya
know, have you found those? Or maybe a picture of my birth mother
somewhere. Um, that you hadn’t given me. And mom . . . mom . . .
if you did have a picture somewhere — I wouldn’t obsess it or any-
thing. If that’s what you’re scared about. I won’t always be walking
around, all the time, thinking like, oh my God, there she is. Or build-
ing a shrine around her or something . . . I’d just like to have it to
have in a drawer someplace, just to look at once in a while. It’d be
no big deal. I just think that whatever information you have, I’d, I’d,
I’d like to know it. Okay? So whatever you know, I think I’m ready.

35
HOMECOMING
Lauren Weedman

Comic

Homecoming is a one-woman play in which the actress plays several

different roles. Here Lisa, a teenager, is talking to her sister, Lauren who,
apparently, has serious identity issues and packs a few pounds.

LISA: Lauren, how did you get into Black Student Union? Don’t you have
to be black? Well, do they know you go to Hebrew School? And they
don’t care?
Listen, I just wanted to tell you that if you decide that you’re
going to search for your real, um your, um birth-biological-whatever
I don’t know what you call them. Okay! I just hope you’re not doing
this because of what Grandma says. Because she’s crazy, Lauren! Yes
she is. She tied mom to a tree.
I don’t know if I ever told you this or not, but for a long time I
thought you were like a foster child that was just staying with us for
a while until your family came and got you? And when I found out
that you were really my sister, and you were staying, I was so happy.
Okay? And that’s always how I felt about you. So whatever you de-
cide . . .
Is that my sweater? Is it?!! You’re not to wear my things. No, you
are not! Will you take that off please, fold it and put it outside my
door. And fold it nicely. Arms crossing, like this.
(Begins to weep.) I love you. Okay? And that’s what I wanted to
tell you. So, you need to hurry up and change your clothes, because
mom’s waiting downstairs to take you to Weight Watchers.

36
JAR THE FLOOR
Cheryl L. West

Dramatic

Raisa, thirty, is the only white character in this drama about four gen-
erations of black women. Here, she is talking to Madear, the great grand-
mother of her friend Vennie, to whom she reveals that she has cancer.

RAISA:I hear it Mrs. Dawkins but you know how I keep it at bay? Every-
day I go to Europe, in my mind. I’m buying me some mean Italian
shoes and I’m sitting in one of those little cafes all day philosophiz-
ing, smoking cigarettes, drinking exotic coffees and wines. You wanna
hear today’s trip? . . . Okay, I’m sitting outside a little café and I’m
wearing a black beret, kind of cocked to the side with a big diamond
butterfly pen right in the middle. I used to dream in zirconia, but
these days this girl’s dreaming in diamonds. Anyway, I got this huge
diamond right smack in the middle of my beret. I’m a beacon of rain-
bow color. You picturing me now, aren’t you? . . . Okay, so I got this
brilliant light radiating off my forehead. It’s just about blinding to
anybody who comes within a hundred feet. So of course everybody
has to stop and ask, where’d you get such a magnificent pin? And I
laugh oh so haughtily . . . (Demonstrates her auteur laugh and accent.)
“Oh this ol’ thing . . . well darlings, it’s just my latest creation.” And
they’re speechless, utterly, utterly entranced with me as they move
closer, . . . their eyes scanning my body, up and down, left to right,
head to toe and they’re transformed. Yes, you can see it on their faces.
Did I happen to mention except for the body paint, I’m stark naked
while all this is going on? (Raisa laughs . . . ) Oh yes, and then the
clapping starts. It’s feverish with excitement. (Clapping her hands to
demonstrate.) Magnifico! Magnifico! I think that’s how you say it but
anyway, they’re throwing flowers at my feet. It’s unanimous. They have
declared me a work of art. Raisa Krementz’s body is a work of art!
(Touches the place of her missing breast.) Even here. (Beat.) God, I wanna

37
 go. I really, really wanna go. I can almost taste it. Even it’s only for a
day. (Beat.) They found a new spot on my liver. The doctors said it’s
chemo time, but I said no, it’s Raisa’s time and Raisa’s not in the mood
to share a second of it with chemo . . . not now. I just want to get
away, to have a piece of my dream before it’s too late.

38
JAR THE FLOOR
Cheryl L. West

Dramatic

This is a play about four generations of black women. In this monologue

Maydee, a woman in her mid-forties, is chastising her daughter,
Vennie.

MAYDEE: Bullshit Vennie! Six years and three schools later, you still haven’t
finished. You don’t like the teachers . . . you don’t like the school . . .
you don’t like their politics . . . so you just up and quit. One semes-
ter left and you quit. Again! Just like you do every job, every apart-
ment . . . What do you have to show for my thirty-five thousand two
hundred and thirty something dollars? . . . Nothing! No paper. No
graduation. No skills. Nothing! Your damn dream! Well, if you’re
going to Europe, baby, you’re going on a wing and a prayer because
your behind’s not getting another dime from me. You got some kind
of gall even asking . . . This was supposed to be my day and you
wouldn’t even let me have that. My entire family was supposed to be
here to support me. Me! You do understand the meaning of that word,
don’t you? The one moment in my entire sorry life that I’ve been
happy and you robbed me of even that. Just snatched it away with
another one of your simple-ass whims to get my money. Well I’m not
letting you rob me of another damn thing, Vennie. You hear that?
Did you give one thought to me or your great-grandmother who’s
turning ninety today . . . bringing her a bag of damn dirt. Did you
really think some cheap ass T-shirts and some half-dead weeds were
enough to seal the deal . . . ? And what was Raisa for, your poster
child?

39
THE LAST CARBURETOR
Leon Chase

Dramatic

Karen, in her late twenties, is a former physics student who recently

dropped out of graduate school. Now she works full-time as a waitress
in a truck stop near her hometown in southeast Michigan. Keith, her
former lover who left nearly a decade earlier for California, has unex-
pectedly shown up at the truck stop. At this point, the two have sat down
and begun to get reacquainted, and Karen is attempting to explain why
she quit school.

KAREN: (Snickering.) You wanna talk about the big picture? One night, a
couple winters ago. It was snowing. I was out getting coffee with a
bunch of people from my department. Serious quantum mechanics
geeks. And let’s be honest, Keith, none of these people grew up on
our side of town. You know what I mean. Expensive lattes and shit.
So we’re there, and we’re all sitting by the window, going off about
what we thought about this presentation on theoretical black mat-
ter. Everybody’s going out of their way to be real important, you know,
all talking over each other. And I look outside, and right in front of
us, on the other side of the big window, is this woman. Could be
thirty, could be sixty. Obviously homeless. She’s got on this pink coat,
all dirty, and some kind of scarf on her head. Bags by her feet. She’s
just standing there in the snow. And she’s screaming. I don’t mean
just like begging. I mean she’s screaming, out loud. I realize that the
people with me, inside, notice her too, but they’re trying hard not to
look. They’re going along with this conversation, you know, staying
really involved in this argument. Because nobody knows how to deal
with a nontheoretical, live screaming human. I tried to look away. I
mean, I really tried to focus and make myself forget about it. But all
I could think was how stupid we sounded. After that, I just couldn’t
buy it anymore. I can’t explain it. I just couldn’t . . . I couldn’t be-
lieve in it.
40
LIMONADE TOUS LES JOURS
Charles L. Mee

Dramatic

Jacquelyn, a charming and lovely French woman in her twenties to thir-

ties, is talking to Andrew, a middle-aged American man with whom she
is having a romance. We are in Paris.

JACQUELYN: Oh, no, he’s much too old for me. . . .

I think he’s forty. . . .
You can understand. . . .
I mean, not that I have anything against older men
quite the opposite in a way
only I was married to an older man
and he took such a patriarchal position
and then I
I found I liked it
I invited it
so we had almost a sado-masochistic relationship
which I found I just loved
he had other lovers
he treated me like dirt
he wanted always to handcuff me to the bed
and it seems I not only fell into a sort of dependent role
but I had sought it all along
so now
I’m trying to go straight
you know
grow up
have a relationship with another grown-up person
as a grown-up person
if I have any relationship at all
and at the moment I don’t have one at all

41
 and don’t want one
because I’m still recovering
and you? . . .
I don’t know.
Maybe this is not the place to forget about love. . . .
Or else maybe it’s a nice place to remember how it is to be alone
and to be starting out in a new world
where anything could be possible again
where you don’t know what might happen next . . .
Because when you come to the end
you need to get back on the horse . . .
I have moved into a new place
which I love.
Of course, I am very lonely
because after you live with someone
you are used to not being alone
even if you hate him and he is disgusting
and picks nothing up from the floor
so that even when you get out of bed in the morning
you slide on a pile of magazines and fall to the floor
and hit your head on the edge of the bed.
But my new place,
it is all mine.
Very simple.
I have a fireplace
a shaded lamp
a box of stationery
a lounge with a mess of cushions of all sizes
a very simple bed in a separate room
and of course my coffee table
made from an old pheasant trap.
Do you now what a pheasant trap is? . . .
No, neither do I.
It looks like a large
what would you say?
A footlocker

42
two footlockers together
but made of wood
with little bars, like a wooden bird cage
where you can keep your pheasants
I don’t know why
maybe to keep them there
until you set them loose so you can shoot them
I don’t know.

And then that delicious feeling of being alone

when you are alone in your new home
and lonely
that feeling that feels sometimes like soaring freedom
at other times like retribution almost,
do you know?
You are being punished for what you did wrong
or didn’t do quite right
and sometimes it is a heavy crushing feeling
that makes you want to hit your head against the wall.
So you are looking for a young woman
half your age?

43
LIMONADE TOUS LES JOURS
Charles L. Mee

Dramatic

Jacquelyn, a charming and lovely French woman in her twenties to thir-

ties, is talking to Andrew, a middle-aged American man with whom she
is having a romance. We are in Paris.

JACQUELYN: The thing is

when I was a girl
my father was dying of alcoholism
and my mother took me away from him
and married another man
and I grew up without my father
missing him
so that when he died
I ran way from home
and I lived in a car parked next to his grave
and mourned for him and missed him

but when you think this might be an explanation for things

that happened later in my life
you can always think of one or two or three big reasons for anything
you do
and then probably you have a hundred little reasons
you can’t even remember them all
but they come back to you
in different clusters
so that finally you have so many explanations for things
you can’t know anymore what is true
and your own inner self
like the inner selves of everyone else
just remains a mystery.

44
Sometimes a woman will want the love of an older man
she is captivated by an older man
she wants to be a daddy’s girl
this is so common
you might almost consider it normal
even though it’s wrong.

One time when I was nineteen years old

riding home in a cab with an older man
I found myself begging him to kiss me.

45
L-PLAY
Beth Henley

Seriocomic

Shelly, a woman in her twenties, is in a bar talking to Wes (about her

age). The Ben she mentions is an older man who’s her boyfriend. Little
does she know that Ben has “bestowed” her on Wes.

