The Best

Women’s Stage Monologues

of 2008
 The Best
Women’s Stage Monologues
of 2008

Edited and with a Foreword by

Lawrence Harbison

MONOLOGUE AUDITION SERIES

A SMITH AND KRAUS BOOK

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First Edition: February 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration by Lisa Goldfinger
Cover and text design and production by Julia Hill Gignoux

The Monologue Audition Series

ISBN-13 978-1-57525-619-1 / ISBN-10 1-57525-619-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008941388

NOTE: These monologues are intended to be used for audition and class study; per-
mission is not required to use the material for those purposes. However, if there is a
paid performance of any of the monologues included in this book, please refer to the
Rights and Permissions pages 104-106 to locate the source that can grant permission
for public performance.

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CONTENTS

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

AND HER HAIR WENT WITH HER (2), Zina Camblin . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

AND WE ALL WORE LEATHER PANTS, Robert Attenweiler. . . . . . . . . . 5
BEAUTY OF THE FATHER, Nilo Cruz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
THE BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES (2), Kate Moira Ryan and
Linda S. Chapman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
BOATS ON A RIVER, Julie Marie Myatt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
A BODY OF WATER, Lee Blessing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
BOOM (3), Peter Sinn Nachtrieb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
THE BUTCHER OF BARABOO, Marisa Wegrzyn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
CHRISTMAS BELLES, Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten . 20
CHRONICLES SIMPKINS WILL CUT YOUR ASS OFF, Rolin Jones . . . . . 22
THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, Michael Murphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CUSTODY OF THE EYES (2), Anthony Giardina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
THE DRUNKEN CITY (3), Adam Bock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
EARTHQUAKE CHICA, Anne García-Romero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
EAT THE RUNT, Avery Crozier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
ELLIOT, A SOLDIER’S FUGUE, Quiara Alegría Hudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
FALL FORWARD, Daniel Reitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
FOOD FOR FISH, Adam Szymkowicz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
FUCK TORI AMOS, Caitlyn Montanye Parrish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
GIFTBOX (2), Francine Volpe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
GOD’S EAR (2), Jenny Schwartz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
GREAT FALLS, Lee Blessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
GUARDIANS (2), Peter Morris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
THE HOPPER COLLECTION, Mat Smart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
HUNTING AND GATHERING (2), Brooke Berman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
IN OUR NAME, Elena Hartwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
IN THE SHADOW OF MY SON, Nadine Bernard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
JOY, John Fisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING, Don DeLillo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
MARVELOUS SHRINE, Leslie Bramm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
MAURITIUS, Theresa Rebeck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
MEN OF STEEL, Qui Nguyen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
NEIGHBORHOOD 3: REQUISITION OF DOOM, Jennifer Haley. . . . . . . 69
NONE OF THE ABOVE, Jenny Lyn Bader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
100 SAINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW (2), Kate Fodor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
PROPERTY, Rosary O’Neill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
REGRETS ONLY (2), Paul Rudnick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS, José Rivera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A SMALL, MELODRAMATIC STORY, Stephen Belber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
SMOKE AND MIRRORS (2), Joseph Goodrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN, Young Jean Lee . . . . 86
SPAIN, Jim Knabel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
TEA, Valina Hasu Houston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
TEMPODYSSEY, Dan Dietz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY, Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
UNCONDITIONAL, Brett C. Leonard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
WELCOME HOME, JENNY SUTTER, Julie Marie Myatt . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
WHAT SHALL I DO FOR PRETTY GIRLS?, Don Nigro . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT, Marisa Wegrzyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
WHITE PEOPLE, JT Rogers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

FOREWORD

In these pages, you will find a rich and varied selection of monologues
from recent plays. Many are for younger performers (teens through thir-
ties) but there are also some excellent pieces for women in their forties
and fifties, and even a few for older performers. Many are comic (laughs),
many are dramatic (generally, no laughs). Some are rather short, some are
rather long. All represent the best in contemporary playwriting.
Several of these pieces are by playwrights whose work may be famil-
iar to you such as Don Nigro, Nilo Cruz, Lee Blessing, Theresa Rebeck,
Paul Rudnick, Adam Bock, José Rivera and Stephen Belber; others are by
exciting up-and-comers like Jim Knabel, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Quira
Alegría Hudes, Caitlyn Montanye Parrish, Jenny Schwartz, Qui Nguyen,
Kate Fodor, Young Jean Lee and Brett C. Leonard. All are representative
of the best of contemporary writing for the stage.
Most of the plays from which these monologues have been culled have
been published and, hence, are readily available from the publisher/
licensor or from theatrical book stores such as Drama Book Shop in New
York. A few plays may not be published for a while, in which case contact
the author or his agent for a copy of the entire text of the monologue that
suits your fancy. Information on publishers/rights holders may be found in
the Rights and Permissions section in the back of this anthology.
Break a leg in that audition! Knock ’em dead in class!

— Lawrence Harbison
Brooklyn, N.Y.

v
AND HER HAIR WENT
WITH HER
Zina Camblin

Comic
Keisha, twenties, Black

Keisha is talking to her friend Jasmine about “Black Compulsive

Disorder” and what she intends to do about it.

KEISHA: Black Obsessive Compulsive! You’ve seen it on Seinfeld, and

Frazier, but us B.O.C.’s are in full effect. We’re just closeted cause
our people don’t put up with that shit! “Keisha let me get a lick of
your ice cream cone” . . . “What you mean no?” Can you get a
spoon? “Mutha fucka! I just want one lick. Why you gotta be all
stingy?” I’m not being stingy. I just don’t want mouth bacteria on
my cone. So then I hear: “Crazy-ass. Black folks ain’t supposed to
be actin’ like that. You got that white-people mental disease. What’s
that shit called? Obsolete, obtuse complexion — some shit — that’s
what you got.” (Starts coughing.) Ah man, I can’t take this cough. It’s
a deep one. Must have caught it from homeboy on the bus. Why is
it that people find this an acceptable thing to do? (She sneezes with-
out covering her mouth.) Or this? (She coughs without covering her
mouth.) Now I’m sick. Even though I held my breath for twenty
seconds. That’s the exact time it takes for germs to disintegrate after
they’ve been released from their host body. People don’t understand
the danger of germs. Did ya see the movie “Outbreak”? Did you see
all them nasty-ass monkeys? That’s why I had to start my own com-
pany, B.O.C. Inc. This germ stuff is deeper than you think. My
company is dedicated to the survival of our people. (Jasmine
laughs.) I’m serious. Think about it. What is black peoples’ primary
mode of transportation in this city?
. . . That’s right. Public transportation. Moving germ recepta-
cles! What kind of restaurants line the streets of our black neighbor-
hoods? Organic markets? No. McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King.
1
 Where are food servers the least likely to wash their hands? Fast food
restaurants. It’s a plan! They’re killing us off. Why do you think
health care ain’t free? What community suffers the most? Blacks and
Latinos. Doctors ain’t gonna protect us!
(Takes out sanitizing wipes and begins to clean her hands.)

2
AND HER HAIR WENT
WITH HER
Zina Camblin

Comic
Denise, twenties, Black

Denise talks to her friend Jasmine about her trials and tribulations
at her various jobs.

DENISE: It’s fine for a nine to five. Mr. Kaufman is a real slave master. He
calls me his secretary, but I’m really a personal assistant. (Cell phone
rings again.) Kaufman Realtors. No he’s not in yet. Maybe he did,
but I’m sitting in front of his office door, and he’s not here. Hold
on. I’ll transfer you. (Hangs up phone.) I can’t believe he gives his
clients my cell phone number. This is my fifth job this month. I’ve
been fired four times in one month, and none of the reasons have
been in my control.
. . . I’ll get there when I get there. Massa doesn’t get there until
eleven anyway. At first I was working at a marketing company. You
know, telephone stuff. The guy in the cubicle next to mine, we’ll
just call him Jeff cause that’s his real name, he used to throw these
paper airplanes into my cubicle with vulgar messages on them. I
wanna stick my plane in your terminal, let me slide down your run-
way, you know freaky stuff. When I finally reported it I was told
that the tweed knee length skirts I wear to work were too revealing
and it was my own fault. Can you believe it — and Jeff turned out
to be the bosses nephew — so nothing happened to him. Looking
up my skirt, talking dirty to me at my job? So then I had to go
down a peg and work at Shoe World. Not that there’s anything
wrong with shoes. But people got some nasty feet.
This older guy comes in to try on some athletic sandals and
insists that I be the one to put them on his feet. That wouldn’t have
been a problem if he hadn’t of had fungus growing out of his toes

3
 and rotting toe nails which were causing me to dry heave. I refused
to help him into his sandals and was fired on the spot. (Cell phone
rings.) Kaufman Realtors. We’re closed for the day. I know it’s only
9:30. We had a bomb threat. (She hangs up.) So then I had to go even
lower down on the ladder and work at a coffee shop. We’ll call it
Starchucks to protect its identity. Things started off well. By the
third day I could make any drink off the menu with no mistakes and
run the register. My boss said I had a lot of potential and he could
see me being promoted to manager within six months. Everything
was good until this bitch on her cell phone comes in, orders I guess
a decaf vanilla latte, and a bunch of pastries. Well after I get all the
damn pastries I forgot if she said decaf or regular. When I asked her
to repeat it, this lunatic took her cell phone from her ear and
snapped at me, “I already told you once. Figure it out.” So I made it
a regular. Well she took two sips of it and started having convulsions.
I was fired on the spot. (Cell phone rings.) Kaufman Realtors. I’m not
his keeper. I don’t know where the hell he is. (She hangs up.) Well a
friend of mine worked at this bank and she said they needed tellers.
This was a huge step for me so I applied and got the job. Now I don’t
have a car. I ride the bus to work. So my first day the bus breaks
down. I’m late for work. I tell my boss it won’t happen again. Second
day a car runs a red light and side swipes the bus. I’m late again. My
boss says he’ll give me one more chance. Third day the bus is
hijacked by a homeless man with an ax. I’m fired on the spot. My
boss thinks I’m making it all up. He doesn’t understand my luck
with jobs. So that leads me to this job where Mr. Kaufman is accus-
ing me of not taking the job seriously. Ain’t that a bitch.

4
. . . AND WE ALL WORE
LEATHER PANTS
Robert Attenweiler

Dramatic
Mary, twenties

Mary is speaking to her husband Jagger and has just revealed that
she’s lost/misplaced their baby, Ruble. She has a history of misplac-
ing her children and Jagger asks “What happens?”

MARY: Oh, all the ones been in me once upon a time. Never lost track of
a baby before Jagger. But did lose count. Lost count a’ how many
when I got up in double-digit kids. Not so unusual a girl my age
fillin’ a house, but I couldn’t stop with the kids. Filled that house
and that house and that one. Got to the point I couldn’t sit down
on the couch without hearin’ a little cry and findin’ one of my
babies stuck under me — I’d pour out a Raisin Bran and two or
three would tumble out of the box. So many, they’d hang from the
pole in my closet and I don’t have no choice but to drape my blouse
over their soft little heads so as not to wrinkle ’em on the floor. But
they lost patience with me. They began to use all fours and swear I
seen ’em scurry up a wall to hide in shadow — conspirin’ to drive
me out. And one day they did — content they’d do a better job rais-
in’ themselves than I could. I went back tonight. Several more got
teeth now. Asked back in. Told ’em things would be different. That
losin’ Jagger n’ my babies made me appreciate them. That I’d go
back, name ’em all and these’d be names I’d remember. They just
hissed. Jagger used to believe anything I’d tell him. But my beauti-
ful little beasts wouldn’t even give me that little moment when my
wrong word makes me a beautiful world.

5
BEAUTY OF THE FATHER
Nilo Cruz

Dramatic
Marina, twenties

Marina is talking to her father about the day her mother died.

MARINA: Ah, Mamá had a hat like this one. It’s lovely, isn’t it?
. . . She looked so beautiful the day she died. No one would
think . . . She died with such grace. That afternoon she said, “Pass
me my purse. Let me look at my face in the mirror.” She opened
her compact, looked at herself and said, “Oh, I look fine.” Then she
asked me to play music. She said she only wanted to hear Fades.
And I played her Amalia Rodrigues. All of a sudden her face became
vibrant, as if she had reached into her purse and pulled out her last
strand of life. She got up and asked me to dance with her. “Listen
to that voice,” she’d repeat over and over again. “Listen to the clar-
ity of that voice.” Then she sat in her chair and she took her last
breath listening to Amalia’s voice.
And I was actually proud of myself that day. I didn’t get hys-
terical or anything. I didn’t call the doctor or the rescue right away.
Instead I took my time before she was taken away from me. I let the
music play on. I combed her hair and powdered her face.
I colored her lips and perfumed her neck. And I sat there and
looked at her as if she were a painting, because I tell you, Papá, she
looked like a masterpiece of life that was. And when the rescue
came, they wanted to know at what time this, at what time that.
And I wasn’t much help. I told them she had just come back from
a dance — that my mother had just come back from Spain after
dancing with my father. (Laughs.) They must’ve thought I was mad.

6
THE BEEBO BRINKER
CHRONICLES
Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman

Dramatic
Beebo, twenties

Beebo has tried to pick up a woman she fancies but has been turned
down. Here she tries again.

BEEBO: BEEBO: Tell me baby. Tell me all about it.

. . . Try baby. Try.
. . . You don’t need to tell me about it, because I already know.
I’ve lived through it too. You fall in love. You’re young, you’re inex-
perienced. You fall, up to your ears and there’s nobody to talk to,
nobody to lean on. You’re all alone with that great big miserable
feeling and she’s driving you out of your mind. Finally you give in
to it and she’s straight. End of story. End of soap opera. And then
again, beginning of soap opera. That’s all the village is honey, just
one crazy little soap opera after another. All tangled up with each
other, one piled on top of the next, ad infinitum Mary loves Jean,
Jane loves Joan, Joan loves Jean and Beebo loves Laura. Doesn’t
mean a thing. It goes on forever. Where one stops another begins. I
know most of the girls in here. I’ve probably slept with half of them,
I’ve lived with half of the half I’ve slept with. What does it all come
to? You know something baby? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
You don’t like me and that doesn’t matter. Someday maybe you’ll
love me, and that won’t matter either. Because it won’t last. Not
down here. Not anywhere in the world, if you’re gay you’ll never
find peace, you’ll never find Love. With a capital L. L for Love. L
for Laura. L for Lust and L for the L of it L for Lesbian. L for let’s,
let’s. Let’s. How about it? Want to go home with Beebo?

7
THE BEEBO BRINKER
CHRONICLES
Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman

Dramatic
Marcie, twenties

Marcie has blown Laura off; but she offers an apology and a plea
for her to come back to her.

MARCIE: Laura, I’m going to tell you something. And you’re going to
listen.
. . . I did an awful thing, Laura. And now it’s eating me up. I’ve
known for a while about you.
. . . I couldn’t help knowing. You couldn’t hide it Laura. You
couldn’t come near me without showing how you felt. Those crazy
moods. I’ve been around enough to know. I even told Burr what I
suspected. I even bet Burr I could make a pass at you.
. . . Laura I don’t know why I did what I did. Lead you on. I
guess I thought it would be a lot of kicks. And just now you told
me how you felt and how you wanted me — Laura, I had no idea
you could love like that. You made it beautiful. Laura, I’m ashamed.
I played you for a fool and all the while you were an angel. Laura,
I’d do anything for you. If I could love you the way you want me
to, I’d do that. I’ll even try if you want me to. Laura do whatever
you want with me. I’ve hurt you so terribly. Hurt me back if it’ll
help. Do something. Do anything. Only don’t cry. Only don’t leave.
Laura! Please come back!

8
BOATS ON A RIVER
Julie Marie Myatt

Dramatic
Sister Margaret, early sixties

Sister Margaret runs a shelter in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Here

she is berating Sidney, who has come to the country for the sex
trade.

