MONOLOGUE COLLECTION
20 Funny Contemporary Comedic Monologues For Women From Plays
1. A Bright Room Called Day
2. Last Of The Red Hot Lovers
3. Painting Churches
4. In The Daylight
5. Cloud Nine
6. God Gave Us Aunts
- Everybody is going to tell you what they know, but nobody knows—except your Aunt K elly.
- That movie The Bodyguard is a lie. Nobody is coming to save you.
- Looks like I crossed that one out. What is that? Oh, (chuckles into her hand ) stupid Frank wrote this. Such a—Why don’t we just save 3 until your 18th birthday?
- Your friends are not your friends.
- It’s going to hurt the first time. It’s always going to hurt the first time.
- But it gets better, for a while at least, until it gets worse.
- Positivity is something losers who don’t know that they’re losers say when crap is hitting the fan.
- Learn how to cook—but not for that reason.
- The monsters and wolves in your fairy book are real—
I wouldn’t tell you this if it wasn’t true. This is why you have an aunt. Your mom and dad, they can’t tell you this stuff. It’s against the rules I guess.
7. Unusual Acts Of Devotion
8. Single Black Female
9. Bunny
10. My Fair Lady
11. Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine
Undine
Undine – thirty-seven, a smartly dressed African American woman, sits behind a large teak desk sporting a sleek telephone headset.
Can I be honest with you? I admire your expectations, but they’re unrealistic, love. Yes, I can deliver something within your range. But your ambition outpaces your budget.
But, but, listen to me, it’s going to be a total waste of our energy. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. People give more when they get more. They want a seat next to a celebrity and a five-pound gift bag.
It’s the truth. Five years ago you could get away with half glasses of chardonnay and a musical theatre star, but not today. Generosity doesn’t come cheaply.
You’re competing with heifers and amputees, rare palms and tuberculosis. What about the cause? Love, people don’t want to think about a cause. That’s why they give.
Yes, I want to hear you thoughts. I am listening. Listen, I’m the at the outer limits of my time and so I’m going to ask you to speak more quickly. I will. Yes.
We’ll talk tomorrow about the new budget. Bye-bye.
12. Poetic Licence
A monologue from the play by Jack Canfora
Diane
I’m sorry? Well, you’re a wily one, Edmund, you’ve caught us. They were actually written by Sir Francis Bacon . . . no, wait— Kevin Bacon . . . no, not Kevin Bacon, but someone who knows him—
You’re not joking. You’re really . . . oh, Edmund . . . please . . . don’t. Don’t turn out to be crazy. If you think somehow that . . . ( a r ealization ) are you one of those people?
Oh God, you’re one of those people, aren’t you? You’re one of those people who think it’s not enough to read the novels or poems or whatever . . . like the one who waited outside Bob Dylan’s house every night to comb through his garbage cans—it’s sick.
And people like that focus so much on the minutiae they can’t possibly see the overall picture clearly. Which means that inevitably they get even the basic things terribly wrong.
Which is OK within limits; I mean that’s why God invented graduate schools, based on what you’ve just said to me, I think maybe you’re a garbage picker.
Or it’s worse than that—you’re an academic. Not that I should bite the hand that gags me, but . . . you’re one of those sad people who goes around . . . dusting the language for fingerprints.
My God, living with my daughter—Poor Katherine’s going to have to take an ambulance to therapy. OK, OK, let’s take this a step at a . . . why would you say something like that?
Because John is different from his poems? Of course he’s different from his poems. That’s why he wrote them down. That’s why it’s a talent—a skill, to make poetry of things.
To concentrate feeling like that. That’s why the poets always disappoint. At least the ones who don’t kill themselves.
13. The House of Blue Leaves
A monologue from the play by John Guare
Act 1, Scene 1
Bananas
I see a scene that you wouldn’t see in your wildest dreams. Forty-second Street. Broadway. Four corners. Four people.
One on each corner. All waving for taxis. Cardinal Spellman. Jackie Kennedy. Bob Hope. President Johnson.
All carrying suitcases. Taxi! Taxi! I stop in the middle of the street – the middle of Broadway – and I get out of my Green Latrine and yell, “get in.”
They keep waving for cabs. I run over to President Johnson and grab him by the arm. “Get in.”
And pull Jackie Kennedy into my car and John-John, who I didn’t see, starts crying and Jackie hits me and I hit her and I grab Bob Hope and push Cardinal Spellman into the back seat, crying and laughing, “I’ll take you where you want to go. Get in!