SHELLY: Don’t tell anybody, but Ben made this pie, a lemon ice-box pie,
and I think he squeezed in too many lemons or didn’t remember how
many eggs, because overnight it didn’t gel. It just stayed real liquidy.
And I said don’t worry, we’ll just say it’s custard; but he said it’s sup-
posed to be a pie. So we went on and took it to the Rodeo Picnic
and set it out on the dessert table, and nobody ate it. I should of gone
by and taken some pieces just to be nice, but there were all these other
really good desserts: cherry cobbler, fudge brownies, homemade ice
cream. At the Women’s Crisis Center, they try to teach you it’s health-
ier not to pretend to eat pie and secretly sling it in a trash barrel just
to make somebody like you. But I think I’d be happier if Ben wasn’t
mad at me and I didn’t feel like I was awfully mean and selfish not
to even go by and take one piece of his pie. He worked hard making
it. He wanted it to turn out good. It broke my heart because he pre-
tended like it didn’t matter when he came back and found out his
was the only dessert on the whole table no one had even touched.
I’m sorry I was talking fast. I been eating candy; I better shut up.

46
LOOKING FOR NORMAL
Jane Anderson

Comic

Patty Ann is a teenager, speaking in her sex-ed class.

Lights up on Patty Ann standing in front of a medical chart showing a

cutaway of the female reproductive organs.

PATTY ANN: This is what happens when the female body matures. At around
age twelve — younger if you’ve been drinking milk from chemically
treated cows — your glands start pumping estrogen into your body
which is what makes your breasts develop and hair grow in disturb-
ing places. And your ovaries — which are here — get bigger and big-
ger and the follicles inside them start to swell until one of the pops
like a water balloon and drops an egg into the fallopian tube. In the
meantime, your uterus — here — is swelling up like a big bloody
sponge, getting ready for the egg to drop. And if there’s sperm in there
when it happens, the egg gets fertilized and it sticks to the lining of
the uterus like a burr on a sock and there’s no frigging way you’ll ever
be able to shake it off. But if you’re still a virgin, then the egg keeps
going and the uterus says, “Okay, nothing going on, don’t need this,”
and it lets go of the lining and all this blood starts pouring out of
your crotch along with mucous and big hunks of dead tissue. And
you have to wear a sanitary napkin so you don’t have all this stuff run-
ning down your leg and if you don’t change the napkin often enough
it starts to stink like bad meat and everyone will know you’re having
your period. Along with that you can get cramps, headaches, diar-
rhea, hideous bloating and hundreds of pus-filled zits breaking out
across your face. You can also get depressed, paranoid, and so com-
pletely strung out that you start weeping uncontrollably in public
places. Some girls love getting their periods, it’s like, “Oh, I’m a woman
now, aren’t I special.” This doesn’t interest me. I wish I were a guy.

47
 When guys mature, they get muscles. They get meaner and leaner
while we get these big blobby boobs and butts that bounce around
and weigh us down. I’ve been told that it’s possible to delay sexual
development. For instance, girls who are competitive gymnasts or bal-
let dancers don’t get their periods until they’re nineteen or twenty.
Our P.E. teacher says that what happens to these girls’ bodies is ab-
normal. Me, I think it’s a frigging miracle.

48
MONTHS ON END
Craig Pospisil

Comic

Heidi, twenty-two, is giving a college commencement address. For your

purposes, though, she could be eighteen and delivering a high school com-
mencement address.

MAY

“Pomp and Circumstance” plays as the lights come up, and Heidi, a nerv-
ous young woman wearing a black graduation robe, enters and crosses to
a podium. She carries a small stack of three-by-five note cards, which she
refers to as she speaks.

HEIDI:Welcome. Welcome friends and family, welcome to our teachers . . .

and welcome to our parents. (Slight pause.) The day has finally come.
The day this graduating class has been working toward for so many
years of hard study. And I think I speak for my entire generation when
I say . . . thank you. (Slight pause.) Thank you to our parents. The
people who lit the way. Who loved us and nurtured us. And who now
cheer us on as we set out to face the challenges of tomorrow. (Pause.)
This class stands before you today poised to — (The cards in her
hand suddenly fly into the air, scattering around the podium. Heidi freezes
and then looks at the cards lying around her on the floor. She tries to con-
tinue from memory.) . . . ah, poised to take on those challenges. We
greet them with open arms. (Pause.) We, ah . . . stand . . . no, um . . .
(She glances down to the cards on the ground, turning her head around
to try and read some of them.) It’s wonderful for me to be able to stand
here like this . . . and look out . . . Hold on, I’m sorry. (Heidi stoops
down and collects the cards, pulling them together randomly. She stands
and smiles nervously at the audience.)

49
 And in those faces I see hope, idealism and . . . no, that’s wrong. (She
flips to the next card.) We have spent four years at this school, study-
ing hard and playing hard. And all of it has been part of our educa-
tion, because — (She goes to the next card.) If you scratch our collective
surface . . . damn it. I’m sorry. I guess I should have numbered them.
(Next card.) Welcome . . . no, did that one. (Next card.) Because col-
lege isn’t just about reading Shakespeare or understanding the Theory
of Relativity. These four years have been part of our evolution from ado-
lescence to — (Next card.) . . . a feeling of great loneliness . . . (Pause.)
I’m very sorry. Just give me another moment. (Heidi quickly
spreads the cards out on the podium and reorders them. She begins again.)
All right . . . The day has finally come. The day this class has been
working toward for so many years of hard study. And I think I speak
for my entire generation when I say . . . oh, what’s the point? (Pause.)
I mean, it’s ruined, right? (Slight pause.) This is all my parents’
fault. I was fine until they came by my room this morning, and my
dad says to me, “Make it good, Heidi, Make sure they remember you.”
(Slight pause.) How’s this? (Slight pause.)
Not that the speech was much good to begin with. I know these
things are supposed to have a theme, but . . . I mean, it’s all been said
already, hasn’t it? And I’m sorry, but today just doesn’t feel that mo-
mentous or anything. I know it’s the end of one thing, and the start
of something else, but so what? Everything’s like that. (Slight pause.)
I don’t know why I’m up here. I didn’t want to give this address. Hell,
I didn’t even want to come to this college! I liked Vassar! But my dad
went here. “It’s a great school, Heidi. When you graduate from a place
like this you can get a job anywhere.” (Pause.)
Which would be great, if I had the slightest idea what I wanted
to do with my life. (Slight pause.) I think that’s the symptom of my
generation’s disease. We’re caught between optimism and nihilism. You
raised us to believe in limitless possibility. Consequently we have no
idea how to choose anything. (Slight pause.) Not that there seems to
be much point. The country is, what . . . trillions of dollars in debt?
And who knows if there will be any social security left by the time I
retire, so why think about the future? (Pause.)
There’ll be peace, you said. And racial harmony, sexual equality.

50
Diseases will vanish. (Pause.) Uh-huh. (Slight pause.) Yeah, this from
the people who were gonna save the world, but then decided to make
a bundle on Wall Street instead. Kind of an oxymoron, don’t you
think, Mom? (Slight pause.) Was it too hard? Or did you just get bored?
(Pause.)
And you wonder why we get tattoos and pierce our belly but-
tons, or eyebrows, or whatever. We’re pissed off because you lied to
us. (Slight pause.) Well, mainly, we’re angry, because you took all the
good drugs, had all the good sex, and then made all the good money.
(Slight pause.) The only thing you’re leaving for us is the bill. (Pause.)
I should probably stop here. (Heidi looks over the cards on the
podium and chooses one.) And so, in closing, this class would like to
say a heartfelt . . . thank you . . . to our parents. Thank you for lov-
ing us and taking care of us. (Pause.) We look forward to returning
the favor in thirty or forty years. (She exits. Fade to black.)

51
NOVEMBER
Don Nigro

Comic

This comic drama, one of the (chronologically) last in Nigro’s extraor-

dinary Pendragon Cycle, takes place in a retirement home. Mrs. Prikosovits
(elderly) is one of its rather more whacked-out residents. Here, she is talk-
ing to another resident.

MRS. PRIKOSOVITS: I saw that woman that what’s her name that Rooks
woman used to be Johnny Palestrina’s wife Becky, we used to live across
the alley from those Palestrina people, his people, and before that she
was married to that man who hung himself in the barn and now this
Rooks person who is if you ask me a kind of jungle person but those
Palestrinas were nice Italian people. Raphael and Anna and Anthony
the big one he was the boxer and Rosa his pretty little sister could
catch Johnny’s spitball and Gina the wild one she wasn’t really bad
she just had large breasts of course mine was larger but I was fat all
over before my many sicknesses and my boy Eddy took her out be-
hind the brickyard when her brother Anthony found them in the
blackberry bushes oh that was sad and them boys would play base-
ball out by the mill and Johnny was the best but after the war he mar-
ried that woman who was here the other day I just said her name and
then I forgot but we’re all stupid when you come right down to it
look at me I married Elmo but who was she? . . .
Your knees, yes. I have trouble with my knees, too. Lordy, mine
buckle like a belt, I stumble around like a hoppopitamus and I re-
member Elmo would punch me in the face when I ate the last dough-
nut in nineteen thirty-five he hit me with the garden hose he was such
a pig I loved him so, I remember on our wedding night he was so
gentle it was because he didn’t know what the hell he was doing but
of course I did although we each had to pretend otherwise we were
after all only babies. . . .

52
 I’ve forgotten all about him he’s awfully dead now and you know
I was saying to that skinny nurse what is her name, Jane, Nurse Jane
like Uncle Wiggly’s mistress who was a muskrat I think and he was
a rabbit we used to read to the children and she’d be pretty if she didn’t
always look like she was running a marathon race I said to her as she
was giving me my enema I said, Nurse Wiggly, I said, if God loves
me why does he make me pee at the wrong time?

53
NOVEMBER
Don Nigro

Seriocomic

Aunt Dor is an elderly woman who has been unable to speak since she
was very young. Here, she says what she’d like to say, if she could speak.