SISTER MARGARET: This is my personal life. You’re right. And there have
been nights I’ve wished for nothing more than someone to go home
to. Someone who I loved and could devote myself to; who I could
talk to about myself. A warm body to hold . . . to be held. (Clears
her throat at this revealing confession . . . ) But that’s not the choice I
made with my life. I went in another direction. I don’t regret it. I
live with my choices quite comfortably . . . But I’m sorry . . . I can-
not stand by and watch you destroy what I happen to believe —
what I know — is very important. Your refuge. Your adult refuge.
From here. You need your own refuge, Sidney . . . Love and kind-
ness . . . we both made choices, Sidney. But this is your personal life
too and you’re killing it. You marry a sex worker, have two kids with
her, and leave her . . . and you want to tell me that your work and
personal life are not a bit at odds at the moment? And I thought you
were a smart man. Please . . . Get off your high horse, Sidney. Stop
acting like the only thing people want from you, and the only thing
you have to offer people, is fixing them. What makes you so special?
You have a magic potion, you have a wand, or some kind of super
powers that I haven’t seen? . . . No one has asked you to fix them,
Sidney. Not your wife, or these girls . . . That’s not what we’re here
for . . . We’re here to give them food and shelter and aid and love
and a future . . . That’s all we can do . . . You think you can mend
all the loss and all the scars, and you will fail . . . I promise. You will
fail. You can’t do it. All the factories in this country couldn’t sew

9
 these little girls back together, make it look like nothing has
changed, nothing is broken . . . There are too many scars and there’s
not enough thread or stitches to go around. We can’t mend anyone
back to someone they might have been, we can only hold them
together as they are . . . wounds and all . . . And that's alright . . .
That’s wonderful, actually. Your wife had a a horrible childhood,
and it had nothing to do with you. She got hurt and you weren’t
there. Get over yourself and get her some help . . . Send Max . . .
Send me . . . But please go home and be her friend, and stop trying
to make her all better.

10
A BODY OF WATER
Lee Blessing

Dramatic
Wren, twenties

Wren tells Moss she knows he killed his eleven-year-old daughter.

WREN: (Rising, staring out the window.) One bright, sunny, frozen day,
you made a 911 call to your local authorities. Robin was missing
from her home — your home. Not that far from here. This is your
summer place, by the way. You claimed initially that she hadn’t
come home the night before. You thought she was at a sleep-over,
but when she didn’t come home that morning, you called, and . . .
well, she was just gone. Police came, took a few pictures, poked all
around. Because you’re a judge, they bent the rules and put out an
immediate missing person’s, Amber Alert — the whole package.
After all, you seemed so sure she was missing and not just with
friends, or a boy or whatever. You were right. When the ice came off
the lake three months later, there she was: a few shreds of clothes, a
bracelet, ankle chain — though not much ankle.
. . . But there’s no disguising a crushed skull. So bap! Murder
investigation. And the funny thing was, there were no suspects.
Except you.
. . . Funny thing about the sleep-over. It didn’t happen. Her lit-
tle friend got sick. So Robin did in fact flutter home that night at
about — oh, eleven P.M. Dropped off by her friend’s mom. She
watched her go in. So you had to change your story. OK, you said,
“We must have been asleep when she came home. We got con-
fused.” Awkward.
. . . Police had you in. You went voluntarily. Prominent jurist,
woman of accomplishment — it was all very delicate, believe me. You
told what you knew, the second version: She must have sneaked out.
. . . Problem was, where would she go? Exclusive neighbor-
hood, cold night. Hell of a long walk anywhere. She was eleven.
11
 Didn’t take a very heavy coat. She didn’t know anyone with a car.
Except you. Speaking of cars, your neighbor — the insomniac? —
claims to have heard one leave your place that night at, golly — two
A.M. So that interested police, given there were no signs of forced
entry and you denied going anywhere. When they wanted to search
your home again, you made them get a warrant. Didn’t find any-
thing. Practically painted the joint with Luminol — no blood.
Naturally you posted a reward, flyers, created the “Have you seen
Robin?” website. Didn’t really help, though. Everyone in the world
thinks you did it. (A long beat.)
. . . Lots of theories, of course. Why no blood? My personal
favorite is that one or both of you smothered her. Then you got all
panicky, the way people do, and you made a plan. One or both of
you gathered up your poor, little dead girl, wrapped her in heavy-
duty plastic, since it was a heavy duty, tossed her in the trunk and
drove her up here to this lake. Then — and this was smart, I’ll give
you this — then and only then did you bash her head in. Did a
good job of it. Left forensics with a classic conundrum. Where’s the
blood? Not in your house. Anyhow, you slipped her in the lake,
one or both of you, drove home and called the cops the next morn-
ing. Oh, lucky for you — big cold front came through that night.
Froze that lake up as solid as . . . well, ice. By the time Robin came
up a-bob-bob-bobbin’, there wasn’t much left of Robin.

12
BOOM
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Dramatic
Barbara, thirties to forties

Barbara is a lecturer of sorts, here to tell us how the world ended

centuries ago. Here, she talks about how she came to be.

BARBARA: Ohhhhh. Oh oh oh. There is trouble!

The food is gone, the air is thin, the fan has really been hit!
What oh what are they going to do? And it’s gotta be something
[Huge!!]
I would really like to tell you how I was conceived.
(She looks to see if the coast is clear.)
It was a hot sticky sticky hot day. The type of day where you
are hoping for someone to breathe on your face for a bit of wind.
The type of day when your outstretched hand disappears in a haze
of vapor. The type of day when clothing becomes more of a nui-
sance than a much-appreciated social construct.
My mother-to-be was by the shore, sprawled under a tree whose
shade offered nothing. The water looked refreshing but the violent
surf, fear of the unseen, and a mild allergy to salt kept her from mov-
ing too close. She lay back on the hot sand, opening her body wide
so that any movement of air would have maximum contact.
My father-to-be was in the sea, a short ways away, theoretically
hunting for food but really floating on his back and daydreaming.
Oddly comfortable with his body image, he had stripped himself of
all his clothes, save for a wristwatch he wore for sentimental reasons.
His dreams were vivid. Having recently pledged to not actively plea-
sure himself in an effort to bring more focus and productivity to his
life, his dreams skewed towards filling the void that his hands had left.
He dreamt his naked body was swimming in a pool filled with
cool, vibrating, lubricated marbles that gently rolled and rubbed
and activated his exterior, asking it to be alert. Reaching out
13
 through the moistness he touched skin reaching out towards his.
Not his own, like a leg he forgot about. It was the skin of my
mother.
Not her actual skin, or course, which was . . .
[on the shore]
It was what he had envisioned for years to coat her flesh. Warm
and wet, colorful and perfect. The imaginary touching grew, back
and forth motions intensified, a feeling so beautiful and over-
whelming surged until my father-to-be, in his dream, and in the
water, exploded.
My mother-to-be heard a slight popping noise above the surf,
glanced outwards but could only see a discoloration of the haze, and
she felt particles land on her skin that felt refreshingly cool.
What she did not see was the fertile fluid that had erupted out
of my father-to-be one hundredth of a second before he himself
erupted pushed by the energy of the blast quickly and invisibly
towards the shore where the smallest of portions had just the right
angle to land inside my mother-to-be, swim with passion and feist
into her core, fertilize an egg, and make me.
It took a number of years to figure out how that all happened,
and it’s been a party story ever since. I’ve embellished it of course,
as we are wont to do, but I remain faithful to the story’s intent. I
am passionate about my stories!
(She looks up.)
PASSIONATE!
I’m sorry. I’m really really not supposed to be . . .
[talking]
I just thought . . . I could share how this is
[personal . . . ]
The theme, the resilience of life, against all odds blah blah blah
and such . . .
(Barbara stifles a tear.)
I’m sorry.
It’s just . . . this is the last day I get to do this.

14
BOOM
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Dramatic
Jo, twenties

Jo has answered a personal ad placed by a marine biologist. She

meets him at his lab and he tells her that the world is about to end
and she and he will be the only ones to survive Armageddon.

JO: I wish I’d been a cheerleader instead of smart and different! I’d have
a boyfriend. And we’d have gone on a nice date tonight. We would
have had hot heterosexual sex.
I wish I knew how to meet normal people, have normal expe-
riences and just, maybe, have a moment where something mildly
pleasurable happens . . . but instead, I meet a faggy psycho like you
into some Road Warrior meets Survivor fantasy apocalypse whatev-
erthefuckthisis bullshit where you want to pretend you’re lucky
when nobody else is.
You’re not a lucky person! And neither am I.
We’re the kind of people who get the data wrong, who get
stuck in the basement lab, whose bodies sabotage their intentions
and make them hostile and horny at the same time. So go fuck
yourself and your fish and your fantasy and see —
— Ya later!

15
BOOM
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Dramatic
Barbara, thirties to forties

Barbara is a lecturer of sorts, here to tell us how the world ended

centuries ago. Here, she describes the exact moment of Armageddon.

BARBARA: I wanted you to know that the actual noise was louder. And
there was a lot of shaking of things. Some flames. Dust. Miscellany
falling from elevated places. Chaos. Terror.
(A gesture of chaos and terror, maybe toppling a few things.)
We have tried our best to reproduce that here. Alas, there’s only
so much we can do. What with the limitations: Physical, cognitive,
budgetary. I just wanted to underscore the . . . girth of the moment.
Big Girth.
(A gesture of large girth.)
This is, in fact, that well known moment in time. What we
now refer to as “The Boom”? Everyone is familiar with that term? I
will assume your silence or words mean “yes.”
We’re all familiar with the general circumstances of the event?
That he was correct? The fish were correct? The impact did indeed
[occur?]
And most everything, almost all forms of life, you know,
just . . .
[ceased to live]
Pretty unfortunate, really. That there are moments in time
when everything has to go like that. Dolphins especially. But, alas,
it is a brutal history that we are all a part of.
(With increasing passion.)
A history that goes back millions and millions and millions of
years. Back to that fresh rock, angry water, that sludgy mix of young
amino acids sloshing about in the soup with reckless handsome

16
abandon until CRACK! The perfect bolt of energy in the perfect
spot and there you have it: The world’s first protein!
Motherfucker!
So begins this amazing story of change, of innovation, of great
catastrophe, of LIFE. MY GOD WHAT A STORY OF LIFE IT IS!
I’m Barbara.
(A gesture towards her tag.)
Just in case you
[forget.]
I’m sitting over there. I’m . . . I’m really not supposed to be
talking at all.
(She laughs.)
But sometimes what we’re supposed to do
[isn’t what we should do]
Right? Right? Right.
“The Boom.” It’s not just about a loud noise. It’s the event: a
sudden, radical change in the state of things.

17
THE BUTCHER OF
BARABOO
Marisa Wegrzyn

Comic
Gail, forties

Gail, a policewoman, is having difficulty recording her suicide

tape.

Late that night. Gail at the kitchen table with a tape recorder
and gun.

GAIL: (Hits ‘record’ button.) Okay. Hey. If my handwriting weren’t all

chicken scratch I’d leave a note but, uh. Crud. That’s stupid.
(Stop, rewind, record.)
Hi. This is Gail. Um. If you’re listening to this, it means, um.
y’know, I’m probably dead. On the floor. Or something. No.
(Stop, rewind. record.)
Hi. Um. Blehhh. Poop.
(Stop, rewind, record.)
Let’s see, uh. Hi. Gail here. These are my last words. Um, first
to Eddie. You’re a bastard for sleeping around with cocktail wait-
resses that Shirley or Susie or Sally. I let you follow your dreams and
you didn’t give two halfshits about my dreams and I had dreams,
whole dreams, not just halfshits of dreams, and you better believe I
would not have encouraged your baseball dream had I known the
steroids would squash your little sperms. To Valerie. You were never
good enough for my brother and if you didn’t kill him then you
drove him to it and that’s all I have to say about that. Though you
do bring me good cuts of meat and you don’t make me pay for them.
So, thanks. Midge, you irritate me. A lot. But I know how much you
like Billy Joel so you can have my records Glass Houses and 52nd
Street. You’re welcome to Piano Man, but it has a big scratch. And,

18
also, have my collection of souvenir ashtrays, I’ve collected one from
every state except Montana and Hawaii. And Delaware but (Scoffs.).
Sevenly, if you want my Peter Paul & Mary record your kids might
like that, it’s very wholesome. Donal: I don’t have anything for you.
You made fun of me when we were younger and you made me feel
stupid and you set my teddy bear on fire. It’s you who should’ve died
instead of Frank. And if the lot of you think I haven’t been very nice,
then that’s just the way I am and what I felt is what I felt and I can’t
change things now. The Crystal Meth I did gave me clarity and per-
spective, mostly on the ineffectiveness and wrong-headedness of our
school district’s anti-drug programs. (Pause.) I loved Frank and I miss
him. I miss him so much. The other day, I drove to the lake, late,
and the lake, it was frozen, and out there, I thought I saw Frank give
me a wave before going under. It was my imagination I suppose. I’ll
have to live and die with that I suppose. And . . . Despite all the stuff
I’ve said, I love most of you somehow, for some reason. That’s it.
Goodbye.
(Stop. Pause. Rewind. Play.)

19
CHRISTMAS BELLES
Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and
Jamie Wooten

Comic
Geneva, sixties

Geneva is the jolly proprietor of a flower shop in a small Southern

town.

Christmas music plays over a crackling PA system. Lights come up

on Miss Geneva Musgrave, sixties, the crusty proprietor of BooKoo
BoKay, the only flower shop in Fayro, Texas, population 3,003. The
shop is also the town bus depot. The phone rings. She answers.

GENEVA: This is BooKoo BoKay. Whether you’re sayin’ “Get well soon,” “I
do” or “I’ll never touch that woman again,” say it with flowers. How
can I help you? . . . Why, Tenny, how you doin’? . . . Actually, I’m wait-
ing for the three twenty-five from Houston to bring my floral ship-
ment. Nelda’s funeral today cleaned me out. And speaking of which,
if Nelda Lightfoot was half the psychic she claimed to be, how come
she didn’t know that runaway Christmas float was bearing down on
her? . . . Yeah, up ’til then it was a real good parade. The float from
Clovis Sanford’s House of Meat was definitely my favorite, even
though it turned out to be a killer . . . Oh, business is great. After all
these years, I have found the key to success in the floral business:
helium. Do you know I’ve tripled my Christmas orders by introduc-
ing the “Happy Birthday Jesus Balloon Bouquet”? Well, I sure have.
And even my Greyhound franchise is startin’ to pay off. Oh, hold on,
Tenny. I got a bus just in from Brownsville . . . (Into a microphone.)
Attención, Ladies and Gentlemen, Señores y Señoritas. Welcome and
bienvenito to Fayro, Texas. We hope you’ll do your holiday shopping
para la entire familia while you’re here. So let BoKoo BoKay help with
any floral necessitas you may have. Merry Christmas and Feliz
Navidad to y’all and yours! (Back to the phone.) I’m telling you, Tenny,

20
all this success has helped take the sting out of not being asked to
direct the church Christmas Program — for the first time in twenty-
seven years . . . Evidently the Deacons thought the show needed new
blood. I only hope Honey Raye Futrelle knows the mess she’s getting
into . . . You’re right. I have to let it go. After all, it is Christmas. And
to quote Tiny Tim, “God help us every one” . . . Of course I know it’s
really “God bless us every one,” but girl, this is Fayro, Texas. And we
need all the help we can get . . . (Blackout.)

21
CHRONICLES SIMPKINS
WILL CUT YOUR ASS OFF
Rolin Jones

Dramatic
Jessica, thirties to forties

Jessica is telling off a teacher at Chronicles’ school for reporting her

for being in possession of drugs, for which she has been expelled.

JESSICA: She’ll be expelled. Principal Cody will ship her to another school
and she’ll rule the tetherball court there and the same jealousies will
conspire to break her spirit. Pretty soon she’ll be selling her body for
crack. Is that what you want? You want Chronicles smoking crack?
You want to ruin her life? Did you run out here to this small little
bit of asphalt, blowing your whistle, making wild accusations
because you’re trying to justify your existence, Mr. Finkel? Because
you have failed to prepare your students, students like Billy Conn
for the coming world? A world that is surprising, and scary and yes,
occasionally unfair? It’s something he can’t find in the books you
make us read. And the lessons you draw up on the chalkboard. You
have to let children fall, Mr. Finkel. You have to let them fall and
get back up on their own. Chronicles is an outcast here, Mr. Finkel.
In exile everywhere she carries her Fun Dip. But from ten-thirty-
five to eleven o’clock and twelve thirty to one fifteen she feels safe.
When Chronicles steps into this circle, when she’s hitting her high
arcing serves, and flying that ball over the heads of children more
privileged than her, for a brief moment in space and time, Mr.
Finkel, Chronicles Simpkins is immortal. And just witnessing it is a
thing of beauty. And you want to take that away from her. From us.
Shame on you, Mr. Finkel. Billy Conn was weak. That’s what hap-
pened here.

22
THE CONSCIENTIOUS
OBJECTOR
Michael Murphy

Dramatic
Coretta, thirties

Coretta Scott King speaks to a group in New York City shortly after
her husband’s assassination and shares with them some notes found
in Dr. King’s pocket pertaining to his stance on the war in
Vietnam.

