24 Dramatic Monologues For Teenage Females
1. Child Soldier
A monologue from the play by J. Thalia Cunningham
Destiny (early twenties, Liberian)
Destiny, a former child soldier in Liberia, has come to the United States as an undocumented refugee, where she struggles to navigate the battlefield of an inner-city high school while keeping her past a secret and striving for an education.
She has learned that her that her friend, Martina, a gang member, is HIV+. She refuses to take Martina’s baby, Sofia, should Martina die, because she prefers to remain focused on her education. This refusal of the child catalyzes her recollection of what happened to her own baby when she was a child soldier.
You were only a few months old. But already such a bright little girl! Laughing and chattering such pretty sounds. How I loved you!
I would have gladly given my life for you, but it wouldn’t have helped. It was time to go out fighting again.
They gave us drugs, slitting our foreheads with razors so cocaine would go directly into the bloodstream.
Then they performed the ritual to make us brave. There you were, the next one to be sacrificed. He picked you up.
I screamed and cried, but he held his knife to my throat and said he’d kill me, too, if I made one more sound.
He slit your throat, a flash of unbearable pain, while a soldier about my age held a cup to collect your blood. My own flesh was on fire.
The cup was passed around for all of us to drink. I drank without thinking. My eyes were only on you, as you slowly stopped crying and wiggling and breathing, the last drops of blood dripping out your chubby little neck like water from a leaky tap.
Then you were still, so still. Your blood ringed my lips as I rushed forth to gather you in my arms, but they wouldn’t even let me hold you once more.
His knife was in my back as we carried our guns out into the bush. I turned back to look at your little body, a naked scrap of promise lying in the dust.
He prodded me, forcing me to turn around, mixing your blood with mine. The scar is all I have left of you.
How I long to hug you, kiss you. It hurts. It hurts so much.
2. Sarah, Sarah
A monologue from the play by Daniel Goldfarb
Rochelle is speaking to her future mother-in-law, who doesn’t think Rochelle is good enough for her son, Arthur.
Rochelle (eighteen)
For Godsakes, the buns cost ten cents each, Mrs. Grosberg. I am sorry. I am sorry I am not as rich as you want me to be.
I am sorry that my father didn’t leave us with more. We’ve thought of selling the house, many times.
We think about it all the time. Don’t think we haven’t. But it’s complicated. All our memories of my dad are tied up in it.
And it’s hard to just walk away from that. Even if it seems sensible! . . . Look, I want you to like me, Mrs. Grosberg. I do.
Because I’m not going anywhere, and life’ll be a lot easier if we can be friends. I love Arthur. I love him. I love your son.
And he loves me. I know I’m not perfect. I know my family seems pretty lousy on paper, and I don’t have the know-how to prove otherwise.
I know rich is better than poor. But I’m just eighteen, Mrs. Grosberg . . . . . . I can do a lot of things, Mrs. Grosberg.
But I can’t make myself rich. I can’t make my daddy alive. And I can’t make him more responsible with his money when he was alive.
I can tell you he was great. And I loved him a lot. And I miss him a lot. I can tell you, that, even though he maybe spent too much, he did it out of love.
And that he had enormous respect for the right things; for education, for culture. He came over from the Old Country when he was nine, by himself Mrs. Grosberg, and worked.
He worked hard. And I promise you, I work hard too. I don’t need big rings and cashmere sweaters.
If Arthur likes to buy them, if he’s proud, as you say, fine. But my needs and desires aren’t that fancy.
I believe in Arthur. I’m going to put school on hold and work to support him while he’s finishing his philosophy degree.
And I know, there aren’t a lot of rich philosophers, Mrs. Grosberg, and that’s OK by me —
3. Bug Study
A monologue from the play by Emma Goldman-Sherman
Jane’s father, an entomologist, spends years away from home working in a rain forest. Here, he has come home for a while, and she tells him what she thinks of his being an absentee father.
Jane (twenty)
Are you getting a divorce? Cause if you’re getting a divorce, you haven’t changed a bit. Do you still spend your nights dozing over a textbook in that leather chair as if you’re really there?
At least when you are gone, you are gone. Now you’re supposed to be here, but you’re gone at the same time, sort of like . . . I know! I know!
You’re Virtual Dad! Plug him in and pretend he loves you! Am I bothering you? Making you want to leave again? Go on. You’re good at it.
It will be just like all the other times you’ve left, only this time, you’re already packed. I can hardly look at you standing by your bags.