AUNT DOR: Poor old Lizzy. Time and again Lewis used to say to Molly or
Molly would say to Lewis, if Dorothy could only talk, she’d certainly
have some tales to tell, all the things she’s seen. They were right, of
course. When you can’t hear and you can’t talk, people tend to treat
you like a child or an idiot. It’s remarkable how they come to forget
you’re there. I guess, it’s like using the toilet in front of the cat — at
first it bothers you, with those little eyes staring at you, but after a
while you get used to it and forget all about them. I’ve been much
forgotten about, in my time. I’ve lived a mostly forgotten life. But
I’ve learned to hold out for those things which are really important
to me, and to be very stubborn about those few things, and let the
rest of it just go hang. I insist on watching Monday Night Football,
and no matter how bad Molly wants to see some stupid Tyrone Power
movie, I stick to my guns, and in the end she gives in. Also, I need
my Canton Repository in the afternoon, I absolutely require it, and
I had my old rocker from the farm brought to Molly’s so I could rock
and read the paper in the afternoon as I always have, with the cat on
my lap. The cat is mandatory, although this stupid cat of Molly’s is
not much of a cat when you’ve had the privilege of rocking for ten
years of long afternoons with John Foster Dulles on your lap. John
Foster Dulles, I feel, was probably the most extraordinary cat in the
history of tomcats, and it was my privilege and honor to serve under
him, literally under him, from the day he wandered onto the porch
as a gawky young tom — poor Lizzy, you never could turn anybody
away hungry, stray cats and half-dead raccoons — until the day Ben
went off to college and John Foster jumped down off the porch swing,

54
marched over and shat in the front seat of Rooks’ new pickup truck,
on the driver’s side, and then marched off across the road and up the
hill into the woods and disappeared forever. I expect he knew when
it was time to get out. Cats do. I never saw him again, but I approved
heartily of what he’d done. If I could have climbed up into the truck,
I’d have done it myself. John Foster had moral courage and a sense
of righteous indignation of the very first order, and I salute him, today,
wherever he may be, in cat heaven or elsewhere. But I miss him. And
I miss the farm. I used to sit and watch you work, Lizzy. My land, I
never saw any mortal creature work so hard in my life. When I first
came to live with you and Lewis, I’d forgotten how hard you always
worked at home, and I felt so bad for you, up at God knows when
to milk the cow, and you never stopped moving all day, banging and
clattering and clanging pots and pans around, rattling all over the
house, out to plant flowers and pick peas. My God, I thought, this
woman is going to screw herself right into the floorboards. And Lewis
just let you work, he never tried to stop you. At first I thought he
was taking advantage of you, but after a while I understood — that’s
what made you happy, you always had to be doing something for
somebody, getting something done, and Lewis knew it, and he loved
you for it, and he was smart enough to let you alone while you did
it. It must be so awful for you to just lay in that bed day after day. I
hardly ever come to see you any more because it makes me feel so
bad, because I still have my life. I’ve got my piano and my cat, such
as he is, and my rocker, and Monday Night Football, in season, and
the newspaper. But you’ve lost your life. And there’s not a thing I can
do about it. I can’t even tell you what I think about it. I try, but all
that comes out is AAAAAAAAAAh. But I wouldn’t trade what I have,
not for anything. I can hear the music, in my head, I hear it. Prob-
ably when I play it doesn’t sound to you much like what’s in my head
any more, the fingers gradually get used to landing on the wrong
places, I expect, but what I hear in my head hasn’t changed, you see,
from when I used to play it right, when I was a little girl, before the
fever came and took away the sound. The farm is in my head too
now, so I can take it up to Molly’s with me and never lose it. But I
don’t think you work that way, Lizzy, and I don’t know how to

55
 comfort you. Maybe I could play you a song. Would you like that?
Do you know what my dream is, Lizzy? My dream is that some day
some magical transformation would occur, some extraordinary event,
and just once, Lizzy, just once I could play my waltz for you and Molly,
and you could hear it the way I hear it in my head, not all out of
tune on the wrong notes, but perfect. Every note perfect, and beau-
tiful and just right. Just for you. That’s my dream . . . However. I
would also like to look like Greta Garbo, sing like Caruso, and dance
like Nijinsky, but I take what I can get. I take what I can get.

56
ORANGE FLOWER WATER
Craig Wright

Dramatic

In this monologue, Beth, a woman in her thirties, is talking to the wife

of the man with whom she has been having an affair. The two women
are watching a kids’ soccer game.

BETH: (Absently, with an eye on the soccer game.) When I was really little,
you know, I thought God was like my Dad, only bigger. And, uh,
just like it felt to walk through our house where my Dad had built
all the furniture, that’s how it felt to walk through the whole world.
Everything seemed like it has a little note taped to it: “Thought you
might like this tree!” “Thought you might like this sunset!”
“Thought you might like this cute boy! I made him just for you!”
You know what I mean? . . .
I told my guidance counselor in high school, you won’t believe
this, I told her I didn’t need to choose a career, because God had a
plan for my life. But she said she was part of how God let people in
on His plans. And I believed her. And that was the beginning of the
end . . . because after that, it was so easy to see everything that way.
Making out in the back of Jeff Kostermnople’s VW Bus seemed like
God’s way of letting me in on something; and drinking too much in
college was God’s way of letting me in on something. And now, just
when I would really love to look out over those trees, Cathy, and see
a little note: “Hi, Beth! Thought you might like this world” — I look
around and there are no notes on anything, anywhere. (After a beat.)
Cathy, I’m really sorry about what’s happened. If it ever felt like a
choice, I’d have chosen differently, but it never did. I’m sorry.

57
OTHER PEOPLE
Christopher Shinn

Dramatic

Petra, mid-twenties, is a poet and a stripper. Here, she is talking to an

older man, with whom she is having dinner in a restaurant.

PETRA: Okay. Okay. I’m a freshman in college. A dorm, like a prison, falling
apart, roaches, like rats in a lab we are, okay? My roommate is —
Dominican or something — and one night she makes this big greasy
pot of fish, in this very greasy yellow sauce, and she leaves it simmering
on the stove. She goes out to meet her boyfriend. I go into the kitchen.
I open the pot. Me. And it looks like sewage. A huge — ridiculous
this pot is. And I take out a spoon and think: I’ll try this. And I do.
I take another bite. Another. And I know, I am a rational being, I
know she’s cooked this for her boyfriend, they’ll be back soon: the
whole pot. All of it. And I run into the bathroom and I sit there I’m
numb I put my hand into my mouth, okay? And I’m covered there
in — fish — covered — I look — a ghoul — green, literally — and
I’m thinking: What? Because I know enough to know this is not nor-
mal or healthy in any way and I want to know: Why? Why would I
have done this: Why do I feel this way? What in the world — liter-
ally, what in the world in which I find myself living, what at this point
in history, what could make a person feel this unbearable sadness and
think these terrible thoughts? These thoughts: I will never be loved. I
cannot live in this world. You see? Because — because my roommate
is going to come home and say “Where is the fish” and the only an-
swer is “Petra ate it.” Petra ate the fish. And how can I go on? How
can I go on without — and I know — that there are people who do
not ask this question — because to know — is too much. Because
society does not afford them the opportunity to know, and. Because
they are in a constant state of desire, and desire, want, inhibits con-
sciousness. To become conscious you must stifle yourself, resist your

58
impulses. Not that I had this language then. But I knew; I decided.
I decided next time I would not eat the fish. No matter what. No
matter what pain that caused me I would put the fork down and place
the lid on the pot and . . . (Pause.)

59
OTHER PEOPLE
Christopher Shinn

Dramatic

Petra, mid-twenties, is a poet and stripper. Here, she has come to the
apartment of an older man with whom she has dined.

PETRA: You know what people want? I’ll tell you, you, me, Quentin Taran-
tino, Bill Clinton, whether they know it or not, I’ll tell you exactly
what people want: love. As stupid as that sounds. . . . No, we’re all
the same, in this, in just this one way, look, look: They have on video-
tape of, they have children, they did this in Britain, this study, okay,
and little kids would get beaten up by their mothers, little, two, and
three years old, slapped, punched, disgusting — but when the nurse
came into the room — they actually did this, secret videotape — when
the nurse came in to stop the beating and take the baby from the abu-
sive mother, the baby cried, the baby cried and tried to hang on to
its mother. So. So whatever you want to call it, that’s — the baby
wants — love — so the love is inappropriate, so what, it’s what the
baby knows. . . .
I’m not drunk. Okay. You asked me once, you said are you in
pain? And I lied. I said no. And I’m in pain because I am not loved.
You see. And artists — there’s so little love to go around — the prom-
ise of love is so fleeting and inconsistent so to get noticed — people
do — what they do is — just like you cheated on your wife, you see
it in art too, the terror of not being loved, safe art, meaningless art,
pandering art, commercial art, titillating art, outrageous art, can we
sell it, can I sell myself, will I be rewarded with money, with pres-
tige, with recognition — all those things which are, which are per-
versions of love — and let me tell you. If there were more love to go
around. And more consciousness and less fear. People might make

60
beautiful things. Beautiful things. What are all these horrible dis-
gusting movies with violence and anger and, you know, I mean, they’re
cries for help! You look at a Quentin Tarantino movie, you know, this
man has never been loved. He has had no experience of love in his
life. Art, the art can never be better than the person who made it.

61
REMBRANDT’S GIFT
Tina Howe

Dramatic

Polly is a photographer in her sixties whose lifework has been to photo-

graphically document her own body. Here, she is talking to her husband,
Walter.

POLLY: I’ve been documenting my body for over forty years now. (Embar-
rassed by her candor.) Who said that? . . .
It wasn’t out of vanity, I assure you . . . Oh, I was attractive
enough, but hardly a beauty. . .
I just got really curious as I started maturing into a . . . you
know . . . woman. I’d always been this scrawny tomboy when sud-
denly these . . . breasts started to bloom. (Handling them.) It was as-
tonishing! I mean, what were the chances? It was inevitable, of course,
I just never imagined it would happen to me . . . You know, like falling
in love or getting married . . . They were a total surprise. When I got
in the shower, I couldn’t keep my hands off them! They were so soft,
yet firm . . . (Handling them.) So I took to striking dramatic poses to
show them off. (Doing it.) Raising my arms over my head, clasping
my hands behind my back, arching over the back of a chair, getting
down on all fours. . . .
I was staggered! I couldn’t believe they belonged to me! So I got
a camera and taught myself the rudiments of photography. Looking
back on it, I was incredibly resourceful, managing to turn my closet
into a makeshift dark room . . . I was barely fifteen, but desperate to
document this . . . metamorphosis! Isn’t that why we pick up a cam-
era or paintbrush in the first place? To fathom a mystery? The artistry
and control come later . . . If you’re lucky. There were plenty of guys
doing female nudes — Steiglitz, Bill Brandt, and Edward Weston —
but who better than a woman to celebrate her own coming of age?
And by the same token — her inevitable disintegration?

62
SAVED OR DESTROYED
Harry Kondoleon

Comic

Lucille, a woman in her thirties to forties, is in bed with her husband,

Maury, who wants to watch TV or read the Bible. They have just been
to a party with another couple, whose relationship if quite different from
theirs.