CORETTA: My husband had been scheduled to speak here tonight. It was

on his calendar for quite some time. He said he could not turn down
an invitation to come back to New York to speak about this awful
war. I felt someone needed to keep the commitment. I can tell you
. . . People seemed . . . I think they were a little intimidated speakin’
in his place, I think, bein’ so soon after . . . So they finally had to, well,
they asked if I’d do it. And, so . . . I can’t say that my husband knew
exactly what he was gonna say to you tonight. But I want to tell you
he’d been thinkin’ about it. I know because . . . I found this . . .
(Coretta unfolds a sheet of paper.)
In the pocket of his suit. The suit that he, that he wore to
Memphis. He must’a found a quiet moment or two in all the chaos
there to make some notes. But it was just that, a moment. Because
he folded this up and put it in his pocket to work on later. It’s not
a speech. Just some thoughts. Knowing him, he’d have revised it a
dozen times and it would’a gotten maybe a little too long. Still . . .
I’d like to read it to you . . . He gave it a title: The Ten
Commandments of Vietnam.
(NOTE: This is taken from notes King made in Memphis which were
reported to have been found in the pocket of his jacket.)
They go like this . . . Thou shalt not believe the people we
claim to be fightin’ for love us. Thou shalt not believe they are

23
 grateful for our support. Thou shalt not believe they consider the
insurgents who kill our soldiers to be ‘terrorists’. Thou shalt not
believe they support the government we’ve given them. Thou shalt
not believe our government’s figures on casualties and deaths.
Thou shalt not believe our generals know best. Thou shalt not
believe even our most sympathetic allies think what we are doin’ is
right. Thou shalt not believe that our enemy’s victory means our
defeat. Thou shalt not believe there are military solutions to polit-
ical problems. Thou shalt not kill.

24
CUSTODY OF THE EYES
Anthony Giardina

Dramatic
Sheila, forties

Sheila has a son who has a rare disease which requires constant
care. Here she tells a defrocked priest why she has resisted putting
her son in an institution.

SHEILA: Father, I’ve noticed you won’t look directly at me. Why is that?
Priestly secret. I won’t pry. (Beat.) I have a son, Father. He’s eleven
years old. He’s never received communion. When I married, I had
no particular religion, lapsed something, like the rest of the world,
Catholic in my case. My husband thought he might be the one
more likely to return to the fold in time, so we tilted toward
Judaism when our son was born. My husband left us. He lives in
Boston now. He’s a social worker. Remarried. The only shred of
Judaism left in our house is my son’s lack of a foreskin. (She smiles,
acknowledges her very small joke.) He’s in a wheelchair, Father. (She
takes a cookie. It breaks in her hand as she tries to eat it. She has to
catch it as she goes on.) He was born with a disease you’ve never heard
of. At the time, only six children in the world were thought to have
it. He was not expected to make it to the age of three. He can’t see.
He is fed through a tube in his stomach because of a problem with
reflux that can always threaten to suffocate him. There was a
moment when Riley was three, when it became clear he might well
survive for a number of years. It was suggested to me that he be
institutionalized. “Placed” is actually the word they use. That it was
the only way for me to have a life. To save my marriage, which at
that point was understandably coming apart at the seams. There are
good people, they said. You will stay connected. (Beat.) There I was,
with a three year old boy and images of myself pushing him in a
wheelchair for the rest of his life. My husband had left social work
to come to this island and become a painter. Me, I’m a nurse. We
25
 had certain dreams, Father. It would have been the logical thing to
let him go. (Beat.) You’ll think this is odd. A “voice” appeared in my
head. “Keep him,” it said. Utterly clear. “Keep him.” And then it
disappeared. (Beat.) I have fought the good fight for eight years. My
marriage ended. I’ve done it alone. And now I’ve reached a difficult
patch. I won’t go into why, it can’t concern you. But one of the
things it occurs to me I could do is try and involve Riley more in
my life. I go to church now, I’ve come back. (Checking with him.) I
am waiting for that voice to appear again, I suppose, that moment
of unambiguous clarity. So, perhaps — I thought — he could come
with me. And when I walk down the aisle to receive communion
(Again checking with him.), well, maybe he could come with me. It
could be I’m fooling myself, but there’s my thinking.

26
CUSTODY OF THE EYES
Anthony Giardina

Dramatic
Sheila, forties

Sheila has a son who has a rare disease which requires constant
care. Here she tells a defrocked priest how this burden on her just
may be God’s test of her faith.

SHEILA: When I chose to keep him at home, Father —

(She pauses, something difficult in this.)
When I heard that voice eight years ago, it didn’t come as a
sporting challenge. It didn’t come as a wager I could lose. I allowed
it to change me, Father. You don’t spend eleven years living day in,
day out with a child and then act as though you can say, OK,
enough, this is getting too damn hard. I am connected to him. I
couldn’t let him go now. (Beat.) Could you do that? Live without
your relationship to your God? No? But what if God’s crafty,
Father? What if he wants to test us? Take us to the limit. Jesus in the
desert, fasting. Wasn’t that the moment when the devil came in?
What if this is — excuse me — the devil talking to me? He’s sitting
beside me in the car, saying: What do you need this for? Go ahead.
(Beat.) Because maybe — well, maybe this is one of God’s odd ways
— maybe we are near the end. Sometimes I get a strange inkling of
that. Maybe there is only a little bit longer to go. And it stands to
reason — to me — that that would be the moment when the pres-
sure might build, and explode. Ever see Caravaggio’s painting of
Abraham sacrificing Isaac? So there’s your old world patriarch
Abraham. And in every classic Bible image he’s got the long beard,
the soulful eyes lifted to heaven: why, God, why do you ask me to
do this? But in Caravaggio, who maybe knew a thing or two about
how things work down here on earth, there’s Abraham holding the
knife with a look on his face like he can’t wait to do the deed. And

27
 poor Isaac is screaming, and even the lamb in the corner is looking
terrified, and the angel sent by God is wearing a look that says: uh
oh. Uh oh. Maybe God misjudges sometimes, Father. Being not
quite human. He misjudges that desire we have to just be rid of it
all. That impulse to say: enough. God must always be surprised. Uh
oh. Too big a burden on that one . . . An angel came, yes. (Beat.) At
the last moment. Am I correct? Stayed Abraham’s hand. At the last
moment. An angel. How God works. He sends angels.
(Beat.)
Helpmates. Friends.

28
THE DRUNKEN CITY
Adam Bock

Dramatic
Jessica, twenties

Jessica tells us that she has called off her engagement.

JESSICA: (To audience.) I had everything. I had a ring. It was such a beau-
tiful night the night Jason gave it to me. My hair was up like. And
Jason looked so shiny and redfaced and he was smiling like at me
like I was the only person anywhere anywhere anywhere. It was
gonna be awesome. And. And we were going to buy a house. I’d
already picked it out. It had a gazebo in the backyard. With screens.
Where you could put a table in the summer.
Then slowly like a murmur that I didn’t notice at first I
couldn’t hear it properly I kept hearing these two names. These two
names over and over in different low voices. Jason and Jessica.
Jessica and Jason.
What kind of name is Jessica anyways Who’d name their kid
that? Jessica It’s a stupid name.
It was humiliating. I gave my ring back to Jason. And suddenly
all over again I had nothing all over again.
(Blinks.)

29
THE DRUNKEN CITY
Adam Bock

Dramatic
Marnie, twenties

Marnie tells us how she felt about telling her Dad that she has
called off her engagement.

MARNIE: My Dad
My Dad and I were upstairs wrapping birthday presents for
my nephew and my niece,
they’re twins, they’re so cute, they both have noses that
(Pushes her nose.)
Cute. Cute. They are cute.
So we were upstairs and we were wrapping their presents and
my Dad says “How’re you doing?” and I burst into tears. I was just.
And.
And I tried to explain it to him I said “Dad Gary ties his ties
too tight.” and he said “Uh huh?” and I said “Really really tight”
and he looked at me He’s such a nice guy my Dad Do you like your
Dad? Me too. I love my Dad. My Dad looked at me and I wanted
to say “I think I might have made a mistake I might have” but I was
scared because he likes Gary and they both have Toyota Corollas
and they both like watching TV together and my Dad’s so happy
I’m marrying someone like him. I didn’t want to disappoint him.
I’m so mad at myself I couldn’t tell him the truth. I don’t know how
to be.

30
THE DRUNKEN CITY
Adam Bock

Dramatic
Marnie, twenties

Marnie is talking to a guy she just met. They have wandered into
a church and she realizes she has doubts about her impending
marriage.

MARNIE: It’s gonna be a gorgeous wedding. I’m gonna wear my Mom’s

wedding dress
it’s from 1910 and her Mom wore it
and her mom’s mom wore it
and it’s satin with inlaid pearls, well not inlaid pearls, that’s not
the word I’m, and I remember when I was a tiny girl I remember
thinking “I gonna wear that dress” because it’s the most, it’s gor-
geous and I’m gonna get to be looked at, I’m gonna,
Gary was just a prop. He was. He was just
And I knew he wanted me to say yes, so I did. I just
I kept lying
And then, worse, Frank, he suddenly he he changed on me.
He started acting like a husband. How he thinks a husband is,
the world’s dangerous and he has to protect me and that means I have
to listen to him and he’s gonna tell me what to do and I’m gonna have
to act like he tells me. He’s gonna be like his Dad. But his Mom’s this
little mousy woman who never says Boo. And I’m not gonna be her.
Uh uh.
But I just don’t know what to say to Gary.
I want to tell him the truth. I do.
It’s good you brought me here. I’m gonna need some help
doing all this. Will you wait for me?
I’m gonna go sit and be quiet for a minute. You’re so sweet. I
wish I’d met you before I met Gary.
(She goes offstage to the altar.)
31
EARTHQUAKE CHICA
Anne García-Romero

Dramatic
Esmeralda, twenties

Esmeralda is talking to her boyfriend about everything in her life

which makes her unhappy. She is very depressed.

ESMERALDA: You have no idea, Sam. I wanna finish things. I can’t. I see
my sister the physicist and I feel crazy. I think of my father and I
wanna run. And then my heart starts pumping. And I can’t breathe.
And my feet feel like lead. And my stomach fills with glass. And my
chest is like a lump of charcoal. And my hair and eye lashes start to
fall out. It’s not enjoyable. I have to keep moving. I have to.
. . . But if I stop for too long the empty lonely silence descends
and I have no way out. Before booze and boys were the great escape
. . . but I don’t want that anymore . . . so I have to keep moving.
If I don’t, my mind starts to earthquake. Starts to move and shift
and get destructive. So I’m earthquake chica in a way, inside my
head, I guess.
. . . Okay maybe but now you’re going back to prison law firm
land and I’m going off to this awesome travel world job and yeah
I’m excited but like what if I can’t stand it and the office smells like
toxic chemicals and the travel people are horrible and I won’t have
you there to talk to and oh god . . . my breath . . . and then . . .
. . . And then but I’ll be all alone. And I hate my tiny apart-
ment. I lie in bed and I hear my nutcase neighbor screaming at his
Siamese cat or playing electric bass at midnight and I think what’s
the point? Why live another day? I mean why have all this craziness
inside my head? Oh god . . . my breath.
. . . No really, what’s the point? If I’m an earthquake and I’m so
destructive, why keep being here on this planet? Why not just leave
forever? Everyone’s left me. I’m not helping anyone apparently. I’m

32
not really good at anything. I can’t finish jobs . . . I can’t even have
relationships. Really, why be here? Why not just leave for good . . .
who really cares anyway?
. . . You say you care but do you really? I don’t think so. I mean
you can’t stand to be with me so much that you’re going back to that
horrible job in that far away land where large bellied secretaries
roam. And then you’re gone just like everyone else in my life. You
don’t care really. No one does. But that’s OK. I can just leave this
planet and no one will care. I mean I lie in bed and I fantasize about
how I’d do it. Pills? Razor blades? Rope? And I think maybe. Why
not? Who’d care really?

33
EAT THE RUNT
Avery Crozier

Seriocomic
Merritt, thirties

In “Eat the Runt” the audience chooses which roles the actors will
play during the performance. In the performance I saw Merritt was
played by a woman so I have included this monologue in this book;
but the role could just as easily be played by a man. Here, she/he is
interviewing for a job at a museum.

MERRITT: It’s ridiculous. The opposite of survival of the fittest. If the best
person doesn’t get the job, where are we all — as a species — headed?
. . . Oh, I’m not talking about myself. It’s a pervasive problem,
bigger than affirmative action, really. I don’t wanna sound cold-
hearted, but we as a society spend too much time guarding the
rights of the unfit. And I’m not saying they should have any fewer
rights than anyone else, but they certainly shouldn’t have more.
. . . But see, there’s an example. You’ll judge me partly on my
understanding of your joke, the cultural recognition of Ayn Rand’s
philosophy in the novel and the movie. My education and ability give
me an advantage rather than some unrelated factor like ethnicity.
. . . Think of all the regulations we have in this country to pro-
tect stupid people. To ensure that they survive, reproduce, and con-
tribute — disastrously — to the gene pool. The closest we’ve come
to this kind of genetic crisis is the nineteenth century’s preservation
of hemophilia in the royal families of Europe.
. . . Why put big warning labels on cigarettes and let so-called
victims sue tobacco companies? If they’re dumb enough to start
smoking, let them die. We don’t need their dopey, suicidal genes.
Better yet, increase the nicotine and carcinogens in cigarettes to
hook them quicker and kill them before they have a chance to
reproduce.
. . . It’s just practical for the species. When my dog had pup-
pies, she ate the runt. Why can’t we have that much sense?
34
ELLIOT, A SOLDIER’S
FUGUE
Quiara Alegría Hudes

Dramatic
Ginny, twenties

Ginny talks about how she loves gardening.

Ginny is in the garden.

GINNY: The garden is twenty-five years old. It used to be abandoned.

There was glass everywhere. Right here, it was a stripped-down
school bus. Here, a big big pile of old tires. I bought it for one dol-
lar. A pretty good deal. Only a few months after I came back from
Vietnam. I told myself, you’ve got to do something. So I bought it.
I went and got a ton of dirt from Sears. Dirt is expensive! I said,
when I’m done with this, it’s going to be a spitting image of Puerto
Rico. Of Arecibo. It’s pretty close. You can see electric wires dan-
gling like right there and there. But I call that “native Philadelphia
vines.” If you look real close, through the heliconia you see anti-
theft bars on my window.
Green things, you let them grow wild. Don’t try to control
them. Like people, listen to them, let them do their own thing. You
give them a little guidance on the way. My father was a mean bas-
tard. The first time I remember him touching me, it was to whack
me with a shoe. He used to whack my head with a wooden spoon
every time I cursed. I still have a bump on my head from that. Ooh,
I hated him. But I was mesmerized to see him with his plants. He
became a saint if you put a flower in his hand. Secrets, when things
grow at night. Phases of the moon. He didn’t need a computer, he
had it all in his brain “I got no use for that.” That was his thing. “I
got no use for church.” “I got no use for a phone.” “I got no use for
children.” He had use for a flower.

35
 There are certain plants you only plant at night. Orchids.
Plants with provocative shapes. Plants you want to touch. Sexy
plants. My garden is so sexy. If I was young, I’d bring all the guys
here. The weirdest things get my juices going. I sit out here at night,
imagine romances in the spaces between banana leaves. See myself
as a teenager, in Puerto Rico, a whole different body on these bones.
I’m with a boygriend, covered in dirt.
When I was a nurse in the Army Nurse Corps, they brought
men in by the loads. The evacuation hospital. The things you see.
Scratched corneas all the way to. A guy with the back of his body
torn off. You get the man on the cot, he’s screaming. There’s men
screaming all around. Always the same thing, calling out for his
mother, his wife, girlfriend. First thing, before anything else, I
would make eye contact. I always looked them in the eye, like to
say, hey, it’s just you and me. Touch his face like I was his wife.
Don’t look at his wound, look at him like he’s the man of my
dreams. Just for one tiny second. Then, it’s down to business. Try to
keep that heart going, that breath pumping in and out, keep that
blood inside the tissue. Sometimes I was very attracted to the men
I worked on. A tenderness would sweep through me. Right before
dying, your body goes into shock. Pretty much a serious case of the
shakes. If I saw a man like that, I thought, would he like one last
kiss? One last hand on his ass? Give him a good going away party.
Just things in my mind. Not things you act on.
With George, though. We had a great time when he was in the
evacuation hospital. I stitched his leg up like a quilt and we stayed
up all night smoking joints. Everyone in the hospital was passed out
asleep. The first time George got up and walked to me. I took his
head in my right hand and I kissed him so hard. That kiss was the
best feeling in my body. Ooh. You see so much death, then some-
one’s lips touches yours and you go on vacation for one small second.
Gardening is like boxing. It’s like those days in Vietnam. The
wins versus the losses. Ninety percent of it is failures but the tri-
umphs? When Elliot left for Iraq, I went crazy with the planting.
Begonias, ferns, trees. A seed is a contract with the future. It’s saying,
I know something better will happen tomorrow. I planted bearded

36
irises next to palms. I planted tulips with a border of cacti. All the
things the book tells you, “Don’t ever plant these together.” “Guide
to Proper Gardening.” Well I got on my knees and planted them
side by side. I’m like, you have to throw all preconceived notions out
the window. You have to plant wild. When your son goes to war, you
plant every goddamn seed you can find. It doesn’t matter what the
seed is. So long as it grows. I plant like I want and to hell with the
consequences. I planted a hundred clematis vines by the kitchen
window, and next thing I know sage is growing there. The tomato
vines gave me beautiful tomatoes. The bamboo shot from the
ground. And the heliconia! (She retrieves a heliconia leaf.) Each leaf is
actually a cup. It collects the rainwater. So any weary traveler can
stop and take a drink.