Give me your suitcases” – and the suitcases spill open and Jackie Kennedy’s wigs blow down Forty-Second Street and Cardinal Spellman hits me and Johnson screams and I hit him. I hit them all.
And then the Green Latrine blew four flat tires and sinks and I run to protect the car and four cabs appear and all my friends run into four different cabs.
And cars are honking at me to move. I push the car over the bridge back to Queens. You’re asleep.
I turn on Johnny Carson to get my mind off and there’s Cardinal Spellman and Bob Hope, whose ski-nose is still bleeding, and they tell the story of what happened to them and everybody laughs.
Thirty million people watch Johnny Carson and they all laugh. At me. At me. I’m nobody.
I knew all those people better than me. You. Ronnie. I know everything about them. Why can’t they love me?
14. The Veri**on Play
A monologue from the play by Lisa Kron
Carol
Nine months? Is that what you call a long time? Try seven years. You just wait till you’ve been fighting with the phone company for seven years!
They say I’m dead. (She pauses for effect.) Do I look dead to you? My father died, seven years ago.
I sent the phone company a copy of his death certificate to close his account. Would you like to see the letter they sent me in return?
(Pulls out a crumpled form letter and reads.) “Dear Ms. Anderson. Our sincerest condolences on the recent death of Carol K. Anderson.”
They cut off my phone service seven years ago and they still won’t turn it back on because according to them I’m dead! (Her rage turns to grief)
I go there in person, I stand by the payment windows, I scream: I’m alive! Look at me! I’m alive!!!
Nothing makes a difference. Nothing helps. Seven years! Seven g*ddamn years!!!
Let me tell you something, Janey. These people, these brave people are the only thing that gives me hope.
Thank you.
15. After
A monologue from the play by Chad Beckim
SUSIE
Know what I just realized? Deodorant should actually be in this aisle, not two aisles down. Deodorant helps you smell good, right?
And toothpaste helps your breath smell good, right? wouldn’t it make more sense for them to all be in the same aisle? Huh. That’s really cool.
You’re not one of those “Axe” guys, are you? You know— (She “sprays” herself.) psssssshhhhhhhhhtttttttt! You’ve never seen it? “Axe”?
It’s this horribly smelly sh*t that for some reason guys think smell good and spray all over themselves. You don’t look like an “Axe” guy.
Please don’t be an “Axe” guy. I don’t get that, you know? Like, you’ll see these good looking guys, well groomed, well maintained, together, the kind of guy that you see and secretly think,
“He looks like a nice guy to talk to,” only then they walk past you and they smell like they just got stuck in a cologne thunderstorm.
You’re Latino, right? And you don’t stink like that. You smell natural. Like soap or something. which is good. So what’s up with that?
I only ask because, it actually made me stop dating black and Latin guys. which sucks, because I actually prefer black and Latin guys. white guys are too boring and Asian guys have mom issues.
And Jews. (She hangs her head again.) I’m sorry. That wasn’t racist, was it? I’m sorry. I’m not a racist, I swear. My ex is Latino. (A short beat. She smiles nervously.) I’m sorry. I talk too much.
I say too much dumb stuff. And I’m sorry I forced that toothbrush on you. I’m working on it, but it’s . . . The deodorant aisle is that way. (She points.) Two aisles down.
16. One Man, Two Guvnors
A monologue from the play by Richard Bean
Act Two, Scene One
Dolly
(To Pauline:) He’s not worth it, love. He’d stand there and watch you do it, and not raise a finger. Look at him. You’re not the great romantic lover, are you? You’re a bit of a prick.
Let me give you some advice. Men, they’ll do anything to get you into bed. Lie, cheat, buy you a bed. And the tragedy is that once they’ve had you, they’ll never want you as much ever again.
(Aside.) Don’t take notes girls, there’s a handout at the end. (To Alan:) You want to watch your tongue, young man, slagging us women off. It’s 1963, there’s a revolution coming.
I predict in twenty years’ time there’ll be a woman in Ten Downing Street, yeah, and she won’t be doing the washing up. Then you’ll see exactly what women can do.
You’ll see a more just and fair society. The feminine voice of compassion for the poor will be the guiding principle of government, and there’ll be an end to foreign wars.
17. Live and In Color
A monologue from the SNL comedy sketch Shakespeare in the Slums by Danitra Vance
Flotilda
I’m Flotilda Williams. I’m a classical actress. Right now I am in a production downtown with a group called Shakespeare in the Slums.
We are doing a play by Mister William Shakespeares call Romeo and Juliet. And me, I’m Juliet, okay.