LUCILLE: Cut the sound on that. . . . Here, give me that, I’ll manipulate
it. Did you think it was strange and not nice that they left so soon?
I did. Mostly not nice. I’m not sorry. I don’t miss them, except maybe
Karin. I like Karin. Karin and Vinnie spent a lot of time together.
That’s nice. They like books. They read to each other out loud. Why
are you reading the Bible now instead of listening to me? You’re al-
ways reading the Bible. What’s so interesting in there once you have
read it once? I’m getting a little fed up with you, you know, Maury?
You space out and you blabber. People have remarked on it. You’re
out of it. (Wistful.) This was supposed to be a nice summer, a sum-
mer to remember. We got a nice rental, more than we could afford,
but with your brother paying two-thirds, affordable. Right near the
nice beach. All the clean-cut college kids. I’d hoped it would be good
for Vincent and for Karin, meeting new lively people and making con-
tacts for when they go to college. But they just stayed alone together.
Maybe they’ll get married. They’re not real cousins so maybe they’ll
get married and have children That wouldn’t throw me, would it throw
you? Maurice, in the name of the Virgin Mary and all her many mar-
tyrs, put down that Bible!

63
SELF DEFENSE
Carson Kreitzer

Dramatic

This extraordinary play is based on the true story of a Florida prostitute

who murdered several of her customers before the police finally caught
her. In this monologue Jo, the central character (thirties to forties), is talk-
ing to Lu, her girlfriend.

JO: (A low, insistent whisper.) Honey, I

I killed a man today. I just gotta . . . I gotta talk through this a little
bit. I know it upsets you an’ I understand that. Christ, don’t I spend
my whole life tryin’ to keep you clean from all this shit. Keep it away
from you. Keep it from touching you. But this is . . . this is too much.
Today . . . Out in the woods. I had to make the choice. Him or
me. I mean, part of it was instinct, a big part a how I managed it.
You just . . . when you have to. When you know you’re gonna die if
you don’t get this right. But for the instinct to kick in, I had to . . .
I don’t know how to explain it. Empty myself out. Of the fear, the
attitude of, I’m a worthless piece a shit an this was gonna happen
sooner or later. I had to turn my brain to thinking No, fuck this. I
am not gonna die here. I had to decide that.
Shit, I’m so stupid sometimes. Thinkin’ I can trust people. If they
seem nice an’ all. Cos he, you know, he seemed . . . but that was Bull-
shit. All parta this plan, get me into the woods get me away from
where anybody might hear, might happen by. An he, shit, I’m tellin’
you he had this thing planned out. It was . . . I never been so fuckin’
scared. Not in a while. I thought those days were over, me gettin’ inta
cars like a fuckin’ teenager, thinks they’re invincible. That’s why I just
been stickin’ to my regulars, years now. I told you that.
But I know. You gotta have your things. An the cable TV. I know,
sweetie, you get bored when I’m not here during the day. I know. I

64
know I gotta take care a you. An don’t you worry, I’m gonna do it.
I’ll just . . . keep my eye out. Watch myself.
Cos I swear, honey, I thought I wasn’t gonna make it back to
you today.
That’s what I thought.
(A light snore from Lu.)
Look like an angel when you’re asleep, I swear it. An angel.
I’ll take care a you. Always.
Don’t know what I’d ever do without you.
Baby.

65
SELF DEFENSE
Carson Kreitzer

Dramatic

This character is a Florida coroner who could be any age or sex. In the
original production, the Coroner was played by the same actress who
played Pandora, so I have included this in the women’s monologue book.
Self Defense is based on the true story of a Florida prostitute who mur-
dered several of her customers. The police are very concerned about these
murders. They couldn’t care less about the many gruesome murders of
prostitutes that have gone unsolved.

CORONER: I’ve seen a lot of dead prostitutes, in my line of work. A lot.

And it’s not supposed to be something you get upset about. I am a
doctor, after all. A doctor of the dead. And it’s like cancer or some-
thing, as a doctor, you’re not supposed to get upset about it. Curse
God or — You’re supposed to speak in calm, rational terms. Not alarm
the patient. Comfort the family.
A coroner’s main job is to listen.
Find out how this thing happened. Make the call.
Natural causes. Suicide. Homicide.
And these girls who come in, ripped up some of ’em in ways
that speak of a hatred I can barely begin to comprehend.
I’ve been listening to their bodies. For years. Listening to stories
of desecrations of the human body not to mention the spirit that I
can only call evil. Although I never had much of a dialogue with God
or any sort of metaphysical thing. Suddenly I am forced to have this
conception of evil. This knowledge.
The listening — adds up. Sometimes I feel it is eroding me, like
a high whistling wind over sandstone. I am becoming . . . mute and
rough and rounded.
I didn’t come to this job with any fancy ideas about justice. The

66
. . . orderliness appealed to me. The ability to find truths. Add de-
tail upon detail, layering to conclusion.
Without too many people cluttering things up, if you want to
know the truth. I . . . have a little trouble dealing with people. Fig-
ured I could do my job, do it well, have a large degree of privacy in
my life. These things are important to me.
The ideas about justice — started springing up at me. After the
bodies had been piling up. For a while. Girls, women, who should
not have been on my table. Sure, I get some ODs, suicides, but it’s
the others. The ones who shouldn’t have been on my table for an-
other forty years. Who should never have gone through what they
went through to get to my table. And they’re whispering to me —
Unsolved. Unsolved. Unsolved. Unsolved.

67
SELF DEFENSE
Carson Kreitzer

Dramatic

Daytona is an “exotic dancer” and prostitute. She could be anywhere from

twenty-five to forty-five. Here, she is being interviewed by the police, who
are trying to solve a series of murders.

DAYTONA: Yeah, he gave me that TV and the VCR. Didn’t have the three
hundred in cash. Hooked ’em up for me and everything.
You ask me how I feel, how do I feel about him bein’ dead. Well,
it’s weird anybody you knew even a little bit winds up dead. So I feel
bad. But you know what? I’m not surprised.
How about that. The kinda stuff he was into, the kinda impulses
he was useta gettin’ satisfied, I’m not surprised the man is dead.
So now it’s my turn to be not surprised. Just like people are not
surprised when one a my kind turns up dead. Cops, people. Not un-
less it’s college students, oh a nice girl got her fuckin’ head cut off,
then everybody’s surprised. Everybody’s up in arms, doing shit. Mo-
bilizing special police task forces. Yeah, maybe if I was a college co-
ed somebody’d give a shit if I wound up dead. Somebody’d try and
figure out how it happened.
But I ain’t no fuckin’ college girl. My body winds up in a ditch,
they’re not gonna waste too much of a day on it. And whoever it was
that decided I didn’t count and no one would give a shit if he dumped
me out by the side of I-95, whoever it was driving the last car I got
into, he’s hangin’ around going to the grocery store, playing with his
fuckin’ kids maybe, watching the five-second blip about it on the
evening news and probably none the worse for wear.
He had, that Waldren guy I’m talking about now, had what you
call bad impulse control. So usedta throwin’ around money, acting
like a big man. I mean, this is the kind of guy wants what he wants.
If he doesn’t have the three hundred in cash, he’ll go open up his

68
repair shop and give you somebody’s TV and VCR they’re probably
waiting to have fixed. Tell them there’s been a break-in or some shit,
I don’t know. I mean, he never hurt me, but those things are tricky.
You never know what’s gonna set somebody off.
So, yeah, I’m not surprised Mr. Waldren met with an untimely
death. I feel bad for the guy, but I’m not surprised.

69
SOMEPLACE WARM
Peter Macklin

Dramatic

Marie (thirty-one) is talking to her mother, Claire, about how she got
pregnant. She was raped.

MARIE: Raped mother. I was raped . . . Oh, mom. Oh, mom. . . .

I was walking home. I was walking home. It was cold. I was walking
home. And he came up from behind. It was late. Three thirty-six AM.
Melissa’s party. I was walking home and I felt cold metal nudged in
my side and then a hand went over my face. I was walking home and
he brought me into his apartment. I had no choice. I had no choice.
His place was spotless. So clean. I looked up and it was him. It was
the guy from the neighborhood. I saw him almost every day. We said
hi to each other. He was even handsome. All I wanted was to get back
home. He told me things. Told me that he couldn’t help himself. He
kept apologizing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I just wanted to get back
home. I managed to let out one scream. One scream. There was some-
thing in its timbre. I heard it when I let it out. Like when daddy killed
that deer. I sounded like that deer. All I wanted was to get back home.
A neighbor heard. He had heard my deer scream. He called the po-
lice because he heard a tussle in the hallway also. All I wanted was to
get back home. He finished. It was done. He said he was sorry. He
kept apologizing. I just wanted to go home. He never let go of that
gun. He never did. There was silence. He paced back and forth. The
door got knocked down. It was the police. They saw he had a gun
and they shot him. Killed him. They told me that he had a previous
record and that’s why they knocked the door down. They brought
me to the hospital. But I just wanted to get back home. . . .
But I’m fine now. I am. I wouldn’t keep the baby if he were still
alive. I know that.

70
SOMEPLACE WARM
Peter Macklin

Dramatic

Claire, fifty-one, is talking to her daughter, Marie, whom she has driven
a long distance to see.

CLAIRE: Please open the door. It smells like pee out here. . . . I’m your
mother, for pity’s sake. Please. You must still . . . Please. (Marie opens
the door. Claire walks in. Silence. Silence.) This was probably the wrong
thing to do. (Starts to the door.) I’m sorry. (Stops at the door.) It’s just
that I drove all the way from Ohio to be here. For someone who
doesn’t drive a lot, that’s a long trip. But what could I do? I sure wasn’t
going to fly. That is the most unnatural way to travel. To be crammed
in a metal can and projected three miles up in the air? No thank you.
I’ll tell you. All those plane crashes you see on the evening news. It’s
just creepy. But I guess anything on the evening news is creepy. They
have a way of making you scared to even wake up in the morning.
Why can’t they have a news channel that only reports good things?
The world would be a much better place. But that’s not the way things
go. It just seems to be too much at times. (Noticing the bag she’s hold-
ing.) You know, on my way here, I stopped at, oh, about twenty-five
McDonald’s and such. I’m surprised I’m not three hundred pounds
by now. Anyway, I stopped at so many because I tried to talk myself
out of coming at each one. I couldn’t when I was driving because I
seem to go into a trance when I drive. But I would stop and try to
tell myself not to come, that you probably don’t want to see me. So
I found myself at these McDonalds ordering the same thing, the Kid’s
Meal. Why? I don’t know. I could say it was because I wanted to watch
what I ate but then I would have ordered one of them salads, you
know? I wouldn’t have eaten the dressing though. I’ve heard the dress-
ing is more fattening than the burgers. But I didn’t eat a salad. I just
kept on eating those Kid’s Meals. I told the workers that my

71
 grandkid was waiting for me. I see now, looking at you, that glow,
that I was right but they knew I didn’t really know for sure. I could
see it in their faces. This one teenage girl stared at me like I was crazy.
She reminded me of you when you were that age. Who gave her the
right to judge me? Just because she was on the other side of that
counter! Freckles. Bouncy. Like she knew everything. (Pause.) I hate
to lie. But I was embarrassed! But these meals. They were so cute.
The little burgers, like an angel made them. The little fries, like they
were made only for kids. And the little drink. Every time I thought
I was going to order the, let’s say Double Quarter Pounder with Extra
Cheese, I would just come out and say “Kid’s Meal, please.” I took
it as a sign. From God. That I should keep on going. Here. I found
my determination from those meals. So, I have toys. Lots of Kid’s
Meal toys. I would like to give them to you. I drove all the way from
Ohio to give them to you. Highway to highway. Turnpike to turn-
pike. To here. I was just trying to be thoughtful. Listen to me ram-
ble. I know. I don’t want to cause trouble. Please, please, take these
toys. Maybe the baby would like them. You could tell the baby they’re
from it’s Grandma.