I can’t tell if you’re coming or going. Do you know the difference, or is there only one way for you? It’s away, right?
This is the moment when you swing by to tell me you’re leaving again, on a longer trip with a bigger grant to study something even stranger than before, before I’m even used to having you around?
I’m sorry. I guess I’m feeling cold and unwelcoming. Are you lonely for your long lost family, the one you never really wanted, or do people want families before they’re formed and then freak out that they can’t manage them once they get them?
I don’t know. I’m just a kid. How would I know? All I know is that my adults, the ones assigned to me, they don’t seem to want me around, or I can put it differently, they don’t want to be around me.
Ah, you say that isn’t true. You say you love me, but doesn’t love mean being available to a person?
Most of my life I haven’t even been able to call you, and forget visiting. A person needs shots and a state department visa just to get to you.
But you have a great excuse, because the rainforest isn’t wired for cell service. I have this thing about not seeing people in the flesh. My therapist, are you in therapy?
You really should be in therapy, you know. So Mary Beth, my therapist, says I flunked Peek-A-Boo. It’s that stage in development when a kid starts to trust her primary caretaker, to believe that he or she is there even if she can’t see him.
I flunked that part, and if a person isn’t right before my eyes, I don’t necessarily believe they exist.
So if you really are here, and you’re really not just stopping in to say you’re leaving again, you’re going to have to do better than this.
Silence, your silence, isn’t working for me.
4. Boy On Black Top Road
A monologue from the play by Dale Wasserman
Donna is talking to a boy, who may be an imaginary remembrance of her brother.
Donna (eighteen)
All my life I’ve been a coward. There’s reason, I guess . . . plenty reason to be scared. What’s bad is that it makes you cruel.
You turn cruel when somebody probes that little nest of fear you hide inside. You lash out with your claws, and you wound and you hurt whoever sees inside you.
You can’t bear that anyone should see that you’re not cocky, you’re afraid. But you are — of so many things. Of being hated . . . or loved.
Of failure . . . and maybe of success. Of growing old. We’re afraid of the dark before the lights come on. Then we’re afraid of the light, what it might show.
Afraid to die. Maybe more afraid of living. But of all the stuff there is to fear, I guess the worst is loneliness. (A pause.) . . . Sure as hell, company doesn’t help.
If you want to find real Grade-A blue ribbon loneliness, try a crowd. Even a crowd of one. I have . . . oh, God, so many times.
I’d be alone for a while, until the ache was right up in my throat and I’d be hollering without a sound, saying, “Know me. Discover me.
I’m here, inside — somebody, please.” But they couldn’t hear my silent voice, so after a while I’d be saying, “Make love to me.”
They didn’t ask much. They didn’t get much. (She giggles.) You wouldn’t know about that. The big bad sex-express. “Love me, love me — well, if you can’t love me, OK, f*** me.”
It’s like a dance . . . all the moves have been rehearsed, you just follow the music. (Singing, raucously.) “Circle round and dosey do, All change partners, off we go!” (Quietly again.)
And that’s how it goes. Time after time after time. Reach out for love and find you’ve been stuck with sex. Booby-trapped by your own hormones!
5. Impenetrable
A monologue from the play by Mia McCullough
Cari is tagging along to the Starbucks and the spa with her mom. She’s geeky. She doesn’t have a lot of friends. She’s full of knowledge and excited which she doesn’t usually get to express.
She is talking to the audience, though this is probably more than she speaks to any of her classmates all day at school.
Cari (Ten)
I want to be a veterinarian at a zoo so that I can touch all the animals, even the large predators, well, ok, especially the large predators.
I mean, I’m pretty sure that when zoo veterinarians perform surgery on tigers and polar bears, they take a few minutes to rub their bellies, tickle their paws, maybe even kiss them on the nose while they’re sedated.
I also want to be a musician, probably the clarinet because you can play all kinds of music with the clarinet: classical, jazz, blues, folk.
It doesn’t have genre limitations like the saxophone or the harpsichord. I would like to go on record as saying that the harpsichord is my favorite instrument.
I think it’s what it would sound like if spiders played music on their webs. I also want to be an astronaut unless they start letting regular people go into space — for way less money, and a trapezist.
The circus performers on trapezes? But really, I should become an inventor because then I wouldn’t be limited to one field.
I could clone tigers so that they would never be extinct, and create musical instruments that you can hear in outer space, and invent an air freshener-type-device that emits a chemical that makes people nicer.
And then have it installed in every classroom in every school in the world. And the Senate. They already make something like that for dogs.