Now what I want to do for y’all is to extrapolate and explainate on what be going on in the show.
The show starts and a lot of things happen but really we just gonna skip all that and get to the good part, where I come in.
I’m at this party, a lot of fancy people there and I’m there and I’m there with my Mama and the Nurse.
Even so I manage to meet this guy. A very good-lookin’ guy, makes me laugh with his funny funny jokes, probably got some money.
So I like him. His name is Romeo. I have thus extrapolated the title—Romeo and me, Juliet, okay.
Anyway the party is not even half over when my Mama and the Nurse say, “Juliet it’s time to go.”
And I say, “Okay, I’ll be right with you.” So she find Romeo and they say goodbye by touching fingertips like this, (Gesture) completely missing the point.
After that I go home and I’m trying to be asleep but I can’t sleep ‘cause I’m thinkin’ ‘bout this guy.
How much I want to see him again. How much I want to talk to him again. How much I want to do things with him I’ve never done before.
Now in the meantime the guy, Romeo, is down in the alleyway lookin’ up in my window.
Now he not lookin’ up in my window because he a freak or nothin’ like that, he lookin’ up in my window because he like me, okay. Then he start to talk to hisself.
Now, he not talkin’ to hisself ‘cause he crazy or nothin’, he talk to hisself ‘cause it’s a play, okay. People in plays talk to theyselves a lot.
And he say, he say, “But soft! what light throo yonder windo’ break?” That’s when I break through the window.
Watch the original SNL sketch by Danitra Vance here
18. Yoo Hoo And Hank Williams
A monologue from the play by Gregory Moss
AMY
Huey? Huey? Huey for God’s sake! Huey come here. Huey, I just — I just want to talk to you, Huey. Come here.
Huey, will you please come out from under there and just come over here and talk to me, you stupid cat?
(Sighs. Sits.) Coo-coo? Meow-meow? Kiss-kiss? (Beat.) You peed on my favorite skirt and I didn’t even get mad. Huey! I am so good to you!
I am like your best friend, Huey, in the world! You don’t even have anyone but me! But you know what? I don’t even want you, Huey. I don’t.
My mother made me take you when she got her new couch. I never wanted you. I don’t want a cat! (Beat.) I do want a cat.
— But I want a different cat, Huey! I want a cat that’s gonna play wth me and sit on my lap. That’s your job, Huey.
I want a cat that’s gonna take me out for picnics by the river and dinner at fancy restaurants and who’ll pay for me at the movies and hold the door to let me in.
I want a cat that’s handsome and tall with big hands and black hair and a black leather jacket and looks like Robert Mitchum but talks like Marlon Brando and who’ll walk through the door and make my mom have a fatal HEART ATTACK!
I wanna run through the house screaming and knocking everything down — tear the plastic covers off the furniture!
And jump on your motorcycle and take off across Texas and Arizona and drive all night every night nonstop with the hot desert wind coming through our hair and me and you we just — F*** like crazy rabbits without stopping!
We don’t even pull over, just keep going, me on your lap, pushing on the accelerator, the roads empty and the bike going faster and faster and the moon above smiling and nodding, cheering us on, telling us “HELL YES!”
(Beat.) That’s the kind of cat I want, Huey. And you don’t really do anything like that. Do you. Huey? (Beat.) Huey, if you are sh*tting or something, I will kill you. (Beat.)
I have a pretty red dress. I get my hair done. I take care of myself. I have a voice. I have a body. I can’t see any of it. I have nothing to do with them.
Sometimes, when I’m alone, I don’t even know if I am there. (Beat.) I think, if someone were to touch me — I would know then what I look like.
What my shape is. It would prove it. If he were to kiss me, then I would know I have lips.
If he whispered in my ear, I would know then, that I can hear. If he touched my skin, I would know then That I am here. (Pause.)
I clean up after you, and feed you, and you’re supposed to love me. That’s the agreement. You love me. (Beat.) You love me.
19. God Of Carnage
A monologue from the play by Yasmina Reza
Annette
Well if you ask me, everyone’s feeling fine. If you ask me, everyone’s feeling better….everyone’s much calmer, don’t you think? …Men are so wedded to their gadgets…
it belittles them… It takes away all their authority…A man needs to keep his hands free…if you ask me. Even an attache case is enough to put me off. There was a man, once, I found really attractive, then I saw him with a square shoulder-bag, but that was it.
There’s nothing worse than a shoulder bag. Although there’s also nothing worse than a cell phone. A man ought to give the impression that he’s alone…if you ask me.