72
SORROWS AND
REJOICINGS
Athol Fugard

Dramatic

Marta, a black South African woman, has been for many years the house-
keeper of a famous poet named Dawid Olivier. She was also his lover.
Here, she is talking to Allison, Dawid’s wife, with whom he lived in
England in exile, about the now-deceased man they both loved. Marta
and Allison are both in their forties.

MARTA: It was late at night. He had driven all around the location trying
to find me. I still don’t know how he managed to get this far. I didn’t
recognize him at first. He looked like a ghost standing there in the
darkness. What does this old white man want, I thought to myself.
But then: “Marta Barends,” the way only he could say it. Anyway .
. . I got dressed quickly and we came back down here. I opened the
house — I’ve had his room ready and waiting for him all these years
— and that is where he stayed until the end. . . .
He never went out . . .
No not even to see his oupa’s grave. I tried to tell him it was
his . . . his plig . . . his . . . his duty, but he just shook his head. He
already knew he was going to be lying there with his oupa in a few
weeks time. Didn’t want to see nobody. Not even Mr. Bosman. But
he spent a lot of time at the windows looking out . . . the street, the
orchard at the back, and the mountains. One time I found him at
the window in the little side bedroom. You know the one? You can
see the trading store from there. He made me stand there with him
and tell him all about the people coming and going out of the shop.
Even the little children carrying their empty bottles for paraffin. He
wanted to know their names and who their mommies and daddies
was. Ate nothing. Just about said nothing.

73
 I tried to make him tell me about London but he said there was
nothing to tell. I felt so useless, sitting there in the bedroom with him.
I could see he was sick and in pain but all he wanted me to do was
tell him about the village and all the things what had happened since
he was gone. And not just the important things like who got mar-
ried and who had a baby and who was dead and so on, but any old
rubbish that came into my head.
Like one day he asked me to tell him all the things that were on
the shelves in the trading store — you know, the tins of pilchards,
the packets of mealie-meal and sugar, the bottles of methylated spirit,
Five Roses Tea, Koo Apricot Jam — and how much they cost. And
he just lay there listening to me very hard as if I was telling him some-
thing important. And always in Afrikaans. I had to speak to him all
the time in Afrikaans. (Helpless gesture.) I didn’t know what else to
do for him, what he really wanted. I knew by then he was dying, but
all I could do was sit and watch.

74
SORROWS AND
REJOICINGS
Athol Fugard

Dramatic

Rebecca is an eighteen-year-old South African girl, of mixed-race parent-

age. She has not spoken for most of the play. Finally, she too begins to
talk about her father, a white South African poet named Dawid Olivier.
Here, she is talking to her mother, Marta, who was Dawid’s housekeeper
and lover.

Rebecca: (Finally breaking her silence.) He did, Mommy! (Pause.) He saw

his daughter. . . .
He saw me. In here. The night before he died. . . .
I came here. Every day since he came back I’ve been wanting to
come here and stand in front of him . . . but not with forgiveness in
my heart. I wanted to tell him what he had done to you, Mommy. I
wanted to tell him how much you have wasted your life waiting for
him — sweeping and dusting and cleaning in here every day as if he
was coming back tomorrow. I wanted to tell him that his beautiful
stinkwood table wasn’t shining from the Cobra wax polish, but from
the tears you rubbed into it. I’m not talking about poetry. Real tears.
Yours. I saw them in your eyes. I saw them run down your cheeks
and splash on the table when you was polishing and talking to him.
Ja, do you know you do that? Talk to him as if he was here in
the room with you? I’ve heard you — many times — when you
thought you was alone in here. You tell me there are ghosts in here . . .
well I believe you and you know why? Because I’ve seen one. You!
That’s what you’ve become . . . the ghost of a stinkwood servant look-
ing after her dead masters and madams.
And I wanted to tell him that I was praying for the day when
he would be gone so that the house could be sold and then some other

75
 white family’s “Stinkwood Marta” could come and start polishing the
table. And who knows, if she’s lucky maybe one day that white “mas-
ter” will notice that she’s got nice legs and tits and fuck her and an-
other little bastard with light skin and straight hair will be born for
everybody to point at and whisper about . . . because that, Mr. Dawid
Olivier, was your only contribution to the new South Africa, Mr.
Dawid Olivier . . . ’n spook kind (Afrikaans.), a freak . . . and she is
standing here in front of you. (Pause.)
That’s why I came here that night. I knew you were here in the
house, Mommy, and I wanted to say those things in front of you so
that you could hear them as well. That way you would maybe wake
up and see what he has done to you.

76
SORROWS AND
REJOICINGS
Athol Fugard

Dramatic

Allison, a white woman in her forties, was married to Dawid Olivier,

a white South African poet who died in exile in England. She has re-
turned to South Africa for his funeral, where she learns that her hus-
band has a child, Rebecca, with his black housekeeper, Marta, to both
of whom she is speaking here.

ALLISON: (Bitterly.) “The Fires of South Africa”! Amazing! That was going
to be the title of a poem he tried to write in London. We had just
watched a BBC program about the township riots. Houses and build-
ings burning, barricades in the street, uniforms and guns and those
hideous armored cars everywhere, a pall of tear gas and smoke over
everything. It ended, as it always does, with the image of a woman
weeping.
(She tries to remember the poem.) I think it went:
Fires of sorrow,
Fires of hate . . .
(Pause.) And then something like:
Incendiary tears
Ignite our fate . . .
I’ll look for it when I get back and go through his papers. There
might be a few other things that I can pull together to make a small
volume, but I certainly won’t be calling it Rejoicings.
I must go and pack. When you are finished in here, Marta, come
past the guest house and I will give you that copy of Dawid’s will.
(Allison starts to leave. At the entrance to the passageway she stops,
turns back and speaks to Rebecca.)
For your soul’s sake, Rebecca, I hope you know that what you

77
 did was terribly wrong. What you turned to ash and smoke out there
in the veld was evidence of a man’s love, for his country, for his peo-
ple — for you! Don’t reject it. That love was clean and clear and good!
It was the best of him. For your soul’s sake claim it, Rebecca. Rejoice
in it! Because if you think you and your “new South Africa” don’t need
it, you are making a terrible mistake. You are going to need all the
love you can get, no matter where it comes from.

78
THE THEORY OF
EVERYTHING
Prince Gomolvilas

Comic

Patty is an Asian-American woman in her late thirties, part of a group

of people who gather atop a Las Vegas wedding chapel every week for a
UFO watch. She is obsessed with UFOs. Note: Although this monologue
was originally conceived to be played by an Asian-American, for your
use in class or auditions you don’t necessarily have to be Asian-
American.

Patty stands, facing the audience.

PATTY: I want to talk about aliens. Not people from other countries. I want
to talk about space creatures. Those types of aliens. You know what
I’m talking about: big head, big black eyes, tiny holes where the nose
should be, extremely thin lips. They fly around in large metallic ships
covered with bright lights, and they abduct normal human beings like
you and me.
I read that the chances of a person seeing a UFO is equal to the
chances of a person witnessing a bank robbery.
I’m thirty-nine, and I have never seen a UFO. But I have wit-
nessed five bank robberies.
I am way overdue for a Close Encounter. I mean, just look at
the odds.
Sometimes when I watch reruns of The X-Files and see all these
amazing things happening to ordinary people — to ordinary white
people — I get angry. Jealous, maybe. When is it going to be my turn?
Can’t life be fair for once? I deserve to see a UFO. I deserve to be ab-
ducted by aliens. I’ve been waiting so long for something to happen.
This is my something, and I want it now.

79
 So here’s what I’ve figured out: They’re not going to come to me
until I’ve shown them that I’m ready. I think that they think that I’ve
been unprepared.
But no longer, I rent videos, read books, watch documentaries,
do research at the library. I’ve taken in an enormous amount of in-
formation on the subject. I know everything there is to know about
Area 51, about Project Blue Book, about Roswell. I’ve written letters
to the president, to my congressman, to the military, to NASA and
to David Duchovny.
What do they say?
“Be Prepared.”
Well, guess what?
I am.
(Blackout.)

80
TRANSATLANTIC
Judy Klass

Seriocomic

Fiona is an English woman, high-strung, educated, brilliant, and beau-

tiful, who needs American money to get her screenplay produced, but
she is not pleased about it. She finds America and Americans fairly re-
volting, dreads how they will change her script, and sees their input as
tantamount to cultural imperialism. Yet she and her quiet banker hus-
band Nick are having Bernie Greenfield, an indie film producer from
New York, and his wife Lori over for dinner at their London home; Fiona
is talking to Nick in their bedroom, getting ready, as she speaks these
words:

FIONA: What’s the time? (Nervous, mustering.) Oh, bloody marvelous. And
I can’t even find a pair of earrings to match this . . . I’m not trying
to look lovely. I’m trying to look like a flashy corporate wheeler-dealer.
Something this fellow will respect. Am I overdressing? Do you sup-
pose he’ll turn up in trainers and a torn sweatshirt, with five-day stub-
ble and a little ponytail at the back? What is the matter with my hair?
It’s frightful!
(Snapping.) No! We can’t put it off, they’ll suppose we’re in-
competent, what do you think? Just sit tight. (Beat.)
Oh, I’m sorry, Nick, I’m a mess. Don’t mind me. I’m counting
on you, you know that. You’ve got to save me from myself. You mustn’t
let me say an honest word this whole grisly evening . . . Yes, we’ll have
to show them where all the McDonalds are, and take them to the
Guinness Book of Records Museum.
(Fake Yank accent.) “Gee, this is a great little country you got here,
honey. Think I’ll buy it.” (A beat.)
Like them? Not a chance. I know what type he is from our chats
on the phone. He’s all charm, and bluff good fellowship. He’ll have
a handshake that’ll crush every bone in your fingers, wait and see.