37
FALL FORWARD
Daniel Reitz

Dramatic
Woman 1, twenties to thirties

The speaker is a woman of lapsed faith. She is in a church and is

talking to a man about what being here engenders in her.

WOMAN 1: (Indicates the church.) Do you believe in all this?

. . . I mean, for instance — Italy. The churches. Magnificent
tranquil places. There’s this particular church in Venice . . . off the
beaten path. You walk in, on your way, say, to breakfast, St. Mark’s
Square, somewhere, there’s a Rubens Madonna. Right there. That’s
Italy. My husband and I saw many a church in our time. (Pause.) But
I don’t believe in prayer because I don’t believe in magic. And I will
not pray to what I have no faith in. Nor do I believe things happen
for a reason. Well, I believe some things happen for a reason. Not a
rational reason, maybe. The senseless events that happen for a logic
known only to those who are committed to making them happen.
(Pause.)
. . . Should you? (Pause.) “In the midst of life we are in death.”
That’s what the Episcopalians say at the graveside. I’m not an
Episcopalian. I’m a lapsed you-name-it.
. . . Is there a better place for a lapsed you-name-it than a
church?
. . . I used to think, in the hierarchy of demise, there is delib-
erate death by someone else’s hand, death by accident, and then
death by nature. I used to think, if I thought much about it at all,
and I didn’t really, but if I did, I thought that the pain of losing
someone would be less if it were not wrought by human hands.
Second best, or worst, was the plane that goes down because they
didn’t see the engine trouble. And the least if it were, say, an earth-
quake. Nature always gets a pass because, well, it’s nature. And
planes are planes. It’s humans we can’t forgive.
38
FOOD FOR FISH
Adam Szymkowicz

Dramatic
Sylvia, twenties

Sylvia is talking to Bobbie, her boyfriend, about how she is scared

to fall in love.

SYLVIA:Go ahead and stop me then. (Silence.) What, you can’t? No, you
can’t stop me now, can you? The night is blank and the streets are
empty. I pick a direction at random and begin running. I feel like I
am running through water. My legs don’t move like I tell them. My
brain is mush holding on to a single thought — that I must find
him. I run and I run and the air is water and my brain is melting. I
am about to give up. I can’t see anything, anyone, anywhere. And
then he is there. Where were you? No, I’m sorry. Don’t go. Shit!
I’m so stupid. Wait for me. He walks more slowly this time. As if
he’s waiting for me. But he still doesn’t look in my direction or seem
to see me in his periphery. I stare at him as we walk along, oblivi-
ous to the night, the neighborhood, to everything. Then we are
standing in front of a brownstone. Then we are in the hall. Then we
are in his apartment or what I assume is his apartment. How can I
explain that I’m not afraid? Yes, it is dangerous, but not any more
dangerous than falling in love. When it comes down to it, what it
really does is make a piece of metal move very quickly. It doesn’t
ever get to the root of things. It just takes care of the surface prob-
lem — if that’s what it’s for, that is. I don’t ask what it’s there for.
But let me be clear I’m not afraid. I am more afraid of what he is
writing. I am afraid of his command of language, his diction, the
way the verbs might rub up against my palate or jam themselves, get
stuck in my throat. I am afraid I might like it too much, get used
to it. Or maybe instead it’s the opposite: I am afraid of disappoint-
ment. I am afraid of who I think he is and more afraid he isn’t. Then
he speaks to me for the first time, although he looks away
39
 from me as if anyone in the room might catch his voice and latch
onto it and find meaning in it and, if it happened to be me, well so
be it. He says: “If you stay here, I will hold you all night long.”
So I do.

40
FUCK TORI AMOS
Caitlyn Montanye Parrish

Dramatic
Audrey, twenties

Audrey is talking to Geoff about her philosophy of life, which is to

trust no one and never let anyone fuck you over.

AUDREY: Do you . . . would you say you really like other people?
. . . I don’t like people my age. They all seem tired. It makes
sense, though. High school is exhausting. People suck. What the
hell, Geoff? Dad’s freaking out at me because of what, exactly? I wish
I could . . . I don’t know. I remember in preschool there was an elec-
tion between pretzels for snack time and cheese-it’s for snack time.
And I voted for pretzels and lost, but this other kid got a bunch of
people that didn’t care to vote for cheese-its, and they won, even
though pretzels are clearly the superior snack food. That’s not really
. . . there’s something that’s supposed to work in the world but it’s
broken. Sorry, we were talking about you.
. . . Never let people fuck you around. Never let Dad win just
’cause he’s louder. And never. Never ever let a girl convince you that
you, for any reason, ever have to listen to Tori Amos. If she says
you’ll like it she’s a filthy little bitch whore of a liar. The day I real-
ized all good had been sucked from music was the day I heard her
cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Something in me shriveled and
died that I can never get back. It’s like a little raisin that lives in my
lungs. Ooh, look at me. I play piano and I have red hair. I was
raped, I must be talented.

41
GIFTBOX
Francine Volpe

Dramatic
A, twenties

A is talking about why she gave up acting.

A: Just let me say one thing. I was an artist. You know that I was an artist.
I wanted to act. You know that I studied. I went to that scene study
class. I had a vocal coach. You know I had that coach. I wanted it.
But I couldn’t get a break. Nobody wanted to see me.
Did you know I was about to get signed? Big agency. About to
sign me. Big big agency. Big agency. Just when I found out I was
pregnant.
I didn’t know how I felt about it all. No really. But. So I went
to the movies. I went and saw a movie. And in the movie there was
a family. That made all the wrong choices. And their bad choices led
to misery. Just . . . misery. And in the end they commit suicide.
They tie bags over their heads. And we see their distorted faces like
masks.
I thought to myself. I don’t ever have to act. Not ever again. To
. . . For what? To participate in that? To participate in that. So that
everyone can sit and watch the people die. Watching them living
and dying . . . at the same time.
I just. Felt what was important. And then it was clear. What
was important was clear to me. I hope that you have that moment.
I do. I don’t want you to be so confused. I don’t. And I love you.
And I know. In the end. All this acting out. All this. It’s because
that’s really all you want to hear from me.

42
GIFTBOX
Francine Volpe

Dramatic
C, twenties

C assures another woman that she is not sleeping with her boy-
friend and tells her why she never made it as an actress.

C: You’re a liar.
. . . YOU ARE MAKING ME SICK. I didn’t sleep with your
boyfriend ok he’s my friend he’s my friend. And you are not my
friend. I had to ask a stranger to drive me to a clinic and I couldn’t
call you because I knew what I’d get from you. I know you. You see
I know you. You’d rather make yourself feel righteous than help me.
Than help me. Than help. You want to know why you can’t act?
Because you’re not capable of ever imagining yourself as someone
else. You act like good fortune is some kind of reward for good
behavior but the world doesn’t work like that. The world is inex-
plicable, I know it. I know it because I’ve seen it.
But you never asked me. You never asked me where I was
going. Or where I’d been. Or what I’d seen. You cut yourself off.
You’ve cut yourself off from it.
. . . But the world . . . the world is vast. And it is filled with all
the people you will never see. And all that you will never be . . . So
how many abortions have you had? Think. How many abortions
have you had?

43
GOD’S EAR
Jenny Schwartz

Dramatic
Mel, thirties

Mel tells her husband what he means to her.

MEL: And then we’ll kiss.

And then I’ll scratch your back.

Higher.
A little higher.
There.
Right there.

And then you’ll hold me.

And protect me.
And I’ll forgive you.
And you’ll understand me.

And I’ll never stop loving you.

And you won’t ever think of leaving me.
And I’ll laugh at all your jokes.
And you’ll never disappoint me.

And you’ll swoop down and save the day.

And I’ll bend over backwards and light up the room.

And we’ll thank God.

And God will bless America.
And with God as our witness, we’ll never be starving again.

And the fog will lift.

And we’ll see eye to eye.
44
And the cows will come home.
And we’ll dance cheek to cheek.

And we’ll face the music.

And smell the coffee.
And know where to turn.
And which end is up.

And the dogs will stop biting.

And the bees will stop stinging.
And this too shall pass.
And all good things.

And we’ll make love.

The old-fashioned way.
Blind-folded.
With one hand tied behind our back.

And Hell will be freezing.

And pigs will be flying.
And Rome will be built.
And water will be wine.

And truth will be told.

And needs will be met.
And boys will be boys.
And enough will be enough.

And we’ll cross that bridge.

And bridge that gap.
And bear that cross.
And cross that “t”.

And part that sea.

And act that part.
And turn that leaf.
And turn that cheek.
45
 And speak our minds.
And mind our manners.
And clear our heads.
And right our wrongs.

And count our blessings.

And count our chickens.
And pick our battles.
And eat our words.

And take it slow.

And make it last.
And have it made.
And make it fast.

And take it back.

And see it through.
And see the light.
And raise the roof.

And make the most.

And make the best.
And work it out.
And mend the fence.

And wait it out.

And play it down.
And live it up.
And paint the town.

And take care.

And eat right.
And sleep well.
And stay calm.

And have fun.

And have faith.
46
And face facts.
And move on.

And own up.

And come clean.
And start fresh.
And take charge.

And stand tall.

And save face.
And steer clear.
And live large.

And then we’ll kick up our heels.

And have it both ways.
And take a deep breath.
And take it like men.

And sit back.

Relax.

And ride off into the horse-shit.

For richer, for poorer.

In sickness and in health.
And the fat lady will sing.
With bells on.

47
GOD’S EAR
Jenny Schwartz

Seriocomic
Lenora, thirties

Lenora is talking to a guy she has just met in a bar. She does both
roles in what in her experience has been a typical first encounter
between a man and a woman.

LENORA: You can tell a lot about a man by his pulse.

My ex, for instance, you can tell by his pulse, that a) he’s dehy-
drated, and b) he’s sick and twisted and c) he doesn’t want to be tied
down.
And I’m like, “No problem. Neither do I.”
And so I buy him a watch.
Gold-plated.
And I get it engraved.
Genuine leather.
And he’s like, “Is it water-proof?”
And I’m like, “It’s engraved.”
And he’s like, “Is it water-proof?”
And I’m like, “It’s engraved.”
And he’s like, “Is it water-proof?”
And I’m like, “It’s engraved.”
And he’s like, “A figure eight?”
And I’m like, “An infinity sign.”
And he’s like, “A figure eight?”
And I’m like, “An infinity sign.”
And he’s like, “A figure eight?”
And I’m like, “An infinity sign.”
And he’s like, “Because time is infinite?”
And I’m like, “Because love is infinite.”
And he’s like, “I told you from the start . . .”

48
And I’m like, “Who is that in the background?”
And he’s like, “Francine.”
And I’m like, “My cousin?”
And he’s like, “She’s hot.”
And I’m like, “I’m pregnant.”
And he’s like, “Get rid of it.”
And I’m like, “I’m 35.”
And he’s like, “You’re 39.”
And I’m like, “I’m 35.”
And he’s like, “You’re 39.”
And I’m like, “I’m 35.”
And he’s like, “You’re a train wreck.”
And I’m like, “I need you in my life.”
And he’s like: “You’re damaged goods.”
And I’m like: “I need you in my life.”
And he’s like: “You wanna have a three-way?”
And I’m like: “Isn’t that incest?”
And he’s like: “Forget it.”
And so I go over.
And I ring the bell.
And I know they’re in there.
And I’m like, “Francine, how can you do this to me, Francine?”
And he’s like, “Francine can’t help it if she’s hot. Can you,
Francine?”
And she’s like, “No, not really, no.”
And I’m like, “Haven’t you ever heard of loyalty?”
And they’re like, “Haven’t you ever heard of fetal alcohol syndrome?”
And I’m like, “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

49
GREAT FALLS
Lee Blessing

Dramatic
Bitch, sixteen

“Bitch” is on a cross-country road trip with her stepfather. Here she

tells him about the night she lost her virginity, which has led to her
pregnancy.

BITCH: (A beat.) I was a virgin ’til a little while ago. I mean, I had a
boyfriend. We messed around and everything like everybody else.
We did a lot of stuff, mostly just to get him off. . . . Yes, I do.
Anyhow, as virgins go, I was getting more “technical” all the time.
Don’t know why I was keeping it. Wasn’t waiting to be in love or
anything. But given my special history, I guess I didn’t . . . feel com-
fortable yet. . . . My boyfriend was totally frustrated. He wouldn’t
admit it, though. He was being sensitive, you know? I was getting
pretty good at oral, but — . . . But it was obvious I was going to
lose him if I didn’t put out pretty soon, so — . . . I didn’t know how
I was going to be the first time. Since I was so “special”. Since Dad
had made me so special. I was afraid I’d get all insane and panicky
with my boyfriend. So I asked a friend of his instead. . . . Kid we
both knew, sort of. In our class, anyway. I told him I wanted to lose
it: one-time thing, no biggie. I don’t know why I picked him; I
didn’t like him. Maybe that’s why. Anyhow, he said come on over,
his folks were out of town. We could drink, smoke, loosen me up a
little. Zip-zap, shouldn’t take long. And he was right. It didn’t.
Blood on the towel — he did put down a towel. Blood all over my
thighs. I was so drunk and stoned, I barely remember it. . . . What
I do remember is his friend. . . . We were in the middle of doing it
the second time. He insisted on a second time — even though I
hurt, and there was blood all over — because, he said, he was always
better the second time. I didn’t want to, but he just rolled on top of
me and was like, shut the fuck up, I’d get used to it. And he was big-

50
ger than me, and I couldn’t push him off. So anyhow, in the mid-
dle of us doing it again, his friend came in the room. . . . No, he
called him up when I was in the bathroom. Said he should come
over and “share the booty” — some pirate expression like that. They
laughed about it while they took turns holding me down so each
one of them could fuck me. The more I fought, the more they
laughed. Oh, and his friend teased him for using a condom, so they
both went bareback.

51
GUARDIANS
Peter Morris

Dramatic
American Girl, late teens to early twenties

Speaker is a U.S. soldier. Here she talks about her cousin, a prison
guard back in the U.S. who got himself thrown into prison with
the same inmates he used to guard for forcing a female living in a
school bus to perform oral sex on him.

AMERICAN GIRL: I guess I’m lucky I’m not directin’ traffic. That’s what
most of us was doing. But prison guard? God damn. Back at home,
that’s low. Lower’n whale shit. Scum of the earth. Lookit. I had a
cousin, name was Skeeter, which should tell ya something about
what kinda PWT oxycontin-suckin’ lowlife hillbilly buttmunch this
guy was. Skeeter Dunkle. He worked at the state facility, and far as
I could tell, his job was mainly helping people on the inside break
the law more, takin’ twenny dollars here, twenny dollars there,
arrange for them to get breaks, smugglin’ a bag a weed and what-all.
And he was kinda slow. And also kinda mean. And he wasn’t
real good looking neither: kinda guy they gotta tie a porkchop
’round his neck to get the dog to play with ’im. So I guess that’s why
one night, Skeeter goes over, and — ’kay, there’s this family up near
where he lived, who are livin’ in a schoolbus. They don’t drive it
noplace — it’s up on cinderblocks anyhow — they just live in it. I
mean, it’s got curtains and all. I can’t remember that lady’s name,
but she’s common-law-married and they got a kid — like, the peo-
ple almost make Skeeter look good. So one night he turns up ’round
eleven, drags this lady outta the schoolbus and flashes some kinda
phony badge, I guess corrections officers got a badge too, and then
he’s got — I mean, can you believe what a dipshit this guy is? —
he’s got a flare gun pointed at her head, and gives her some fuckin’
story about how the schoolbus is parked illegally but he’s gonna

52
look the other way if she just, y’know . . . she puts his thing in her
mouth. So she does.
But here’s the point of the story, is, she tells the cops, so good
ole Skeeter gets picked up, shipped off, and locked up, in the zack-
same prison he useta guard. And the other guards? They know him.
But they don’t wanna know him. They just wanna feed him to the
animals. American Gladiator style. And the animals in Skeeter’s
cage? Well, they all know him too, but they ain’t thinkin’ ’bout the
times he did ’em favors. They’re thinkin’ about the times he used a
billyclub. He’s the enemy. So the first thing they done is they cut
him with a shiv, straight across the belly, like that — (She mimes slic-
ing a knife straight across her stomach.)
— so if he does get transferred to a different prison? Then all
his new buddies gonna read that like a sign, and know what he is.