I mean that he’s capable of being alone…! I also have a John Wayne-ish idea of virility. And what was it he had? A Colt .45. A device for creating a vacuum…
A man who can’t give the impression that he’s a loner has no texture… So, Michael, are you happy? It is somewhat fractured, our little…what was it you said? …
I’ve forgotten the word…but in the end…everyone’s feeling more or less all right…if you ask me.
20. The Food Chain
A monologue from the play by Nicky Silver
Amanda
Well, I left my apartment. It was about noon and it was a nice day, so I thought I’d walk to her [my friend Binky’s] house. She lives on 75th and Columbus, which, I realize, is a very long walk, but I thought the exercise would do me good—
I hadn’t eaten anything yet, so I stopped at the diner on my corner, for some breakfast, and I picked up a newspaper so I’d have something to do.
I was reading my paper when the waiter came over and asked if I was . . . alone. Well! It was obvious that I was alone! I was sitting there, in a booth, by myself—
did he think I thought I had an imaginary friend with me?! I was alone! Did he have to rub it in? Was he trying to be funny? Did he think he was, in some way, better than me?
It was in his tone. He said, “Are you alone?” But what he meant to say was, “You’re alone. Aren’t you!?”— And I can’t imagine that he’s not alone every single day of his miserable, pathetic life! He has terrible skin.
And it’s not attractive. Not the way bad skin, or at least the remnants of bad skin, is attractive on some people. On some men!! It’s never attractive on women—have you noticed that?
Just one more example of the injustices we are forced to suffer! If we have bad skin, we’re grotesque! Let a man have bad skin and he can be Richard Burton for God’s sake!
I HATE BEING A WOMAN!! I’ve strayed. The point is this waiter has terrible skin, and greasy hair and his breath stinks of something dead and his face is entirely too close to mine, and he insults me with his breath and his tone of voice and asks if I’m alone.
I feel my face go flush and I want to rip his head off! I’d like to pull his hair out, only I’d never be able to get a decent grip—it looks as if it hasn’t been washed in a decade!
I want to pick up my butter knife and stab in his sunken, caved-in chest! But! I simply respond, (Grandly) “No, I’m married, thank you.” (Pause)
I realize, now, of course, that my answer was illogical. I realize that it was inappropriate. But, at the time, it was all I could think to say.
Well, he leans back and, really, in the most supercilious manner, he leers at me and intones, “I meant, are you eating alone.” “I KNEW WHAT YOU MEANT!”
I KNEW WHAT HE MEANT! I don’t know why I said what I said, I just said it! He made me sick. I hope he dies. I shouted, “I KNEW WHAT YOU MEANT!”
And I am not a person who shouts, generally. I don’t like shouting. It hurts to shout and it hurts to be shouted at. My mother shouted quite a bit and I always thought the veins in her neck looked like the roots of a tree.
But I shouted. Everyone looked at me . . . because I was standing. I didn’t mean to be standing. I didn’t remember standing, but I was. I was standing.
I must’ve leapt up when I shouted. So I was standing and everyone was staring at me. The place was very crowded, much more crowded than I ever recall seeing it before.
And suddenly, it occurred to me, that these people, my neighbors, gawking at me in endless silence, were the very same people who had watched Ford and myself have sex that first night when we met.
I was humiliated! I thought I would die! Or be sick! I was certain I was going to be sick right there at my table, standing up, being stared at!
And then everyone in the neighborhood would mutter under their breath, every time they saw me, “Oh there goes that woman. We’ve seen her have sex, and we’ve seen her vomit.”
I WOULD LIKE, AT SOME POINT IN MY LIFE, TO CLING, WITH WHATEVER ENERGY I HAVE, TO MY DIGNITY!
21. Fedra
A monologue from the play by J. Nicole Brooks
Fedra
Who would have thought it, nurse! All this time I had a rival. The chastity belt has been loosened! While I couldn’t tame him, Aricia did. Oh, yeah, pick up your jaw, nurse.
This whole time that I have suffered ecstasies of passion, the horrors of remorse- she had his heart. I was out of my skull for him and the whole time those two were f***ing!
How? How could this be? When? When did it begin? You never told me about their stolen hours. Have they been seen together? Of course they have. Oh, gods.
What do you think they do together? I bet he plays his stupid guitar to her on the beach. Do they sip milkshakes from the same glass?
Ride bikes in tandem? Play Yahtzee? Is that it, nurse? You seem to have had answers for everything else!
Oh, now you’re quiet? Ain’t that a b*tch?
Read the play here
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