81
 I’ve no idea what she’s like. Probably some ghastly, cosmetically
altered little trollop.
If they’re in the film industry they’ll ooze Hollywood wherever
they live, trust me.
(Bitterly, with fake Yank accent.) No, you’re right, we gotta think
positive. We’re gonna bond with these swell people. They’re our new
best friends!
(She throws an earring down in disgust, chooses another pair, and
speaks normally.)
It’s ironic, actually. Here I’ve been a good girl, toadying up to
the men in the company, and finally I get a chance to produce my
film, with my script — and I’ve got to impress some Yank bastard,
and sell my soul to coax money out of him. It makes perfect sense.
(Incredulous.) Yes, dear, that’s right, he said I’ll retain creative con-
trol — which means precisely nothing. They come up with that sort
of jargon to fill up their contracts to keep their five million lawyers
per square inch employed, when they’re not suing each other. But if
his company puts up more than half the funds, you can bet they’ll
have their sweaty little hands all over the film.
(Stopped short.)
Why should it surprise you he’s interested?
(Defensive.) Oh yes, it’s going to be a colossal flop, isn’t it? Who
would want to see a film about John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor?
How snoringly dull! No, you’re right, of course. It’s not their sort of
thing at all. Mill was an intellect, and American culture is all about
celebrating stupidity, just switch on Jerry Springer. I should know, I
have to read their cinema trade papers.
(She yanks a comb through her hair as she says each name.)
Wayne’s World. Dumb and Dumber. Hot Chick. Old School. And
the apotheosis Forrest Gump. No wonder they loved Reagan so much,
or “W.” They see an intelligent script and they don’t know what to
do with it — any more than they know what to do with an intelli-
gent president who can talk in complete sentences.
(Fiona swigs her wine. When she says “Bernard,” she pronounces it
the British way: BUH-nud. When she quotes him, she lapses into a fake
American accent again.)

82
 Well, according to our good friend Bernard, WaveLine Produc-
tions is a young “highbrow, alternative” company, looking for “arty,
intellectual projects.” So, just imagine what “arty” suggestions he’ll
make to enhance my script. A bit of shagging, of course.
(Fake accent.) Can’t have a sexless marriage, lady. What we got
here is boy meets girl, boy is impotent, girl is frigid — but they get
over it! They go on to have wild, crazy, Technicolor sex!
(Her normal accent.) Violence? In the life of Mill? That’s a diffi-
cult proposition, let’s see — Oh, I know!
(With fake accent.) — Okay, here’s the pitch. Mill goes down the
pub — goes into a bar, see? And there’s Carlyle. And Mill says, Tom,
I’m an abolitionist, ya wanna make something of it? And Carlyle says,
yeah, John, I think the wogs on the Jamaican plantations should stay
slaves. So Mill pops him one — whammo! — right in the kisser. Now
that’s a movie! Plus a car chase scene. A bit of MTV flash editing, a
throbbing title track by Bryan Adams . . .
(Sadly.) Enjoy it? Yes, you would do, wouldn’t you. Are you sure
you don’t want to ask Sharon to stay and serve?
(Beat.) If he introduces me to his inner child, I’ll molest it on
the spot, I swear to God I will!

83
TRANSATLANTIC
Judy Klass

Seriocomic

Lori Greenfield is speaking to Nick, a mild English banker, in the guest

bedroom of the London home belonging to Nick and his wife Fiona. Lori’s
husband Bernie and Fiona are downstairs arguing about possible changes
in a film script that Fiona wrote and that Bernie’s company wants to
produce. Originally, the Greenfields were dinner guests, but arguments
and various awkward moments were sinking the project, and to save it,
Nick suggested the Greenfields spend the night. Lori and Nick have been
mostly quiet while the two couples were together; each seeks to support
his or her more colorful and confident spouse. Bernie has humiliated Lori
before their hosts several times in the course of the evening and now, just
before Lori speaks, Nick has cautiously remarked on it:

LORI: (Speaking rapidly.) It’s okay. Bernie’s just nervous. He, like, wants to
impress you guys so bad — and I keep embarrassing him. I’m so
“Westchestuh.” And I babble. I can’t help it, even when I know I’m
doing it . . . No, I’m a babbler. That’s always my problem. And Bernie’s
so smart. He’s turned me on to so many ideas, so many good books,
Nick — I wish I could tell you. I learn a lot just being around him.
It’s hard to understand him sometimes. I’ve known him for ages, so
it’s easier for me. We’ve just been married three years, but I had a big
crush on him in high school. I was too shy to even talk to him. Then
years later, I saw him at my cousin Craig’s bar mitzvah, back in
Westchester. I’d heard that he went to Princeton and won the Rhodes
and all. But I saw him, and I thought: This time I’m gonna say some-
thing. This time I won’t let him get away . . . Yeah, well, we lived to-
gether for a long time. I was surprised he was interested in me —
but, you know, Bernie’s kind of a lonely guy. He’s got all these de-
fense systems. I was getting my degree in child psychology, and he
didn’t think it was so funny back then. He was real supportive. Bernie

84
puts up with a lot from me. ’Cause, like, I’ve got all these problems,
like bulimia sometimes. And plus, I can be a little neurotic-
compulsive, and I get insomnia when I’m alone . . .Yeah, I felt terri-
ble about Princess Diana. It was such a shame. She was such a beautiful
person. And those two kids . . . Bernie made fun of me for staying
up all night to watch the funeral. But I remember, when I first moved
in with him, and she was getting divorced, and the papers kept say-
ing how unhappy she was and all? And her lousy marriage, and how
she kept trying to kill herself? I’d see the tabloid headlines, and I’d
kind of identify with her — ’cause of the bulimia and all. And I
thought, maybe it’s a bad sign for my relationship that I’m so sad for
Princess Di. But, y’know, I love Bernie so much. He just — makes
me nuts when he goes into his Grand Rabbi of Westchester routine.
He starts lecturing me, explaining stuff — and he just out-words me.
I’m not in his league, let’s face it. Plus, it’s a weird marriage. Like,
Bernie explained to me — he’s not afraid of commitment. But he
doesn’t believe in monogamy — he thinks most marriages stifle both
parties. So, we keep things open . . .
Why? I mean, technically, I’m free too. But after a long day, just
want to curl up with him. I hope this trip will be good for us . . . Oh
I love London! I’m so excited to be here! I’ve always loved British TV
shows, and movies, and accents. It still doesn’t seem real — you know,
the money looks like Monopoly money. Bernie didn’t want to take
me, I practically begged him. I’m making him sound awful. It’s just —
he’s so smart, and sometimes I can’t keep up.

85
THE TRIAL OF ONE SHORT-
SIGHTED BLACK WOMAN
VS. MAMMY LOUISE AND
SAFREETA MAE
Karani Marcia Leslie

Seriocomic

This stylized, wildly funny, and provocative satire uses the framework
of a trial to explore the idea that if black people don’t explore their own
history, or if they persist in thinking that “reality” is what they see on
film or TV, they will be unable to cope with what has become an in-
creasingly complex and hostile world. Here, the Prosecution is speaking
to us at the start of the trial, as if we were the jury. She is old enough
to have passed the bar, and old enough to “remember when.”

PROSECUTION: Ladies and gentlemen of the courtroom. You are our jury.
You are about to embark on a serious dialogue, a dialogue that con-
cerns images. Now, I ask you. When you think of the chief executive
of a corporation, does a black woman come to mind? When you think
of an airline pilot, do you think black woman? And if for any reason
you should need heart surgery — and I pray you do not — do you
say to yourself, I want a black woman? My point exactly. Black Amer-
ica is tired of the images that Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae rep-
resent. . . .
My client lives in shame and humiliation. It is a constant tor-
ture that represses her dreams and her ability to communicate who
she really is. My client is a black woman. A black woman who real-
izes that to be whole she must love and find beauty in herself; but
who can hardly find such love or beauty because she has been taught
throughout the history of these United States that no such beauty ex-
ists within a black woman. This black woman and countless others

86
must constantly fight the insults and lack of respect that is forth-
coming, not only from a white society but from within her com-
munity. The black woman is not held in high regard as reflected by
a society that despises her children, but deems her sexuality as who-
rish and that pays her the lowest salary for the same contributions.
She is a woman in disgrace, ladies and gentlemen. And I intend to
prove that the defendants, Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae did will-
fully conspire, with the major chroniclers of American history and
the media, to place her in disgrace. That they did create the big fat
laughing hyena of a Mammy and her hot-to-trot siren daughter to
destroy my client’s self-esteem and discourage society from delegat-
ing a high regard to any other black woman. And if I do my job
well — which I intend to do — the defendants will be barred from
appearing in and conspiring with any future TV or film productions,
in any way, whether that be a remake of Pinky or Aunt Jemima with
a perm!

87
THE TRIAL OF ONE SHORT-
SIGHTED BLACK WOMAN
VS. MAMMY LOUISE AND
SAFREETA MAE
Karani Marcia Leslie
Dramatic

This stylized, wildly funny, and provocative satire uses the framework
of a trial to explore the idea that if black people do not explore their
own history, or if they persist in thinking that “reality” is what they see
on film or TV, they will be unable to cope with what has become an in-
creasingly complex and hostile world. Here the defense attorney, whose
name is Zora, is speaking to Leroy, a bottom-line sort, a product of the
1980s “Greed is Good” era. She is in her forties to fifties, but she could
be played by an actress of any age.

DEFENSE: Thirty years old. The civil rights struggle was in full swing by
the time you were born. I guess you don’t remember it though. . . .
Well I was there. One of the demands was to have representation on
any level where it affects us. And film and television affects us. Well,
we got it. Because here you sit. A black studio executive. Believing
in his or her own merit. Well you’re wrong to do that, Mr. Johnson.
Because you didn’t become an executive because you graduated from
Harvard or Yale. You became an executive because somebody sat in,
somebody marched, somebody got beat down, hosed down, jailed,
and bit by dogs, so that when you did graduate from Harvard or Yale,
you’d have somewhere to go. People gave their lives. Their lives, Mr.
Johnson! They served your interest, Leroy. All we ask you to do is
serve somebody else’s besides your own! (Pause.) You see, I can un-
derstand fear. But I can’t accept that you don’t owe! Because you didn’t
exist before us! We loud-talking, head wrap–wearing, Daishiki-
sportin’ so-called Zula Boolas thought you up and made you a real-
ity! You owe, Mr. Johnson! You owe! No further questions.
88
THE TRIAL OF ONE SHORT-
SIGHTED BLACK WOMAN
VS. MAMMY LOUISE AND
SAFREETA MAE
Karani Marcia Leslie

Dramatic

This stylized, wildly funny, and provocative satire uses the framework
of a trial to explore the idea that if black people do not explore their
own history, or if they persist in thinking that “reality” is what they see
on film or TV, they will be unable to cope with what has become an in-
creasingly complex and hostile world. Here Victoria, a rather snooty, well-
off woman in her thirties or forties, is testifying, in response to a question
made by an attorney.