53
GUARDIANS
Peter Morris

Dramatic
American Girl, late teens to early twenties

Speaker was a prison guard in Iraq, now in prison for abuse of

Iraqi prisoners. Here, she tells her side of the story.

AMERICAN GIRL: It’s easier for you to care about a dumb Eye-raqi
sumbitch than it is to care about me an my fellow soldiers. ’Cause
what we do, what I do, what I get made to do, makes y’all feel guilty.
Makes ya feel bad.
Not just what we do in Eye-Raq. I’m talking ’bout the whole
U.S. Army here. What we do all across the GD planet, just for you.
Air Force takes the sky and the Navy takes the water. The Corps got
the Halls a Montezuma and the Shores a Tripoli covered, which
sounds like a pussy job to me, no matter what they want ya to
believe. But the U.S. Army? We go everyplace else. Which means
anywhere on the globe where shit gets spilled, and they need a girl
with a mop. To mop the shit up. Before it oozes down to the bot-
tom of your easy chair. You know that. And that’s why you feel bad.
But how I see it? Me and that brown person on the floor, we’re
the same, almost. We both had a run of bad luck. Was he in the
wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe he don’t have no useful
information? Well. Tough Titty, Miss Kitty. He’s still locked up in
jail, we still gonna treat him like shit, just ’cause he happened to be
in the wrong place in Baghdad that particular day. Same as me.
But when I get shipped back here, everybody’s sayin: “That,
uh, even if there were orders from above — which we got no evi-
dence that there was, of course — it is no defense to say she was just
following orders.” And what can I say to that? ’Cept: Hey dumbass,
listen up. I’m in the Army, I work ’longside these people, I am one
a them, and trust me: They’re good people but they ain’t smart

54
enough to organize a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. I love ’em
but man, these people could fuck up a baked potato. And now,
Senator, you want ’em making their own decisions about, about —
what’s Right and what’s Wrong?
Which, I might note, is not a rule those boys lay down on
themselves. Fuck up when you’re me, they sell you down the river,
baby. But fuck up when you’re the Preznit? Two weeks later and
who remembers?
So. Here I am now, down the river. And what’m I gonna do
about it?
Sit here and cry?
You know: I could do that. But I tole ya. I know this better’n
most. Cryin’ for y’all’s a great way to get you to start thinking: Who
the fuck is this person and why should I care?

55
THE HOPPER
COLLECTION
Mat Smart

Dramatic
Marjorie, twenties to thirties

Marjorie is looking at and commenting on a book of paintings by

Edward Hopper.

MARJORIE: Don’t you love the way he titles things. Chair Car. Chair Car.
Straight to it. Goose bumps. Forgive my little indulgence here.
Danny-boy hates this game. But I love love love it. I have a whole
wardrobe.
Oh! Look, look, look! Before the sun goes down. We don’t have
much light left. See those windows above? They’re diffused of
course — so the exposure doesn’t damage the canvas as much as it
would — but I think it looks so much better in the natural light —
rather than the artificial. So much better. The difference really is . . .
I was going to say night and day, but that’s sort of . . . well, let us
take a moment to enjoy the last of the natural light on the Hopper.
. . . It’s funny. The light — no matter what you try to do to it
to make it less harmful — to diffuse it — it still, very slowly, is ruin-
ing the painting. Destroying it. But what is the alternative? To keep
it in the dark? Make an airtight and airless case for you — for it —
I mean for it . . . (Pause.)
. . . See there, the light coming in. Some purples maybe. It
almost starts to glow. Oh, you picked a good time. Those next few
minutes are probably the best all day.
. . . I get dozens and dozens of requests and calls — but these
people are all so sterile sounding — so academic. And I should only
want to share this with those people who appreciate it the same way
I do . . . and I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your letter. I

56
assumed young people today had . . . well, with the way they dress
and talk and the music and guns and how everything is Sex Sex Sex
— I had grown to think true love was . . . But then your letter
appears . . . So you haven’t seen . . . Sarah in two years?

57
HUNTING AND
GATHERING
Brooke Berman

Dramatic
Bess, twenties

Bess, a college student, talks about how she learned to shoot a gun.

BESS: All the girls are learning to shoot. We’re also playing poker, but I
think that shooting is the really essential thing. We practice on a
video game called Big Buck Hunter. We love relaxing into our lower
bodies, waiting for the moment — the one right before the kill.
“See it, then shoot it.” This guy named Steve showed me how to
hold the gun right up next to my face, between the torso and the
arm, higher up, like a violin. Remember when I learned to play vio-
lin in the fifth grade? Remember how I sucked? Well, I do not suck
at Buck Hunter. I have a natural killers’ instinct, which I think will
help me immeasurably as I work my way through the Western
European canon, AKA my college career. Speaking of the which,
I’m taking this awesome class called “Essential Cinema of New
York: Cassavetes, Scorsese, Allen and Lee.” I’m either writing my
midterm on “She’s Gotta Have It” or else, “Manhattan.” Did you
guys see that one in the theaters? It’s this really cool old black and
white movie about when New York was intellectual and people still
lived uptown. Spike Lee’s movie is also black and white, and people
also live uptown, but it’s different. Anyway. Later Skaters — Bess.

58
HUNTING AND
GATHERING
Brooke Berman

Dramatic
Ruth, twenties

Ruth is stalking the perfect apartment.

RUTH: Stalking the apartment. I see the apartment. I have identified and
looked at it. I have turned in an application. And now, using the Buck
Hunter stance, I stand across the street. Every night until they decide.
Watching to see what happens, who comes and goes, whether they
look nice, whether it feels safe and whether or not this is a place I
could belong. I ask, do I feel at home? In the presence of the build-
ing, do I feel any instinctual clue? A “homing” device? Can I place my
energy into the building from across the street and start to bond with
it even before the paperwork has gone through? And then, based on
this energetic bond, will the landlord be persuaded to ignore my tax
returns and the word “self employed” and pay attention instead to the
subtle way in which I already belong in his building?
I pretend to be the girl in the dive bar. The one who moves
through life as if it’s a straight line. The one who can keep her eye
on the target and pursue what she wants without fear. For that girl,
there is no ambivalence. No theory. No gray area. Just black. And
white. A clear path home.

59
IN OUR NAME
Elena Hartwell

Dramatic
Woman, about forty

Speaker is a mother of a son serving in Iraq, talking to someone

who is against the war.

WOMAN: We’re in it now that’s for sure. It’s going to be a long time before
we bring all our boys
. . . and our girls. Before we bring our children home. I got this
letter from my son today. The army is running out of new recruits,
they’ve lowered their standards. No, that’s not right. They haven’t
lowered, they have just modified them. Rolled with the punches.
That’s what you have to do sometimes. Go with what you’ve got.
My son was accepted this time around. He ships out in a month.
Straight to Iraq. Straight into combat. He says he’ll stick it out until
we win. And we have to win before we bring our children home,
right? Otherwise, what was it all for? We can’t leave until we win.
My son understands that I taught him that. It’s because of me that
he’s going over there. He’s going in my name. I know it’s the right
thing. I know it’s the right thing. We have to stay until we win. I
don’t know why people like you can’t see that.

60
IN THE SHADOW OF
MY SON
Nadine Bernard

Dramatic
Tristyn, twenties to thirties

Tristyn had her first baby six months ago and has been suffering
from post-partum depression, but she’s really good at putting on a
happy face and hiding it. Here, she shares with the audience the
truth about how she really feels.

TRISTYN: (Mocking herself.) “She’s got a healthy appetite.” . . .

(Takes off her mask.)
Remember how I used to be, how I used to talk? I’m counting
on you, cause it’s slipping away. I can’t remember.
(With sudden vigor which lasts a moment, as she sits on the cube.)
I used to sit like this, right, with my legs under me or stretched
out like this — young and fun loving. I’m a “Mom,” now you say.
I’m simply more mature, more tired and more mature. Six months
and I grew up, you say, got that maternal poise . . . (Moves to the
ground, leaning on cube.) I used to reach out and talk. Lay on my
back on the grass, the cordless in my hands, and tell with honesty
all the secrets in my heart. But what is a girlfriend now? Someone
to compare notes with about diapers and baby food? Who wants to
hear the other stuff? A gorgeous guy sitting across from us on the
bus, my favorite jeans (which don’t fit now) ripped in the crotch. All
the things that used to make me giggle and feel young. Who wants
to hear? That’s selfish of me now. I’m a mother now. Who wants to
hear? So my friends are slipping away too. There’s a gauze between
me and the rest of the world.
(Baby cries again. Tristyn is on the ground and can’t muster enough
motivation to go and get her baby. The next passage is very gut level,
deep and rooted.)

61
 I hear my child cry, and I feel the muffled cries inside myself.
The cries I used to share with lovers and friends. But the cries of a
new mother are so vivid and deep and wrenching, like the wailing
of a mourner. I was ripped open during childbirth. I was an open
vessel to all the things of this earth. . . . The wails inside me are
huge. And they’ll eat me up for months to come as they sit stagnant
and unheard. Because all “They” want to hear are the smiles.

62
JOY
John Fisher

Seriocomic
Jane, twenties

Jane is talking with a group of friends about the gay members of

her family.

JANE: My uncle practically owns this place. The museum board ran out
of money half-way through construction and my uncle’s like this
sleazy loan-shark type and he put up the rest of the money because
he’s trying to clean up his name in this town because the police
busted him a few months ago sucking off a male hustler in the toi-
let of the Union Square Garage. And Herb Caen wrote that whole
column about it. My uncle told me to bring Christian along because
he’s in lust with him. He lusts after all my boyfriends. (To Gabe.) You
have got a great voice, man. (To Darryl.) Yours is alright. (To the
world.) I love old shit: Cole Porter, Gershwin — George and Ira.
My mother listens to it. She lives in West Hollywood. My father lives
in Bel Aire. But he’s a total asshole. He actually went through this
whole youth thing shit and became a fag when he was like forty years
old. Now he cruises bars and picks up teenagers and listens to Aretha
Franklin and does coke and he is totally old looking and pathetic. He
used to work for Paramount until he blew this whole deal with Kate
Moss to make her first movie because she decided he was too much
of a creepy fag and she couldn’t handle it so she told him to fuck off!
Kate hates fags. Except Calvin Klein of course. But she’s totally fat
anyway. They’ve been keeping it a big secret and now they’re send-
ing her to a farm. She’s a fucking cow. Moo. (And she assumes a Kate
Moss pose which she holds then acts as if she is being attacked by bats.
Slowly she recovers.)

63
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING
Don DeLillo

Dramatic
Toinette, thirties

Toinette is talking to an ex-boyfriend about why her current guy is

better for her than he was.

TOINETTE: (Strong male voice.) stand clear of the closing doors, please. (A
pause indicating a passage of time. Light changes as sunset approaches.
Alex sits close to her now.) I was the only person you talked to, ever,
about anything that mattered. Now I talk to Sean. He’s living some-
where in Pennsylvania. You’re not interested in this. Teaching at a
private academy for rich kids who deal drugs. He calls me up, all
hours. How angry does it make you, knowing that he and I talk?
You’re ready to rip me apart. I’ll tell him that. There’s no moment
too fleeting for Sean. He wants to hear everything. The little cook-
book of human motive. Your rages, my betrayals. Or lack of motive.
Unknown motive. The near nightly drama of Alex murderously
brooding. You brooded on things. You blamed me for things. You
developed elaborate brooding theories. You blamed me for the art
world, everything and everybody in it. Sean listens. He calls me up
and listens. I withhold things from him. I make him beg a little. The
time you rode the Staten Island Ferry, back and forth, all day and
into the night, for how many days straight, coming home to do
some coke — ten days, maybe twelve.
. . . We don’t talk often but we talk. Sean and I. It’s talk on the
level of heartbreak TV. We talk because you’re rooted in our lives.
We’re too weak to let you go, or too empty. Let’s face it, you
wouldn’t be worth the time otherwise. I’m not sure how it works
but men who don’t know themselves have a power over others,
those who try miserably to understand. I owe him something, your
son. I owe him roughly half a life.

64
MARVELOUS SHRINE
Leslie Bramm

Dramatic
Bobbie, about forty

Bobbie talks about the death of her son in Iraq.

BOBBIE: His presence all over the house. I smell his clothes. See his hair
in a brush. His voice on the machine. All these pieces of my son. 18
hours! That’s how long my son fought to stay alive. That’s how long
he lay twisted and broken. That fragile body, mangled, burnt! 18
hours, in his pain, almost a full day, and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there
to hold his hands. Five hundred miles from home, where was I?
And, where are you Peter? Where do you call from? You go without
me? Without telling me? Without taking me? As soon as I hear the
phone ring, I know it’s you, and I know why. For a moment every-
thing just hangs there, in the air. If I don’t answer . . . If . . . The
machine picks up your voice . . . and now my son is dead. “I regret
to inform you,” is what you said? I play it over and over. “I regret
. . . I regret . . . I regret” . . . At his funeral a Major and three other
Marines . . . “You must be mistaken my son hasn’t even shipped out
yet. There must be some-kind of . . . You’ve cremated my son? This
is a mistake.” The Major has dry spit in the corner of his mouth. It
looks like Tom’s toothpaste. He says my son’s name. I think he’s
talking about you at first. I’m relieved. Then he repeats it, to make
sure I hear. My son’s death, simple as your phone call. Gritty and
sweet, like the taste of toothpaste. He has dog tags in his hand. He
has a box. Smaller than a shoe box . . . Dust . . . I can hold him in
one hand. Not since he was a baby . . . “No. No, it’s not possible,”
I tell him. If my son had died . . . if my son was dying, don’t you
think I’d be there? Wouldn’t his mother be there for him? Besides,
he never called me back. He was supposed to call me back. I was
waiting for that call . . . The Major apologizes, again. After a while

65
 I don’t even hear the words. I watch his mouth. I watch the spit . . .
I watch him trying to wet his lips. They gave me a flag. Neatly
folded . . . I gave them a young man. A perfectly beautiful boy . . .
He burned to death . . . I gave them a boy. They gave me a flag.

66
MAURITIUS
Theresa Rebeck

Dramatic
Jackie, twenties

Jackie has inherited her grandfather’s stamp collection, which con-

tains an incredibly rare misprint from Mauritius which may be
worth millions. Problem is, her sister Mary, to whom she is talking,
thinks the stamp collection is her property.

JACKIE: My CHARACTER? I have no character. What I have is two tiny

tiny slips of paper, so small that they barely exist, and I’m going to
take them, and I’m going to stab myself in the chest with a pair of
really sharp scissors, and then I’m going to put those two tiny tiny
slips of paper inside my body, right where my heart is supposed to
be. And then I’m going to grow a pair of wings, big, blue and green
scaly wings, not beautiful wings, BUG wings, the kind that move
real fast. And then I’m going to go. Somewhere. Where they like
tall girls, with bug wings. And then I’m going to lay in the sun and
have a margarita.
. . . Yeah, I’ll get right on that. ’Cause you know what I read
today, on the internet? Something called the Three Skilling Banco
got sold about ten years ago, for two and a half million dollars. The
one penny magenta, some stamp from British Guiana which some
zillionaire has in some bank vault somewhere, they think that’s
worth maybe ten million dollars. Guess what else. Seven years ago a
pair of uncancelled one and two penny post off stamps? Went for
six million dollars. At auction. Can you believe that? Six. Million.
Dollars.

67
MEN OF STEEL
Qui Nguyen

Dramatic
Camille, twenties

Camille is talking to her boyfriend, a cop, about her low opinion

of the police, which is why they can’t be together anymore.

CAMILLE: Bobby, when’s the last time you had to spend any real time in
a hospital?
. . . When was the last time you had to sit in a waiting room
because one of you cops got all shot up?
. . . When’s the last time you knew anyone who died because
of a super?
. . . It’s nice that you think that supers are heroes. That’s nice.
Real nice. But that shit ain’t universal. They’re no heroes to us. They
only worry about saving folks in the city or overseas — commercial
areas where they can get photo ops and publicity. They don’t give a
shit about us on the fringe.
. . . I’m pissed because every single thug criminal, and lowlife
that once lived over there has come here because they know they
can run freely without interference. Because everyone has gotten so
dependent on heroes, no one is keeping an eye out anymore. Cops
are getting drunk in the middle of their shifts to deal with their girl-
friends and when shit does hit the fan — it’s not you who has to
deal with it. It’s us. Boys here are getting killed left and right tryin’
to take up the slack that you officers have let go and that the heroes
ignore. So no, Bobby, it’s not just a fantasy, it’s a bullshit reality that
exists for you, but not for me and that’s what makes us different.
That’s why we can’t be together no more.