6. Really Really
A monologue from the play by Paul Downs Colaizzo
Leigh
Why now? Tell me you f***. Why now? Four years. Four years I was not good enough for you. And what makes me better than this?
I will tell you, Davis. What makes me better than this is my future. The life that I can have. With Jimmy.
With a protector and a provider and a man who can offer me 4 walls and a roof forever. (BEAT)
I am choosing not to fall. It is a promise. What happened happened. It happened, Davis. But my life is waiting. And it is exactly what I want.
And you have actually helped me. This whole thing. This whole f***ed up thing – is a blessing. Jimmy can’t save something that doesn’t need to be saved.
Look at me. The poor girl who is almost beautiful. And look what I’m about to have.
7. Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History Of Troy
A monologue from the play by Mark Schultz
Charlotte
I am so resolved. I am so ready. There is a world and I will see it. And you won’t stop me. I will have adventures. I will be like an explorer.
I will make new friends. I will fall in love. I will be like Christopher Colombus or Francis Drake or like Magellan or whatever.
Because there is a world and I am determined. And when I come back? If I come back? No one will recognize me.
I will be like a movie star or like a famous person and no one will recognize me and I will see through everyone. I will see through everyone. Even you.
I will look right through you and you will look at me, and you’ll think to yourself who the hell is that and I will just smile at you.
I’ll just smile and I’ll mumble something like profound or something really famous like a famous something like what someone famous would say because that’s who I ‘ll be because I’ll know a lot more,
I’ll know a hell of a lot more when I come back. Or maybe I’ll just say, “F*** you” because I can see through you. F*** you. Under my breath.
To the wall. To the f***ing wall. I’ll see through you to the f***ing wall and you won’t even know that you’re nothing to me. And I’ll say f*** you and you’ll think Is she talking to me?
And you won’t even know. You are a ghost to me. And I don’t care. Everyone a f***ing ghost. Everyone. And I’m the only one.
I’m the only one who means more than you or anyone else.
8. Out of Water
A monologue from the play by Brooke Berman
Cat’s father, Graham, has begun a love affair with his step-sister, Polly, with whom he reconnected at their father’s funeral after not seeing her for many years. Cat is determined to do something about it.
Cat (seventeen)
I work very hard. I get A’s in all of my classes. I am on time for everything. For everything. I work harder than the boys but I don’t get rewarded.
I hear there was this thing a long time ago called “The Revolution” but my mom doesn’t seem to know about it. My mom is always exhausted.
Church doesn’t help. My mom is on a lot of committees and medication. I think my mom wants my dad to come home.
My dad went to see his exstepsister in New York and he never came back. I don’t know what he’s doing there.
I mean, exstepsister? That’s not even a real relation. Plus, she’s like, she’s not, you know, she’s not a Christian.
I think she must lead a very scandalous and potentially exciting life even if it does not fall under the contract or rubric or whatever of the Church of God.
I went on the Internet this morning and looked up this Polly Freed. I know a lot about her. I am going to get my father back.
I am going to bring him home.
Mom’s in the bedroom with the lights out again and everything’s quiet and sometimes, you just have to take matters into your own hands.
Do you know what I mean? The Amtrak is an amazing way to travel. All Aboard. You see the country, really you do.
I don’t have my own car, and air travel is expensive and also, lately, uncomfortable and dangerous.
But this feels just fine. On the train. In the Club Car. Meeting people and listening to them talk. I could listen to people talk all day. Really, I could.
And they have these stories, and they are. Dying. To talk. To tell you things. Everyone. So this is good. I arrive tomorrow.
And in the meantime, big windows, strangers, the Oreos and seltzer I brought from home, and the way the land keeps changing. This is amazing.
The way it changes. Have you ever just watched it change? Next stop . . . next stop.. next stop . . . And he’ll be waiting for me. My dad.
He just needs someone to tell him where he lives.
9. She Kills Monsters
A monologue from the play by Qui Nguyen
Agnes
Do you want to know what my memories of Tilly are? They’re of this little nerdy girl who I never talked to, who I ignored, who I didn’t understand because she didn’t live in the same world as I did.
Her world was filled with evil jello molds and lesbian demon queens and slacker Gods while mine… had George Michaels and leg-warmers.
I didn’t get her. I assumed I would one day- that she’d grow out of all this- that I’d be able to sit around and ask her about normal things like clothes and TV shows and boys…
and as it turns out, I didn’t even know she didn’t even like boys until my DM told me. I didn’t know her, Vera.