VICTORIA: Look, I started reading Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale. I

could not relate to those women! And I did read a few pages of Toni
Morrison’s Beloved . . . and I’ve got to tell you . . . I couldn’t under-
stand it. I also flipped through Maya Angelou’s inaugural poem. . . .
I was in a fog again. Who are they writing for? Not me! And Alice
Walker’s Colored Purple — . . .
Whatever! I didn’t read it! I saw the movie. And I didn’t partic-
ularly care for that! I guess it’s the subject matter — what they write
about. It just doesn’t interest me. . . .
What I mean is most black writers write about poor black peo-
ple and the past. I don’t want to read about poor black people and
the past. And I don’t want to read writers who write about the godly
simplicity of the rural backwoods negro . . . or writers who try to turn
poverty into some kind of sainthood — always emphasizing the in-
tegrity of the struggling ghetto black. Somebody’s always got to be
struggling. Then there are those writers who go on and on about the

89
 higher intelligence of the African. If they were so intelligent, they’d
a been smart enough to keep the white man out of Africa. Not to
mention the writers who try to rescue buffoons who can’t even speak
correct English from society’s condemnation. And let’s not talk about
slavery? Cause I — HATE — SLAVERY!!! Why is everyone trying
to find something noble in such a disgraceful condition. I want to
be as far away from that part of history as I possibly can and from
those women. Because (Rising slowly and pointing.) I hate them too.
I hate everything, everything, every THING THEY REPRESENT!!!

90
U.S. DRAG
Gina Gionfriddo

Comic

Allison, a young woman in her twenties, is obsessed with coming up with

a scheme to make as much money as fast as she can, with as little effort
as possible.

ALLISON: I cried this morning. I was reading a book about JonBenet

Ramsey. . . .
This girl who baby-sat her a few times got $5,000 from a mag-
azine. The lady who cleaned her house got $20,000. These magazines
wrote just enormous checks to anyone who ever knew her. (Pause.)
It just seems like you can get a lot of money if you’re in the right place
when something really bad happens. Like that woman who went to
the hospital for a Caesarean and got a crazy doctor who carved his
initials in her belly. She got millions of dollars. Just for having a scar.
I would have a scar. It just seems unfair. Monica Lewinsky got to go
to the Oscars and she wasn’t in any movies! I want to go to the Os-
cars! There are all these people who are not as good-looking and smart
as me and they are getting money and getting on TV and they did-
n’t do anything except be nearby when something bad happened. It
isn’t fair! It just isn’t fair! I don’t have any money and nobody knows
who I am! I want to do nothing and get money and have people know
who I am! (Silence.) I’m sorry. It just . . . came out of me. I’m sorry.

91
WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
Christopher Shinn

Seriocomic

Elaine is an actress in her early forties, visiting a novelist friend at his

house in the country. She has just about had it with the acting profession.

ELAINE: I don’t know . . . (Elaine pauses, looks up at the sky as if struck by

something.) The last regional job I took. I did Hedda in Hartford. It
was a respectful production but it wasn’t a museum piece — it had
life and spontaneity to it. Well. I got miserably depressed. Getting
into that tight dress every night I thought — why do I have to wear
this? I want to wear normal clothes. What the hell do I know about
Hedda Gabler? It all began to feel vaguely humiliating. And I would
walk around Hartford and think, I want to tell that story — that
woman at the Dunkin’ Donuts with three kids — Women who are
alive today. So I came back to New York and I said, “That’s it.” Only
new plays from now on . . . (Pause.)
They didn’t cast me. The MFAs started pumping out pretty
young things, new directors with new girlfriends came up. (Beat.) I
got older. (Beat.) You know, what Dave does — novelists — they get
“better” with age, they increase in esteem in society’s eyes. No one
tells Saul Bellow he’s irrelevant. There’s respect. What I do — the more
I know, the less I matter. I’m finally old enough that I have some-
thing interesting to tell the world, and no one wants to hear it.

92
WHERE’S MY MONEY?
John Patrick Shanley

Dramatic

Celeste is an out-of-work actress in her twenties to thirties who’s been

cheating on her boyfriend with a married man. Here she is having a
drink with Natalie, an old friend whom she hasn’t seen in years.

CELESTE: There’s an atmosphere with this guy . . . of murder. He wouldn’t

murder me — that’s not what I’m saying — but it’s there. Like an
aroma. I could smell this thing on him when we met. He was intro-
ducin’ himself, sayin’ hello, bein’ nice. We’re in a public place. I re-
member thinkin’, he’s going to rape me. And seeing like, police
photographs in my head. Of me. And right like that, right out of that,
I gave him my phone number. I walked away like there was a cam-
era recording me and music I was walking to. And I felt like I was in
a ghost story about love. A week later, we meet up. I’m alone with
him for the first time. It’s in his office. I walk in his office. He closes
the door. “Click.” And I feel this weight come over my arms and legs.
I was scared. ’Cause he was goin’ to do something to me. And I wanted
him to do something to me. I was afraid and I wanted to be afraid.
I wanted fear. I was tired of being “good girl.” The first time I went
to him, I went to his office. I dressed all in white. Can you imagine?
Like a sacrifice. I had this book, Return of the Native. And I just started
talking about Eustacia Vye because I was so nervous. And he didn’t
call me on it. He didn’t say, “What are you talking about this book?
That’s not what’s going on here.” He just talked back to me about
Eustacia Vye. But while he talked, he put his hand on the bone in
my chest, and he slowly pushed me down. He never stopped talking
about what I was talking about, but he was pushing and I was going
down. And then his hands and my whole anatomy went to this other
world and we did things without words. What we were saying was
like we were another bunch of people in a very different room. A room

93
 without words. We had a secret from ourselves. There was a lot of
blood. I got my period right in the middle . . . He’s . . . He was big.
I guess it knocked something loose. He hadda go out to a store and
buy me a raincoat to put over myself. ’Cause, Natalie, I looked like
I’d just been born. And this was in an office. This was in a man’s of-
fice. In the middle of the day.

94
WHERE’S MY MONEY?
John Patrick Stanley

Comic

Natalie, an accountant in her twenties to thirties, is having a drink with

Celeste, an out-of-work actress, an old friend whom she hasn’t seen in a
while. While Celeste is something of a dreamy, ditzy romantic, Natalie
is no-nonsense, all business.

NATALIE: All right, I’ll just lay it out for you. You’re a whore. . . .
Don’t. Please. It’s hard enough without you playing surprised.
Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about the fact that you’re a whore.
A STUPID whore. . . .
I’ll break it down for you. First thing. The count. Let’s do the
count. You’re thirty-one. Next year, you’ll be guess what? Twenty-three?
No. Thirty-two. And it goes on from there. Older, older, older. A flight
of stairs going down, down, down. You’re like a quart of milk reach-
ing its expiration date. Have you ever tried to sell a pumpkin the day
after Halloween? That’s what you are facing. Are you ready? I don’t
think so. Is it just? Who cares. Pick a fight with God. See where you
get. It’s the truth of what it is to be a woman. . . .
France! Then go to France! Climb the Eiffel Tower. Feed the pi-
geons. Maybe they’ll be glad to see you. Please! You’re in America.
Do the math. Next. You’ve gotta face the facts. You’ve got a birth de-
fect. You’ve got a limp. How many parts are there for limping girls?
Laura in The Glass Menagerie. And that’s it! Have there been any
productions of that play? . . .
And did you get that part? . . .
Then it’s time for you to stop office-temping and doing Romeo’s
girlfriend in acting class and get a bona fide fucking job. It’s two plus
two. You have to drop the lollipop and pick up the car keys! Next
issue. Kenny. This may sound tough, but I’m going to say it anyway.
Kenny’s your best bet. . . .

95
 Yes, he’s a loser. But what are you at this point? Maybe together
you can pull your car out of the ditch and make some miles down
the road. I know where you’re at, Celeste. There’s a million women
like you. You don’t want to look at your story ’cause you don’t like
your story, so you just close your eyes and tell yourself a fucking fairy
tale. And you know what that makes you? In a world of men? To-
tally exploitable. ’Cause you want the lie. You got no interest in the
truth. What’s the truth ever done for you? The truth of your life is
like a bad magazine. Boring story, lousy pictures. Which brings me
to your mysterious, exciting, cheeseball stud. Who smacks you around
because he’s afraid of his wife. Do I even have to talk about this ro-
dent? A married violent scumbug who slips you a Saturday Night Spe-
cial for what? Valentines Day? You can’t look at what this guy pegged
the minute he smelled that thrift-shop essential oil you use for per-
fume. You’re a pushover. Is this your notebook? . . .
What have you been writing? . . .
Poetry. You’re going down in flames. Unless you get it together,
they are going to pass you around like chicken wings.

96
WHITEOUT
Alan Newton

Dramatic

Whiteout takes place in a remote cabin in Alabama, owned by Mark,

who is hosting a holiday gathering of friends. During this reunion, a
freak snowstorm occurs, and nobody can leave, so they begin talking about
their pasts, together and apart. Cathy, a professor of English from Michi-
gan, is here talking to Mark about the first day she met him.

CATHY: Well, the first day of ninth grade, here I am, the strange new girl
from Detroit, and my dad and I drive up in his little Yugo — the car
that looked like a hemorrhoid! The first thing I hear as I’m walking
to my brand-new school is some girl say, “Is that a car or a shoe box?”
Later that day, somebody asked me, “Are you a girl or a boy?” but
that’s another story. Anyway, I suddenly just froze, right there in front
of everyone. (Stops moving.) I couldn’t move a toe. Have you ever
dreamed that you’re running somewhere, and you’re late, but the
harder you try to kick your legs, the slower you move? That’s exactly
how I felt, but I was wide awake. I was ten yards away from my new
school, but I’d never felt farther away from anything. I turned back
around to see if Dad was still there, and every car I saw was a Cut-
lass, a Beamer, or a Volvo station wagon. All the kids getting out of
them were tall and tan and yearbook-cute, all the parents behind the
wheels looked like tennis pros. . . . And then, lo and behold, into the
lot comes the only car whose status was anywhere near that tenth cir-
cle of hell in which the Yugo will forever languish — . . . A 1977,
burnt-orange, AMC Pacer — ! . . . And I knew I had a friend.