68
NEIGHBORHOOD 3:
REQUISITION OF DOOM
Jennifer Haley

Dramatic
Kaitlyn, teens

Kaitlyn is talking about a neighborhood boy who got her into an

on-line video game which uses their neighborhood as a matrix,
which they must defend against invading aliens.

KAITLYN: if you divide the Neighborhood

along the line of the sewage ditch
and fold it in half
my room
would be right on top of
his room
so we’d see each other
through the ceiling
which is kind of how
we got together
when i needed to escape
my mom
i could lie in bed
and look through the ceiling
down at him in his bed
looking up through the ceiling
and we just sort of
knew each other

he started playing
that game
it uploads floorplans
from the Neighborhood Association

69
 he showed me a map
of the subdivision
and the wormhole
between our rooms
there are wormholes
all over
the Neighborhood
he said
one of them connects
your imagination
in the game
to what happens
in life
for real

he’s got like

obsessed
with finding
that wormhole
he gets stronger with
every level
he draws on
the power
of the Neighborhood
and the power
of the neighborhood
is fear
it’s not just
the Cat
vicki
i think you should go through his room

70
NONE OF THE ABOVE
Jenny Lyn Bader

Dramatic
Jamie, teens

Jamie is trying to get Clark, whom her parents have hired to tutor
her on the SATs, to give her some money.

JAMIE: What I said doesn’t matter. I didn’t break the vase. Someone else
broke it and I took the blame. So please stop trying to fit me into
your little theory of entitlement. Because I do not go smashing up
precious antiques that is not my idea of a fun time, I have never
broken anything in my life.
. . . It was my boyfriend! Roger Auerbach. And I knew if I told
them that he broke it they would make it a rule for me not to see
him. And I thought I loved him. So I told them I broke it. That’s
when they came up with the unique punishment of no allowance
for thirteen years.
. . . No he left me the following week for Sheila Martin. The
nonentity who called the other day. The new girl in school. At this
point everyone has been at Billington since nursery school and we
usually don’t take new people after seventh grade? So to have a new
girl junior year is like a revelation. All of the men just melted. Also,
she’s richer than Donald Trump, and she buys him presents, which
of course I had to stop doing when my funding was cut off. I have
to discuss every potential purchase I make with my mother. So this
cramps my style a little bit.
. . . and if it weren’t for the dealing I do? I wouldn’t be able to
afford the cabs. I’d be in dangerous neighborhoods. Alone.
Dependent on the charity of insane adolescent men. And the busi-
ness itself is pretty dangerous. No one used to care, but the mayor
is cracking down on small-timers. We’re living in a fascist state.

71
 . . . Would I like to retire? Absolutely. Not just that. I would be
a new person.
. . . If you gave me this chance, I would be so dedicated to the
SAT, it would blow your mind. Sure I’ve been paying basic atten-
tion, but it would be more. Like the way I’m dedicated to My Life
now? I would be dedicated to The Test.
. . . I would develop study habits! And I’d be able to afford the
basics of growing up in New York. Just the pressure to buy the right
brand of sneaker each month is beyond description. Last month if
you didn’t have top-siders you were nowhere, and now . . .
. . . Not just sneakers. My whole existence. The chaos of this
household. My parents . . . like me better when I don’t have money.
They can relate to me by giving me money. But with a cut, I could
manage. All I need is a little freedom. A little spending money.
. . . (Hesitates.) Just my usual cut.
. . . Fifteen thousand. I wouldn’t want your tuition money I
understand that’s . . . specifically for your schooling. So you’d still
have that, plus 85 thousand. Clark they’ve cut me off. I know it’s
hard to believe but I’m like you. I need it.
. . . Okay. I want it. And in a small emotional way you don’t
understand because you’re from somewhere else, I need it.
. . . Think of it like a problem on the test. Clark and Jamie start
a business. Clark earns $100,000 plus perks. He wants Jamie to do
a good job. Should he pay her: A. $100,000, B. $15,000. C. Five
cents, or D. None of the Above?

72
100 SAINTS YOU
SHOULD KNOW
Kate Fodor

Dramatic
Theresa, thirties

Theresa is a single mother who is the cleaning woman at a Catholic

rectory. Here, she talks to a priest about her desire to find God.
Ironically, he has lost his faith.

Note: Matthew’s interjections are in brackets.

THERESA: No. It seemed like such a lie: if this, then that. I had my own
hypothesis about the world, which was basically, whatever the fuck
happens, happens and we’ll probably never know why. Then I got
pregnant with Abby when I was in high school and that was pretty
much the last straw for my parents. Imagine: you spend all your
time thinking up these complicated rules about exactly what will
happen under exactly which circumstances, and then your own
daughter turns out to be . . . you know, so much not what you
expected. (A beat.) I’m sorry. Did I say the f-word back there.
[MATTHEW: It’s fine. Did your parents throw you out?]
THERESA: They wanted me to go live with my 1,000-year-old grand-
mother and finish high school, but I just left. Don’t laugh, but for
just a little while, I followed the Grateful Dead. Abby and I fol-
lowed the Dead, and I dropped a lot of acid and she ran around
naked with all these other little naked kids and got tangles in her
hair. I was looking for something enormous and expansive, but
somehow I ended up with this little scrap of a life. I mean, this lit-
tle nothing thing. You could just vacuum it up with the Dustbuster
and it’d be gone. It’s nothing at all.
[MATTHEW: You have your daughter. She seems like less of a scrap and
more of a handful. If you don’t mind my saying so.]

73
THERESA: I’ve got nothing for Abby. I mean — I’ve really got nothing —
no stuff, no money, no ideas, no plans. She hears my boyfriend call
me names he shouldn’t call me when we fight. (Beat.) But some-
times lately, since I’ve been cleaning the rectory, I’ve been thinking
a little bit about God, which is something I really never did before.
I mean really never. And then, during your homily, you spoke so
beautifully about, you know, humility, and I’ve been thinking,
maybe the state of having nothing and feeling so used up, maybe
that’s sort of the state God wants me in, not so full of all my ideas
about myself and what a rebel I am — but, you know, kind of —
ready to listen. Do you think that’s true?

74
PROPERTY
Rosary O’Neill

Dramatic
Monica Falcon, late twenties

Monica is reflecting on the last months of her husband’s life.

MONICA: The last year with my husband was a battle I lost every day and
started the next. My husband wanted to die. He couldn’t stand get-
ting weak. He was strong before. Raced motorcycles for the thrill.
He didn’t want anyone to see that he couldn’t walk, so I’d help him
down to his motorcycle, and he’d drive it to the mailbox. The bike
roaring beneath his thin legs. He’d come back to the stairs, exhausted
and sit. And when no one was looking, he’d ease himself up one step
at a time. I smiled from the window — so attentive to what he was
doing, merged with his courage. But finally the world of matter
faded away, and he gave up, and I gave up. I keep thinking of my
husband lying inside his casket. When I went to choose the coffin, I
was so broke I couldn’t pay much. Now I’m glad I did. The lids of
the better caskets fit so well. I ran my fingers over the smooth gold
trim. I thought about rain leaking in the casket, and I went and
bought an expensive airtight one. You think when people look at a
casket, they know how much it costs? It’s started to rain again.

75
REGRETS ONLY
Paul Rudnick

Comic
Spencer, a college student

Spencer tells her parents, who are wealthy New Yorkers, that she is
getting married.

SPENCER: Alright. Alright. I just have to say something. First of all, I am

so proud to have come of age in an era when women, OK,
American women, OK, privileged American women, OK, privi-
leged American women with great hair, can be all that they can be.
And I am so grateful to all of the pioneering generations of
American feminists, yes, I said the “f ” word, who have marched and
battled and sacrificed, just so that I can have a seven-figure salary,
an unlimited expense account and a smokin’ hot car. And I take
pride in spending two days every month mentoring inner-city
teenage girls, who I teach to believe in themselves, to believe in their
dreams, and when they go to McDonalds, to at least think about
the salads. And I am dedicating my life to making this world a more
peaceful, a more equitable and a more compassionate place, but
right at this moment I don’t really care about any of that bleeding-
heart, do-goody, help-the-helpless horseshit, and do you know why?
. . . I’m getting married!

76
REGRETS ONLY
Paul Rudnick

Comic
Tibby, late forties to early fifties

Tibby, a wealthy Manhattan socialite, is talking to her daughter,

who is getting married and to Hank, a top lawyer who has been
asked by the President of the United States to help draft an amend-
ment to the Constitution outlawing gay marriage. Little does the
Prez know that Hank is gay.

TIBBY: Spencer, I love you very much, but first of all, I want you to stop
whining and whimpering. Because the world doesn’t owe you a
wedding.
. . . And Myra, you are going to start cleaning in the corners!
. . . And Hank, I think you’ve got a thing or two to learn about
friendship. And respect. And destroying people’s lives. So you’re
going to call up all of your little buddies, up and down the entire
Eastern seaboard, because they’re all going right back to work by
tomorrow morning.
. . . And Jack, you’re going to call your new best friend, the
president of the United States, and you are going to tell him that
you and Spencer are off that amendment.
. . . Because you’re right. We are married. And if that’s what gay
people want . . . let ’em learn! Because you know something?
Marriage sucks. Raising a family sucks. And falling in love sucks.
And you know why? Because we’re all gonna die. But before I do, I
wanna look gorgeous. I want hair and makeup and dresses and dia-
monds. I wanna make the biggest drag queen of all time say, honey,
too much. I want a world that doesn’t exist, that can’t exist, a world
where everyone’s happy, where everyone’s children are perfect,
where everyone’s mother is perfect, and where everyone’s husband
has fantastic sex with her, pays for everything, tells her she’s

77
 beautiful, and leaves. I wanna live inside a Hank Hadley advertise-
ment in the September issue of Vogue, the issue that weighs eighteen
pounds because it’s so packed with lies. That’s what I want, and all
of you, that’s what you’re gonna give me. Because I’m a rich white
woman, and goddamnit, that’s good. We’re gonna make it good.
And we’re gonna have a wedding, because weddings are gorgeous
and glorious, and that’s how we trick people into getting married.
So you just call the President, and you just tell him — I need flow-
ers! I need music! And may God help me, I need cake!

78
SCHOOL OF THE
AMERICAS
José Rivera

Dramatic
Julia, twenties

Julia is a Bolivian school teacher. The captured Cuban revolution-

ary Ché Guevara is being held in her school room. She is allowed
by his captors to talk to him. He wants her to embrace the necessity
of revolutionary struggle. She wants him to see the reality of life for
ordinary people just trying to survive.

JULIA: That’s all fine rhetoric, sir — but it’s not the reality here. (Beat.) My
father gave me, and La Higuera, everything he had. And with almost
no help from the government or the church, we built this “prison” as
you like to call it, using his life savings, so our kids wouldn’t go
around thinking — I don’t know — the world is flat or sickness
comes from witchcraft — or not know there are actual numbers big-
ger than “three.” Of course some days I have to contend with the
machete-waving grandfather who thinks I’m teaching the children to
be too independent. Or the irate mother who thinks I’m teaching
their daughters to write love letter to their secret boyfriends. Or the
over-protective brother who wants to strangle me for using the word
“sex” in class. And whether I like it or not, I come to work anyway —
though I haven’t been paid by the “system” in a year and a half. God!
It’d be so much easier, trust me, to throw my hands up in despair and
leave their education to nature, or chance, or to the insane, old bru-
jas of the town! (Beat.) Most days I’m lucky to have five kids in here.
The rest are out there trying not to starve to death. Yet through
storms, head lice, or crazy parents — I’m here every day for those five
kids, sir, no questions asked, oh, unless I’m attending one of their
funerals. Which I seem to be doing more and more these days.

79
A SMALL,
MELODRAMATIC STORY
Stephen Belber

Dramatic
O, forties

O talks to the audience about the death of her husband, a Gulf

War veteran.

O: (To audience.) Keith wants to know what happened to my husband.

(Pause.) Which is the one thing I no longer want to know. (Beat.)
My husband’s name was Burt. Gardner. (Pause, perhaps a chuckle.)
He was a soldier. Who became a captain, which means he didn’t
have to fight so much but did buy a house in Falls Church. Where
I still live. (Beat.) Burt and Keith went to college together.
U-Maryland. The army paid for them both all the way through;
Burt fell in love with the army and made it a career. Keith worked
off his debt and grew a ponytail. (Pause.) Anyway. (Beat.) Anyway,
Burt died. Six years ago. He was walking down a street that didn’t
have streetlights. At three A.M. In a football jersey and flip-flops.
And he got hit by a car. (Pause.) Burt was a train wreck; a genetic
car crash who hated his father, never knew his mother and married
a woman who didn’t want his kids. (Pause.) He lived his life like he
didn’t really believe it was his, like the thought he’d have to give it
back at any moment. And then he did. (Pause.) But Keith has a the-
ory. Keith says that Burt was always a little odd, but that the odd-
ness turned more into crazy during the early 1990s. Keith thinks
Burt died because of PB tablets. Pyridostigmine bromide, the anti-
nerve gas pills they gave out during the first Gulf War. (Pause.)
Keith sees conspiracy in everything; he probably now despises the
Cape Cod Potato Chip company. (Beat.) Burt didn’t even go to the
Gulf. At least not with everyone else. He was at a desk in Virginia
for most of it, but Keith’s convinced that he took these tablets

80
around that time — because they were handing them out like candy
— and that somewhere soon after that, on some mission to China
or Russia or one of those places he’d go — that Burt breathed in
sarin gas instead of soman gas, and that instead of saving his life, the
PB combined with the sarin and went straight into his brain stem.
And twisted it like a cork. (Pause.) Which eventually turned him
into the type of guy who takes three A.M. walks in the dark.
I don’t know. I didn’t even meet Burt until a couple years after
that war. And he was nuts; which made things fun, but . . . (Beat.)
My hunch is that the army didn’t kill him. That Burt just . . .
decided to stop living. Because that’s how he was. Because the peo-
ple in his life didn’t trust him — and there weren’t enough reasons
to stick around. (Beat . . . ) Or . . . maybe Keith’s right. Maybe the
answer is in drawer number twelve somewhere, in some sprawling
government warehouse. Maybe he can find it. And maybe it will
change the miserable into lovely.

81
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Joseph Goodrich

Dramatic
Anita, twenties to thirties

Anita talks about her difficulties with a woman she knows who has
a thing for gay guys.

ANITA: Diane’s got this thing for gay guys. As employees. She loves ’em.
If you’re gay, you can do no wrong. You’re not a threat. I mean, you
know what Diane looks like, right? She’s not exactly, uhhh . . . I
don’t know — name a movie star . . . The point is, a straight
woman, a relatively good-looking straight woman, doesn’t have a
chance. (Pause.) Last Friday, I was showing some of the people in
Transport a picture of my son. And everyone’s oohing and ahhing
over it, because he’s really cute if I do say so myself. And I do . . .
And Diane — Diane sees us all looking at it and she comes over and
she’s like, “What’s the occasion, folks?” And I show her the photo-
graph — big mistake — and she’s like, “Oh! He’s so . . . cute!” You
know, like how could he be my son if he’s so cute. What she’s really
saying is, “You fucking breeder. You fucking heterosexual.” Totally
sweet on the surface but totally dismissive underneath. So that’s the
background . . . Now this morning I just couldn’t get the tallies
right. Like I said, I tried it by names, numbers, assignments, every-
thing, and it wouldn’t add up. And I know it’s important, and I
know the trucks are waiting, and I know there’s a very limited
amount of time in which to get the job done. I understand that.
And I did finally get it right and everything’s OK. But then Diane
calls me over to her cubicle and says she wants to have a little talk
with me. I say sure and I go over. And we sit down and she’s asking
me if anything’s wrong, am I feeling all right, am I having any prob-
lems . . . And I say no, which is true. Everything’s fine. Pretty much.
No major problems. And then she says well, she couldn’t help but

82
wonder because I seem to be having trouble lately with getting my
work done accurately and on time. Which is so not true! I mean,
you know how many people we process every day? It’s not unusual
to occasionally get — not confused, but temporarily lost . . .
Overwhelmed. Plus, we’re short on staff because of the hiring
freeze. We’re all working really.

83
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Joseph Goodrich

Dramatic
Tammie, twenties to thirties

Tammie reveals what in her opinion are the real reasons behind the
Iraq War.