97
 PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL by Leonora B. Rianda Copyright 2000 by Lauren Friesen.
Reprinted by permission of Dramatic Publishing, 311 Washington St., Woodstock,
IL 60098, 815-338-7170 (ph), 815-338-8981 (fx). All rights reserved. The entire text
of All Things Being Equal has been published by Dramatic Publishing in Best Student
One Acts, Vol. 4.
ALTER EGOS by Jon McGovern Copyright 2000 by Lauren Friesen. Reprinted by per-
mission of Dramatic Publishing, 311 Washington St., Woodstock, IL 60098, 815-338-
7170 (ph), 815-338-8981 (fx). All rights reserved. The entire text of Alter Egos has
been published by Dramatic Publishing in Best Student One Acts, Vol. 4.
APRIL by Alison Fields Copyright 2000 by Lauren Friesen. Reprinted by permission of Dra-
matic Publishing, 311 Washington St., Woodstock, IL 60098, 815-338-7170 (ph),
815-338-8981 (fx). All rights reserved. The entire text of April has been published by
Dramatic Publishing in Best Student One Acts, Vol. 4.
AVOW by Bill C. Davis Copyright by 1999 by Bill C. Davis. Reprinted by permission of
Susan Schulman, 454 W. 44th St., New York, NY 10036. All rights reserved. The en-
tire text of Avow has been published in an acting edition by Dramatists Play Service,
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CAUTION: Professional and amateurs are hereby warned that Avow is subject to a
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BANG by Laura Shaine Cunningham Copyright 2002 by Laura Shaine Cunningham.
Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd., 448 W. 44th St., New York,
NY 10036. All rights reserved. The entire text of this play have been published by Broad-
way Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New York, NY 10028-0202, 212-772-8354 (ph),
212-772-8358 (fx), in Plays by Laura Shaine Cunningham.
BEAUTIFUL BODIES by Laura Shaine Cunningham Copyright 2002 by Laura Shaine Cun-
ningham. Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd., 448 W. 44th
St., New York, NY 10036. All rights reserved. The entire text of this play have been

98
 published by Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New York, NY 10028-0202,
212-772-8354 (ph), 212-772-8358 (fx), in Plays by Laura Shaine Cunningham.
BINGO BABES by Isabel Duarte Copyright 2000, 2002 by Isabel Duarte. Reprinted by
permission of Samuel French, Inc. (Attn.: Linda Kirland), 45 W. 25th St., New York,
NY 10010. All rights reserved. The entire text of Bingo Babes has been published in
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BLACK SHEEP by Lee Blessing Copyright by Lee Blessing. Reprinted by permission of
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rights reserved. As of this printing the entire text of Black Sheep has not been pub-
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BLOWN SIDEWAYS THROUGH LIFE by Claudia Shear Copyright 2002 by Claudia
Shear. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management (Attn.: Mitch
Douglas), 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. All rights reserved. The entire text
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great monologue material) has been published in an acting edition by Samuel French,
Inc., 45 W. 25th St., New York, NY 10010, 212-206-8990 (ph), 212-206-1429 (fx).
BOOK OF DAYS by Lanford Wilson Copyright 2000 by Lanford Wilson. Reprinted by
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reserved. The entire text of Book of Days has been published by Grove Press and will
no doubt soon be available in an acting edition from Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park
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BOYS & GIRLS by Tom Donaghy Copyright 2002 by Tom Donaghy. Reprinted by per-
mission of Sarah Jane Leigh, International Creative Management, 40 W. 47th St., New
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time this book comes out, it will no doubt be published as well in an acting edition
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without obtaining in advance the written permission of Dramatists Play Service Inc.,
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to Sarah Jane Leigh c/o ICM, 40 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019.
CONTROL FREAKS by Beth Henley Copyright 2002 by Beth Henley. Reprinted by per-
mission of Peter Hagan, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010.
All rights reserved. The entire text of Control Freaks has been published in an acting
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CRUISING CLOSE TO CRAZY by Laura Shaine Cunningham Copyright 2002 by Laura

99
 Shaine Cunningham. Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd., 448
W. 44th St., New York, NY 10036. All rights reserved. The entire text of this play
have been published by Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New York, NY
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ningham.
THE DEAD EYE BOY by Angus MacLachlan Copyright 2002 by Angus MacLachlan.
Reprinted by permission of Peter Hagan, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., New
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THE DYING GAUL by Craig Lucas Copyright 2002 by Craig Lucas. Reprinted by per-
mission of Peter Franklin, William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Ave. of the Americas,
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FROZEN STARS by David Matthew Barnes Copyright by David Matthew Barnes. Reprinted
by permission of the author. The entire text of Frozen Stars is published by Stage One
Theatrical Publications, who may be contacted via their Web site (www.sotheatre.com)
or via e-mail (sotheatre@aol.com).
GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER, DO! By Brian Friel Copyright 1997, 2000 by Brian Friel.
Reprinted by permission of Jack Tantleff, William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Avenue
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HOMECOMING by Lauren Weedman Copyright 2002 by Lauren Weedman. Reprinted
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Lombardi, Boulevard Artists, inc., 2373 Broadway, #1508, New York, NY 10019. The
entire text of Homecoming has been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc. in Women Play-
wrights: The Best Plays of 2002. Note: Lotsa other good monologues therein.
JAR THE FLOOR by Cheryl L. West Copyright 2002 by Cheryl L. West. Reprinted by
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THE LAST CARBURETOR by Leon Chase Copyright 2002 by Leon Chase. Reprinted
by permission of the author. All rights reserved. The entire text of The Last Carbure-
tor has been published by NY Theatre Experience in Plays and Playwrights 2003
LIMONADE TOUS LES JOURS by Charles L. Mee Copyright 2001 by Charles L. Mee.
Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management (Attn.: Libby Edwards,
assistant to Martin Kooij), 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. All rights reserved.
The entire text of Limonade Tous Les Jours has been published by Smith and Kraus,
Inc. in Humana Festival 2002: The Complete Plays

100
L-PLAY by Beth Henley Copyright 2002 by Beth Henley. Reprinted by permission of Peter
Hagan, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010. All rights reserved.
The entire text of L-Play has been published in an acting edition by Dramatists Play
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LOOKING FOR NORMAL by Jane Anderson Copyright 2002 by Jane Anderson.
Reprinted by permission of the author, c/o The Gage Group (Attn.: Martin Gage,
14724 Ventura Blvd., Suite 505, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403. All rights reserved. The
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tists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10016, 212-MU3-8960 (ph), 212-
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MONTHS ON END by Craig Pospisil Copyright 2003 by Craig Allan Pospisil. Reprinted
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Attn.: Patricia McLaughlin. All rights reserved. The entire text of Months on End has
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NOVEMBER by Don Nigro Copyright 1983, 1985, 1994, 2002 by Don Nigro. Reprinted
by permission of Samuel French, Inc. (Attn.: Linda Kirland), 45 W. 25th St., New
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ORANGE FLOWER WATER by Craig Wright Copyright 2002 by Craig Wright. Reprinted
by permission of Helen Merrill Ltd. (Attn.: Beth Blickers), 295 Lafayette St., Suite
915, New York, NY 10012. All rights reserved. The entire text of Orange Flower Water
has been published by Smith and Kraus, Inc. in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002
OTHER PEOPLE by Christopher Shinn Copyright 2000 by Christopher Shinn. Reprinted
by permission of John Buzzetti, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., New York, NY
10010. All rights reserved. The entire text of Other People has been published in an
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REMBRANDT’S GIFT by Tina Howe Copyright 2002 by Tina Howe. Reprinted by per-
mission of William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY
10019. All rights reserved. The entire text of Rembrandt’s Gift has been published by
Smith and Kraus, Inc. in Humana Festival 2002: The Complete Plays
SAVED OR DESTROYED by Harry Kondoleon Copyright 2002 by Christine Kondoleon.
Reprinted by permission of the William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Ave. of the Amer-
icas, New York, NY 10019. All rights reserved. The entire text of Saved or Destroyed
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SELF DEFENSE by Carson Kreitzer Copyright 2002 by Carson Kreitzer. Reprinted by per-
mission of Judy Boals, Judy Boals, Inc., 208 W. 30th St., Suite 401, New York, NY
10001. All rights reserved. The entire text of Self Defense has been published by Smith
and Kraus, Inc. in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002

101
SOMEPLACE WARM by Peter Macklin Copyright 2002 by Peter Macklin. Reprinted by
permission of Samuel French, Inc. (Attn.: Linda Kirland), 45 W. 25th St., New York,
NY 10010. All rights reserved. The entire text of Someplace Warm has been published
by Samuel French, Inc. in Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays, 26th Series
SORROWS AND REJOICINGS by Athol Fugard Copyright 2002 by Athol Fugard.
Reprinted by permission of Theatre Communications Group, 355 Lexington Ave., New
York, NY 10017. All rights reserved. The entire text of Sorrows and Rejoicings has been
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(ph), 212-206-1429 (fx).
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING by Prince Gomolvilas Copyright 2002 by Prince Go-
molvilas. Reprinted by permission of Dramatic Publishing, 311 Washington St., Wood-
stock, IL 60098, 815-338-7170 (ph), 815-338-8981 (fx). All rights reserved. The entire
text of The Theory of Everything has been published in an acting edition by Dramatic
Publishing.
TRANSATLANTIC by Judy Klass Copyright by Judy Klass. Reprinted by permission of
the author. All rights reserved. For a copy of the complete text, or for inquiries as to
performance rights, contact the author via e-mail (judykwrites@aol.com)
THE TRIAL OF ONE SHORT-SIGHTED BLACK WOMAN VS. MAMMY LOUISE
AND SAFREETA MAE by Karani Marcia Leslie Copyright 2002 by Karani Marcia
Leslie. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved. The entire text of
The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae has
been published in an acting edition by Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New
York, NY 10028-0202, 212-772-8354 (ph), 212-772-8358 (fx).
U.S. DRAG by Gina Gionfriddo Copyright 2002 by Gina Gionfriddo. Reprinted by per-
mission of the author, whose agent is now Melissa Hardey, Bret Adams Ltd., 448 W.
44th St., New York, NY 10036. All rights reserved. The entire text of U.S. Drag has
been published by Smith and Kraus, Inc. in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002
WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN by Christopher Shinn Copyright 2003 by Christopher Shinn.
Reprinted by permission of John Buzzetti, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., New
York, NY 10010. All rights reserved. As of this publication, What Didn’t Happen has
not been published in an acting edition; but it will no doubt be published eventually
by Dramatists Play Service, which has published Mr. Shinn’s other plays, at some un-
specified future date. Contact The Gersh Agency for performance rights.
WHERE’S MY MONEY? by John Patrick Shanley Copyright 2002 by John Patrick Shan-
ley. Reprinted by permission of William Morris Agency, Inc., 1325 Ave. of the Amer-
icas, New York, NY 10019. All rights reserved. The entire text of Where’s My Money?
has been published in an acting edition by Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S.,
New York, NY 10016, 212-MU3-8960 (ph), 212-213-1539 (fx).
WHITEOUT by Alan Newton Copyright 2002 by Alan Newton. Reprinted by permission
of Dramatic Publishing, 311 Washington St., Woodstock, IL 60098, 815-338-7170
(ph), 815-338-8981 (fx). All rights reserved. The entire text of Whiteout has been pub-
lished in an acting edition by Dramatic Publishing.

102