TAMMIE: My Country, ’Tis Of Thee. A country held hostage by a fanati-

cal dictator . . . A country that possesses weapons of mass destruc-
tion . . . A country that flouts domestic and international law with
impunity . . . A country mad enough to even contemplate the use of
nuclear weapons . . A country like this must be held accountable for
its actions. The reckless, criminal, amoral behavior of a country like
that must be stopped in its tracks. (Pause.) My country, ’tis of thee I
speak. The merest glance beneath the officially sanctioned news
sources reveals without a doubt the real reasons for America’s latest
rush to war. The real reasons are breathtakingly simple, breath-
takingly transparent no matter how cunningly disguised in the
bunting of patriotic rhetoric. The United States’ quest for Empire,
its desire for world-wide hegemony over resources (oil, primarily)
and people (who represent the markets that Capitalism demands to
further impoverish the poor and make the rich richer). (Pause.) In
service of this quest, which is supported and rationalized by a world-
view as Manichean and apocalyptic as that of the supposed “enemy,”
there are no depths to which the United States will not sink. Facts
will be twisted, the historical record re-written, fustian and bombast
will be used to manipulate its wary, frightened citizens. The true
destructiveness of war — the way it rips limbs from bodies, heads
from torsos, the way men, women and children suffer when wells
have no water that isn’t contaminated, when depleted uranium
wreaks havoc on bones and brains now and into perpetuity, when
the gutters run with blood and sewage, when the entire infrastruc-

84
ture of a country’s been destroyed — all this will be downplayed,
ignored, forgotten. (Pause.) In service of this quest fake crises will be
created, such as the im — imbro — imbroglio over “weapons of
mass destruction,” while real, ongoing crises such as the continued
persecution of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel with eco-
nomic and military assistance from the United States, will be down-
played, ignored, forgotten. (Pause.) Forgotten, at least, by the ones
responsible for the damage and chaos. Those who have no choice but
to live in chaos cannot forget. (Pause.) This is the challenge we face:
How do we change a system that not only thrives on war — the
preparations beforehand, the reparations after, the whole ugly
process of demolishing and rebuilding that benefits only the demo-
litionists — but is itself the cause of war? (Pause.) How do we change
this? (Pause.) How? (Pause.) How? (Pause.) How?

85
SONGS OF THE DRAGON
FLYING HEAVEN
Young Jean Lee

Dramatic
Korean-American Woman, could be any age

Speaker talks about how difficult it is to be Korean in America.

KOREAN-AMERICAN WOMAN: Have you ever noticed how most Asian-

Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with
Asian parents?
It’s like being raised by monkeys — these retarded monkeys who
can barely speak English and are too evil to understand anything
besides conformity and status. Most of us hate these monkeys from
an early age and try to learn how to be human from school or televi-
sion, but the result is always tainted by this subtle or not-so-subtle
retardation. Asian people from Asia are even more brain-damaged,
but in a different way, because they are the original monkey. Anyway,
some white men who like Asian women seem to like this retarded
quality as well, and sometimes the more retarded the better.
I am so mad about all of the racist things against me in this
country, which is America.
Like the fact that the reason why so many white men date
Asian women is that they can get better-looking Asian women than
they can get white women because we are easier to get and have
lower self-esteem. It’s like going with an inferior brand so that you
can afford more luxury features. Also, Asian women will date white
guys who no white woman would touch.
But the important thing about being Korean is getting to know
your roots. Because we come to this country and want to forget our
ancestry, but this is bad, and we have to remember that our grand-
fathers and grandmothers were people too, with interesting stories
to tell.

86
 Which leads to a story from my grandmother, which is the
story of the mudfish.
In Korea they have this weird thing where everyone turns a year
older on New Year’s day. So if you were born on December 31st,
you turn one on January 1st even though you’ve only been alive for
a day. Anyway, each year on New Year’s day, my grandmother used
to make this special dish called meekudaji tong that she would only
serve once a year because it was such a pain in the ass to make.
The main ingredient of meekudaji tong is mudfish, which are
these tiny fishes they have in Korea that live on muddy riverbanks
and eat mud. Every New Year’s day, my grandmother would throw
a bunch of mudfish into a bowl of brine, which would make them
puke out all their mud until they were shiny clean. Then she would
put pieces of tofu on a skillet, heat it up, and throw the live mud-
fish onto the skillet. The mudfish would frantically burrow inside
the pieces of tofu to escape the heat and, voila, stuffed tofu!
White people are so alert to any infringement on their rights.
It’s really funny. And the reason why it’s funny is that minorities
have all the power. We can take the word racism and hurl it at peo-
ple and demolish them and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.
I feel so much pity for you right now.
You have no idea what’s going on. The wiliness of the Korean
is beyond anything that you could ever hope to imagine.
I can promise you one thing, which is that we will crush you.
You may laugh now, but remember my words when you and your
offspring are writhing under our yoke.
(Pause.)
(Raising her fist.)
Let the Korean dancing begin!

87
SPAIN
Jim Knabel

Seriocomic
Diversion, thirties

Diversion’s best friend, Barbara, claims she has a 16th Century

Spanish Conquistador in her apartment. Barbara’s husband left
her for another woman. Then he came home as if nothing had hap-
pened, so she stabbed him and killed him. When the police came
she stabbed a policeman. Diversion tries to make sense of all of this.

DIVERSION: Barbara always was a little, you know, out there. But she
controlled it. She worked hard at the office. She was very good at
talking to people on the phone and dealing with Escrow. But on her
lunch breaks, you know, we would talk, I was her best friend — I
am her best friend, and she would say things every once in while.
“I’m feeling restless.” “John doesn’t pay attention to me.” She had
this fantasy about Spain. It started two years ago. She saw a movie
or something. She started buying books. Maps. She toyed with tak-
ing a Spanish class, but she didn’t have time and John was very
unsupportive of the whole thing.
I don’t blame her for stabbing him. He was a real bastard. She
shouldn’t be punished too harshly for that. I was more disturbed by
the other stabbing. That poor man. He was just doing his job.

88
TEA
Valina Hasu Houston

Dramatic
Himiko, twenties to thirties

Himiko is telling some other Japanese women about the rape and
murder of her daughter.

HIMIKO: It isn’t about dating guys. It’s about being fucked by guys. . . .
By everybody: your mother, your father — and even yourself. . . .
Don’t ask me about my mother. Because then you’re asking me
about myself . . . and I don’t know who the hell I am. . . . I was born
in a storm and it’s never stopped raining. My only blessing is
Mieko, my half-Japanese girl. I love her so much, but she was born
in my storm, too. For years, I tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t
ready. (A sad laugh.) Mieko is so fast, I only know what she looks
like from behind. Because she’s always leaving, her big Japanese
o-shiri swaying like a flower, out looking for dreams she thinks men
are going to give her. So it was a Saturday in May. Mieko wants to
make me worry, so she hitchhikes. She’s gone three days. Then the
big policeman comes. “Do you have a daughter named Mieko?
When’s the last time you saw her, Mrs. Hamilton?” (Breathes hard
and fast; forces composure.) The last time I saw Mieko is in the dusk.
She looks so Japanese, her shoulders curving like gentle hills.
“Perfect kimono shoulders,” her grandmother would say. (A pause.)
Mieko came home today. Someone made her dirty, stabbed her in
the chest many times and then raped her as she died. Left a broom
inside my little girl’s body. Her brassiere was shredded by the knife.
(A pause.) There is no one for me; there never was. Even my sisters
of Japan cannot bless me with sandals to cover my blistered feet as
I prepare for the longest journey. (Looks around.) Billy, is that you?
Before it’s too late, tell me the truth. You loved me, didn’t you?
Once. Once there was nobody like me. Now that I know, I can go

89
 on without you, Billy. I see you there, waiting in the mist, your
strong arms ready to hold me for one last dance. But I’m going
another way. Like bamboo. I sway back and forth in the wind,
bending but never breaking. Never again. The war is over. Mother?
Is that you? Are you waiting for me, too? (Brief, absolute delight,
addressing Mieko when she was five.) Mieko-chan, I see you dancing
in my best kimono all light and laughter and . . . clean! (The delight
fades.) No, you all have to let me go now. I have a long walk ahead
of me. All ties are unbound, as completely as if they never existed.
(She exits as lights dim.)

90
TEMPODYSSEY
Dan Dietz

Dramatic
Genny, twenties to thirties

Genny talks about a terrible job she had in a chicken slaughter-

house.

Genny runs into a stall, yanks up her skirt and heaves a huge sigh
of relief.

GENNY: I know. I know about morality. I was a chicken-choker.

As in I grabbed chickens firmly by the neck and swung them
around in a funky circumference and cracked their necks. A human
neck is only meant to be turned approximately ninety degrees in
either direction. A chicken’s is a little more flexible, it can rotate
about one hundred and twenty degrees to the right or left. But very
few animals have necks that can swivel three hundred and sixty
degrees, and even then we’re talking it’s only supposed to go once.
Not twice (seven hundred and twenty degrees). Thrice (one thou-
sand and eighty degrees). Or more, more, more, more, mooooorrrre!
(Crrrrrrrrrrrraack!!! Appalachia. Genny, her drawl creeping in from
offstage to gather in the hollows of her mouth, grows younger and
younger as we watch.)
Oh, I was gooooood. I was a little girl, no more’n eight years
old, when I choked my first chicken. I’d been watching Daddy get-
ting ready for Thanksgiving, filling orders for all the folks in town
who wanted turkey but settled for chicken. He was efficient. He
was quick. He was surgical in his precision. The stance: legs slightly
more than hip-width apart. Feet planted. Kind of like a baseball
batter up at the plate. The grip: fingers firm, real firm, but the rest
of the arm loosey-goosey. The chicken is tossed slightly in one direc-

91
 tion, for momentum, then begins to fall in the other and is swung
in a whipcrack twist and — (crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaccck!!!)
And a shiver run updown through my spinal column. Like the
ghost of that chicken electrocuted me, charged through the holes in
my witnessing eyes, shrieked into my brain and surged down my
spine and quivered into my legs and zzzzzzzzzzzaaaap!!! out my
body back into the deep red mountain dirt from whence it came.
Dust to dust is oversimplifying the matter. The equation is actually
dust to lasergorge lightningsong howlabout hungertrick lipquiver
backbanging holyriver huntrunner blacksaddle thundershock hiss-
a-bit to dust. But where holy books are concerned, lots of stuff gets
lost in translation.
I was a chicken-choker. And this is how it started. Daddy went
inside to answer the telephone, take down another chicken order.
And I walked on over to the cubical cage he was keeping them in.
They were beating their wings, buffeting each other, there was some
blood. Daddy didn’t usually do this kind of thing, keep them
crammed together like that, but for Thanksgiving he had to, the
chickens could sense death coming on a mass scale, descending with
ripple-fingers to take cold hold of each and every one of them, so
the jig was definitely up and the only way to get it done was to just
jam them all together in one place and reach and pull and swing
and crack and reach and pull and swing and crack and (Genny is
now a little girl.) Reach and pull and swing and crack and reach
(Genny reaches.) and pull (Genny pulls.) and swing (Genny swings.)
and crack! . . . I broke something.
I broke something.
I broke something!!!

92
THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY
Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis

Dramatic
Young Woman

Speaker is talking to an unseen interviewer about how she came to

let God into her life.

YOUNG WOMAN: — God’s grace

We came from a Christian background. My father’s father was
a minister, so it was really a shock for all of us when my Dad came
out of the closet. So after my parents divorced, I moved out here to
live with my dad actually. I was just a kid and I wanted my dad you
know? I wanted him to keep loving me. But then my dad’s boyfriend
moved in. And I was put on the back burner; he didn’t need me. So
I just went wild and did whatever I wanted to. I actually met my
husband when I’d just turned sixteen and within a few months I was
living with him. My dad was like, whatever! A week after I turned
seventeen, my dad signed for us to get married, and then left for
California. Yeah he left right after. Really fast right after.
. . . Guys. Guys. Keep it down please Mom is talking to some-
one. Anyhow, my husband and I lived in Manitou Springs then. (A
little quieter.) There was constant drug use, for lack of a better way
to put it. I can probably count the days of sobriety on two hands.
My husband and I had a really short bout with crystal meth, I’d say
three months. And it must have been the grace of God, ’cause I’ve
heard that it’s really hard to get off of. And the day before, a Saturday
night, my husband and I were actually at a strip club, a local strip
club, and we were doing coke with a bunch of strippers — I dunno,
it was a party night. We had a baby sitter. And I guess I had just been
very gently hearing God calling to me, because and the next morn-
ing I got up, and I got the kids dressed, and I walked them to this
church down the road, Revolution Church. Just like that, and it was

93
 funny. I mean, look where I’d been just a few hours before. And it
was unlike anything I had ever been to before. They had like strobe
lights and a smoke machine and a disco ball! And the people there
were so friendly and they were my age and they had tattoos! And I
was sitting there with my boys, just crying, and it was kind of embar-
rassing cause I was crying in front of my boys. And I just felt that I
just didn’t realize that I had missed God! And I said, God, who am
I to you? And he just revealed to me, “You are my daughter, my
beloved, you’re my beautiful flower, you’re the one that pleases me.”
And in a way it made me ashamed of all the years that I had lived,
not, for the way that he had intended for me? But at the same time
he just lifted that burden off of me. He freed me, and just revealed
to me that it was ok. And it made his heart ache every time I made
a poor choice, but he loved me nonetheless, and he wasn’t willing to
let me go. (Big tears.) I’m sorry, something’s got to give when you are
face to face with God, when he’s consuming you. Some people fall
to their knees, some people cry out. I just start to leak.
But it’s funny, if I had just walked into some boring church, I
would still be sitting on the couch smoking pot. We really liked
Revolution and are still really good friends with the leaders, but it
went from being a church to being a 24-hour house of prayer. Just
prayer all the time. By the time we left it had gone from like 150
members to twelve or something. We just needed more of a com-
munity. That’s when we chose New Life. Yeah, Revolution House
of Prayer. RHOP, right. Oh you’ve been there? What did you think?

94
UNCONDITIONAL
Brett C. Leonard

Dramatic
Jessica, thirties

Jessica tells a friend about an incident in her childhood in which a

neighborhood bully got his just desserts.

JESSICA: Every bully in the world’s a big fat pussy underneath. At ele-
mentary school when I was growin’ up there was this Italian bully
kid named Ronnie Mancini who useta beat the shit outta every
kid on the playground. The cafeteria, the classrooms, it didn’t mat-
ter ta this little prick. So one day, there’s this kid named Bruce
Tompkinson — nerdy, red-hair, freckles, got braces on his teeth an’
he’s walkin’ with those whaddaya call — those two metal walker
crutch-type things with the metal arm braces. Totally atrophied
legs, all fucked-up, skinny like two chop-stix, but loose — not
chop stix, like a coupla lo-mein noodles, and his feet all contorted
an’ twisted-up-crooked an’ shit, draggin’ all behind him an’ shit, and
he’s wearin’ this Cub Scout uniform with lil’ tassles an’ ribbons on
it — lil’ yellow tassles an’ pleated shorts, yo, this the Bronx 1982 —
so this Ronnie Mancini, this Guinea bully kid, he comes up to’m
one day — this gotta be, what, fourth-fifth grade maybe — he’s
already terrorized the whole fuckin’ neighborhood since kinder-
garten — both his uncles an’ ol’ man are Made Men on Arthur
Avenue, blah-blah-blah — how’s your coffee? — my shit’s always
cold in this place — they put a Starbucks in Harlem it’s like “fuck
’em, them niggas don’t know from coffee.” So this Ronnie the
Dago, he walks over ta lil’ crippled Brucie Tompkinson an’ he steals
one a’ his metal walker thingies, Brucie goes down, starts crawlin’
towards this chain-link fence — Ronnie Mancini meanwhile he’s
limpin’ around all retarded-like, makin’ fun a’ poor lil’ Brucie.
Nobody else’s laughin’, but Ronnie Mancini can’t fuckin’ stop laugh-

95
 in’ — limpin’ around, feet draggin’ all over the place — makin’ fun
a’ the physically impaired — totally fucked up — then Brucie, both
arms grabbin’ hold a’ the fence, his little crutch danglin’ — he
comes sneakin’, creepin’, like a horror movie Zombie with flaming
red hair, and outta nowhere — outta fuckin’ nowhere — with some
shit he musta learned in the Cub Scouts, he takes the other crutch-
thing an’ cracks the shit outta Ronnie right to his bully-wop-dago-
fuck-head — whack — right ta the temple — blood splurtin’ all
over the place — now the other kids start laughin’ — but here’s the
thing . . . Ronnie Mancini? This bully bitch never shows his face
around school ever again — never — that’s that. One lil’ crack ta
the side a’ the brain from a redheaded cripple retarded kid an’ the
biggest bully in the Bronx was a bully no more. One blow, Trace —
one shot.

96
WELCOME HOME,
JENNY SUTTER
Julie Marie Myatt

Dramatic
Jenny, thirties

Jenny is on the run from an abusive husband. She is looking for

something to believe in.

JENNY: I was born in a one-room apartment over the family Exxon

Station in Barstow, California. As a baby, I liked to sit in my father’s
arms and look out the window. Always facing forward. Both our
eyes looking out on the day. “Show me the way, Dad. Guide me.
Show me how to live in that world.” With my mother, I preferred
to sit as close as possible to her chest, heart to heart, not caring what
I saw. Not needing to see a thing but her. “Teach me how to love,
Mom. Let me feel what love feels like.” And when I couldn’t sit in
either of their arms, because they were too busy floundering apart,
I would lay facing the ceiling in my crib. My eyes darting back and
forth against the white paint, looking for cracks. “Are you there,
God? Is that God up there? Hey, God, if you are up there, can you
give me something to believe in? Just come through the cracks and
talk to me, OK?” But. The ceiling was quiet. The ceiling never
changed. Only the same shadows of my parents dancing across the
white, as they stood arguing in a corner of the room . . . Eventually,
I stopped asking. I gave up on the ceiling. I turned my face to the
wall instead, where there hung a picture of my dead uncle Jim,
killed in Vietnam. Slowly I fell asleep in the comfort of his young,
beautiful smile . . . the flickering light of the gold buttons on his
proud chest . . . and I dreamed of being a hero.

97
WHAT SHALL I DO FOR
PRETTY GIRLS?
Don Nigro

Seriocomic
Iseult Gonne, twenty-three

Iseult is the illegitimate daughter of a French politician and Maud

Gonne, the Irish actress and political activist. She is walking on the
Normandy coast of France with her mother’s friend, the great Irish
poet William Butler Yeats, age fifty-one, who’s been in love with
Maud for many years, and has always been like a father to Iseult,
whose stepfather MacBride has molested her. Now Yeats, anxious to
settle down and have children, and rejected by Maud once again,
has come to ask Iseult to marry him. It’s 1917, the First World War
is raging not far away. Iseult is very smart, artistically gifted, beau-
tiful and charming, with a dark sense of humor, and she loves Yeats,
but she has some very mixed feelings about his shift from father fig-
ure to possible husband, and is not sure who she is or what she
wants to be. Maud insists that Iseult call her Moura rather than
Mother so people will think they’re sisters.

ISEULT: You’ve just admitted you’d like to kiss me. So why don’t you? Of
course, Romantic love is not a good idea. Sex is a terrible idea. And
yet none of us would be here without that illusion and that obscen-
ity. You treat me as if I were some sort of innocent, but I’m not. I’ve
seen horrible things, nursing the wounded. Monstrous things. And
not just penises, either. I’ve observed first hand the steaming offal that
lurks and throbs inside us. What a mess. It’s made me quite grown
up. And I’m not stupid, you know. I was making excellent progress in
my study of Bengali until my Indian tutor tried to persuade me to
take off my clothes to demonstrate the Kama Sutra positions. Moura
had to be restrained from neutering him with the garden shears. Not
to speak, of course, of my violent molestation by my step-father. We

98
never speak of that. I still have nightmares about him. I’m afraid to
climb the staircase. I imagine he’ll jump out from behind the clock
and grab me. He used to lurk in the house, lying in wait for me. He
pretended it was a game. Let’s play, he said. Beautiful Iseult, he said.
Let’s play. I still dream that he’s running after me through an old dark
house full of clocks. He’s the king of the great clock tower. And yet
Moura didn’t actually get around to throwing him out until he’d
raped her sister. She knew. It just wasn’t convenient for her to
acknowledge that she knew. There’s no end to the monstrosities that
men will commit. He used to beat Mother up. You wouldn’t think a
big strong woman like Moura would let a nasty little man like that
beat her up, but the ugly truth is, she was drawn to his violence. He
slept with anything that moved, and some that didn’t. But he was a
great man in the Irish resistance, so of course he could do no wrong.
All men are insane, and most of the women. That’s my philosophy.
I’ve had a terrible crush on you since I was a girl, you know. But in
my heart I’m old, and getting older every minute. In a matter of
weeks I shall most likely be a ninety-year old Hindu gentleman. But
if you asked me to marry you, I might say yes.

99
WHEN THE MESSENGER
IS HOT
Marisa Wegrzyn

Dramatic
Josie 1, twenties

In this play Josie is played by three different actresses. Her mother

has recently died and here she is telling us of her realization of the
finality of her death.

JOSIE: (Fast and furious.) I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking
this is the part where I realize, via a simple metaphor, that my
mother is not coming back, the part where I snap out of denial and
realize that there will be no big reunion, that she will not send me
vitamins or make me chicken soup again when I’m sick, or buy me
a new teakettle when mine gets rusty . . .
Where I realize that we will never go outlet shopping again,
never decorate another Christmas tree, that we will never again gig-
gle uncontrollably about my cousin’s famously cheap Christmas
presents. The part where I understand that she will never come to
Chicago again and we will not have coffee on my porch, that she’ll
never get to meet Connor or Lisa or Tracy or my great new
boyfriend (hypothetical) and that they’ll never get to meet her. The
part where I realize that I will never get to ask her all the questions
I want to ask her, like how do you knit a popcorn stitch, like what’s
the exact basil-to-oregano ratio for the perfect marinara, like how
come I have no brothers or sisters, like what was I like as a kid and
what were you like and what was Grandma like then . . . and what
was it that made you so sad sometimes. The part where I realize that
I will never get to tell her that even though she was completely crazy
that I would never in a million years want another Mom, that even
Mrs. C. would pale in comparison. The part where I finally under-
stand why my mother wasn’t there to help me get through my

100
mother’s death, because it still makes perfect sense to me that any-
one would need their mom at a time like that.
(A beat.)
But it isn’t.
(A beat.)
It’s the part where I go to North Dakota and drive to every bus
station south of Minot with a picture of my Mom.
(Josie approaches unseen North Dakota people.)
Excuse me, have you seen this woman? Excuse me, this is a
picture of my mother who is missing, you haven’t seen her, have
you?

101
WHITE PEOPLE
JT Rogers

Dramatic
Mara Lynn, twenties

Mara Lynn tells us the sad story of her marriage.

MARA LYNN: Oh, you should have seen me when I went off to Fayetteville
State! I was the toast, I was the belle of the ball. I mean, the clothes
I’d wear, the things I could get away with! Crossing the campus,
strutting in high-heel patent leather and angora sweaters, all snowy
white and pillow soft. Hair down, miniskirt up, pink lipstick: I
looked wicked good. I dropped out midway through sophomore
year. All those lectures, tests — I had boys’ eyes burning into my
hips down any street I walked. What more does a life need?
Besides, I had my Elm. I had a man who was gonna take care
of me. He was so handsome when we were married. White tuxedo,
silver bow tie. Shaved his face for me, clean and smooth. Life was
gonna be one long stretch in the summer sun. All Earl had to do
was get focused, get on with his life.
See the year before, Elm Doddson was gonna take his fifty-two
and three record to the state championships and on to Iowa State.
That’s God’s country for wrestlers. That’s till he tore out his knee in
the district final. Ripped it away from the bone. Fifty-two and three
will take you to Iowa, but fifty-two and three and a limp and you’re
just like everybody else.
After the wedding I pushed and prodded, got him to enroll at
Fayetteville Tech. Mechanical Engineering. He was gonna be a
damn good one, too. What he used to do, souping up his daddy’s
. . . (Pause.) See, he didn’t have anyone helping him. His teachers
didn’t know who he was. They hadn’t walked through the halls of
Southview. They hadn’t seen how people stepped aside when he
passed, watched how when he moved it was like he was partin’

102
water. Earl tried, he just . . . He just didn’t know how. I don’t hold
that against him. Other things. But not that.
Listen to this now. This is what you call advice. When you fix
on a man, you make sure and lock onto something steady.
Something’s gonna be there in the long haul. Year after year, beer
after beer, those beautiful ridges that trapped my heart . . . Well,
they just melted away. Elm was gone. I was left with Earl. (Looks
around her.) I was left with all this.

103
 RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS

Please note:
Performance rights holder is also the source for the complete text.
AND HER HAIR WENT WITH HER. © 2007 by Zina Camblin. Reprinted by permission of Mary
Harden, Harden-Curtis Assoc. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440
Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
. . . AND WE ALL WORE LEATHER PANTS. © 2008 by Robert Attenweiler. Reprinted by per-
mission of the author. For performance rights, contact the author (rattenweiler@hotmail.com).
The entire text has been published by New York Theatre Experience (www.nytheatre.com) in
Plays and Playwrights 2008.
BEAUTY OF THE FATHER. © 2007 by Nilo Cruz. Reprinted by permission of Peregrine Whittlesey
Agency. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York,
NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
THE BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES. © 2008 by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman.
Reprinted by permission of Beth Blickers, Abrams Artists Agency. For performance rights, con-
tact Beth Blickers (beth.blickers@abramsart.com).
BOATS ON A RIVER. © 2008 by Julie Marie Myatt. Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler, Bret
Adams Ltd. For performance rights, contact Bruce Ostler (bostler@bretadams.com).
A BODY OF WATER. © 2007 by Lee Blessing. Reprinted by permission of Judy Boals, Inc. For per-
formance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10016
(www.dramatists.com).
BOOM. © 2008 by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd.
For performance rights, contact Bruce Ostler (bostler@bretadams.com).
THE BUTCHER OF BARABOO. © 2007 by Marisa Wegrzyn. Reprinted by permission of Morgan
Jenness, Abrams Artists Agency. For performance rights, contact Morgan Jenness (morgan.jen
ness@abramsart.com). The entire text has been published by Smith and Kraus, Inc. in New
Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2008.
CHRISTMAS BELLES. © 2008 by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Reprinted by per-
mission of the authors. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park
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CHRONICLES SIMPKINS WILL CUT YOUR ASS OFF. © 2008 by Rolin Jones. Reprinted by per-
mission of Chris Till, Paradigm Agency. For performance rights, contact Chris Till (ctill@
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THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. Michael Murphy. Reprinted by permission of Chris Till,
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CUSTODY OF THE EYES (2). © 2008 by Anthony Giardina. Reprinted by permission of Bruce
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York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
THE DRUNKEN CITY. © 2008 by Adam Bock. Reprinted by permission of Val Day, William Morris
Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Samuel French, Inc. 45 W. 25th St., New York,
NY 10010 (www.samuelfrench.com).
EARTHQUAKE CHICA. © 2008 by Anne García-Romero. Reprinted by permission of The Susan
Gurman Agency. For performance rights, contact Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New
York, NY 10021 (www.broadwayplaypubl.com).
EAT THE RUNT. © 2008 by Avery Crozier. Reprinted by permission of the Joan Scott Agency. For
performance rights, contact Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New York, NY 10021
(www.broadwayplaypubl.com).
ELLIOT, A SOLDIER’S FUGUE. © 2007 by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Reprinted by permission of
Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park
Ave. S., New York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
FALL FORWARD. © 2008 by Daniel Reitz. Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance
rights, contact the author (dereitz@earthlink.net).
FOOD FOR FISH. © 2007 by Adam Szymkowicz. Reprinted by permission of Pat McLaughlin,
Beacon Artists Agency. For performance rights, contact Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st
St., New York, NY 10021 (www.broadwayplaypubl.com).

104
FUCK TORI AMOS. © 2008 by Caitlyn Montanye Parrish. Reprinted by permission of Mary Harden,
Harden-Curtis Assoc. For performance rights, contact Mary Harden (maryharden@harden
curtis.com).
GIFTBOX. © 2008 by Francine Volpe. Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance rights,
contact Smith and Kraus, Inc. (www.smithandkraus.com).
GOD’S EAR. © 2008 by Jenny Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of Derek Zasky, William Morris
Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Derek Zasky (dsz@wma.com).
GREAT FALLS. © 2008 by Lee Blessing. Reprinted by permission of the Judy Boals Agency. For per-
formance rights, contact Judy Boals (judy@judyboals.com).
GUARDIANS. © 2008 by Peter Morris. Reprinted by permission of John Buzzetti, The Gersh Agency.
For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York, NY
10016. (www.dramatists.com).
THE HOPPER COLLECTION. © 2007 by Mat Smart. Reprinted by permission of Bruce Ostler,
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York, NY 10021 (www.broadwayplaypubl.com).
HUNTING AND GATHERING. © 2007 by Brooke Berman. Reprinted by permission of Seth
Glewen, The Gersh Agency. For performance rights, contact Seth Glewen (sglewen@
gershny.com).
IN OUR NAME. © 2008 by Elena Hartwell. Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance
rights, contact the author (emhartwell@earthlink.net). The entire text has been published by
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IN THE SHADOW OF MY SON. © 2008 by Nadine Bernard. Reprinted by permission of Anne
Reingold, the Marton Agency. For performance rights, contact Anne Reingold (anne@marton
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JOY. © 2007 by John Fisher. Reprinted by permission of Pat McLaughlin, Beacon Artists Agency. For
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LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING. © 2008 by Don DeLillo. Reprinted by permission of Peter Hagan, The
Gersh Agency. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New
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MARVELOUS SHRINE. © 2008 by Leslie Bramm. Reprinted by permission of the author. For per-
formance rights, contact Leslie Bramm (lesliebramm@excite.com). The entire text has been pub-
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MAURITIUS. © 2008 by Theresa Rebeck. Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance
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MEN OF STEEL. © 2008 by Qui Nguyen. Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance
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NEIGHBORHOOD 3: REQUISITION OF DOOM. © 2008 by Jennifer Haley. Reprinted by per-
mission of Derek Zasky, William Morris Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Derek
Zasky (dsz@wma.com). The entire text has been published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.
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NONE OF THE ABOVE. © 2008 by Jenny Lyn Bader. Reprinted by permission of the author. For
performance rights, contact Jack Tantleff, Paradigm Agency (jtantleff@paradigmagency.com).
100 SAINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW. © 2008 by Kate Fodor. Reprinted by permission of Val Day,
William Morris Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park
Ave. S., New York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com). The entire text has been published also by
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PROPERTY. © 2008 by Rosary O’Neill. Reprinted by permission of Tonda Marton, The Marton
Agency. For performance rights, contact Samuel French, Inc. 45 W. 25th St., New York, NY
10010 (www.samuelfrench.com).
REGRETS ONLY. © 2008 by Paul Rudnick. Reprinted by permission of Patrick Herold, International
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S., New York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS. © 2008 by José Rivera. Reprinted by permission of John Buzzetti,
The Gersh Agency. For performance rights, contact Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St.,
New York, NY 10021 (www.broadwayplaypubl.com).

105
A SMALL, MELODRAMATIC STORY. © 2008 Stephen Belber. Reprinted by permission of John
Buzzetti, The Gersh Agency. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park
Ave. S., New York, NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).
SMOKE AND MIRRORS. © 2008 Joseph Goodrich. Reprinted by permission of Jonathan Lomma,
William Morris Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Jonathan Lomma (pfasst@
wma.com).
SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN. © 2008 Young Jean Lee. Reprinted by per-
mission of Val Day, William Morris Agency LLC. For performance rights, contact Val Day
(vday@wma.com).
SPAIN. © 2008 by Jim Knabel. Reprinted by permission of Ronald Gwiazda, Abrams Artists Agency.
For performance rights, contact contact Broadway Play Publishing, 56 E. 81st St., New York, NY
10021 (www.broadwayplaypubl.com). The entire text has been published also by Smith and Kraus,
Inc. (www.smithandkraus.com) in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2008.
TEA. © 2008 by Valina Hasu Houston. Reprinted by permission of Mary Harden, Harden-Curtis
Assoc. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York, NY
10016 (www.dramatists.com).
tempOdyssey. © 2008 by Dan Dietz. Reprinted by permission of Mark Orsini, Bret Adams Ltd. For
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THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY. © 2008 by Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis. Reprinted by permission of Jason
Cooper, Creative Artists Agency. For performance rights, contact Jason Cooper (jcooper@
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UNCONDITIONAL. © 2008 by Brett C. Leonard. Reprinted by permission of Judy Boals, Judy
Boals, Inc. For performance rights, contact Judy Boals (judy@judyboals.com). The entire text
has been published by Smith and Kraus, Inc. in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2008.
WELCOME HOME, JENNY SUTTER. © 2008 by Julie Marie Myatt. Reprinted by permission of
Bruce Ostler, Bret Adams Ltd. For performance rights, contact Bruce Ostler (bostler@bret
adams.com).
WHAT SHALL I DO FOR PRETTY GIRLS? © 2008 by Don Nigro. Reprinted by permission of the
author. For performance rights, contact Samuel French, Inc. 45 W. 25th St., New York, NY
10010 (www.samuelfrench.com).
WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT. © 2007 by Marisa Wegrzyn. Reprinted by permission of
Morgan Jenness, Abrams Artists Agency. For performance rights, contact Morgan Jenness
(morgan.jenness@abramsartny.com).
WHITE PEOPLE. © 2008 by JT Rogers. Reprinted by permission of John Buzzetti, The Gersh
Agency. For performance rights, contact Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Ave. S., New York,
NY 10016 (www.dramatists.com).

106