I remember her as a baby, I remember her as this little toddler I loved picking up and holding, but I don’t remember her as a teen at all.
I’ll never get the chance to know her as an adult. And now all I have left is this stupid piece of paper and this stupid made-up adventure about killing a stupid made-up dragon.
10. ELEEMOSYNARY
A monologue from the play by Lee Blessing
This play examines the delicate relationship of three women: a grandmother, Dorothea, who has sought to exert her independence through strong willed eccentric behavior,
Artie, her daughter, who has run from her overpowering mother, and Echo, Artie’s daughter, who is incredibly smart and equally sensitive.
After Dorothea (who has raised Echo into her teens) suffers a stroke, Echo is forced to reestablish contact with her mother through extended phone conversations,
during which real issues are skirted and the talk is mostly about the precocious Echo’s unparalleled success in a national spelling bee.
In the end, Artie and Echo come to accept their mutual need and summon the courage to build a life together, despite the terror this holds after so many years of estrangement.
Echo
Uncle Bill hardly remembers you, you know that? I asked him what you were like as a little girl, and he couldn’t even say.
He remembers Grandma even less. He didn’t have one interesting thing to say about her – about Grandma.
They don’t have a single picture or her, either. Not even in their minds. To them, she’s just a woman who lived a big, embarrassing life.
They all think they’ve saved me just in time. Not just from Grandma – from you, too. (A beat.)
So I started wondering if they weren’t right. Maybe the smartest thing would be to forget you completely.
And Grandma. After all, what did I ever get from the two of you, except a good education? You especially – what were you ever to me, except a voice on the phone now and then?
And I looked around the new room where I was staying, and it was real nice and… blank, the way a thing is before you put any time into it.
I thought, I could live a whole new life here. I could invent a whole new me. I could be Barbara if I wanted to, not Echo. I could fit in.
I don’t mean I’d become like Whitney and Beth. I’m not that crazy. But I could become like Robinson Crusoe, and adapt myself to a strange and harsh environment.
I could live in a kind of desert. I could even flourish. Like you have. I could live without the one thing I wanted. But I kept hearing your voice.
That voice on the other end of the phone, hiding behind spelling words, making excuses – or so energetic sometimes, so… wishing.
I don’t even remember what you said, just the sound of it. Just a sound that said, “I love you, and I failed you.” I hate that sound.
And I will never settle for it, because no one failed me. No one ever failed me. Not Grandma and not you. I am a prize among women.
I’m your daughter. That’s what I choose to be. Someone who loves you. Someone who can make you love me. Nearly all the time.
I’m going to stay with you. I’m going to prepare you for me. I’m going to cultivate you. I’m going to tend you.
11. A RAISIN IN THE SUN
20 Comedic Monologues For Teenage Females
1. ALL KIDDING ASIDE
A monologue from the play by Charles Johnson
Scotty
Welcome to the show. My name is Scotty Devlin. I know what you’re all thinking… How come she has a boy’s name? Actually my real name is Heidi.
But I had to change it when I lost my virginity. Everyone named Heidi must change their name when they lose their virginity. That’s the rule.
Look at these girls over here all rustling through their programs. You’re all Heidis, right? Sorry. Am I embarrassed or what? Actually, I lied to you.
Scotty is my real name. You see, when I was born the doctor was either far-sighted or a prankster, because as I popped out, I remember it vividly, he declared “it’s a boy.”
In fact, I was a boy until my mother changed my diapers for the first time. Can you imagine their surprise.
My mother fainted. My father just stared, “he can’t be my boy.” I was in stitches.
They tried calling me Judy for a while but I just wouldn’t respond. Would you have? There’s a Heidi nodding her head.
Oh, by the way, the part about all Heidis having to change their names when they lose their virginity, I didn’t lie about that.
That is a known fact. Yes, it’s true. Think about it. How many grown women do you know named Heidi? All the Heidis I know are about 8 years old with long blond braids down their backs.
They all wear pink dirndls with little white aprons. And are surrounded by goats. They skip their way into high school, getting A’s in Home Ec.
Then one day, probably on their 21st birthday- wham- Veronica, Yvonne, Desiree. This is absolutely true, I promise you.
You’ve never heard of a child being called Yvonne, have you?
If I had been called Judy, I’d have to change my name when I stopped wearing bangs. Have you ever met a seventy year old woman named Judy?
It sounds like she should be chewing gum and skipping rope. I’m not making this up. Right before middle age sets in, Cindys become Harriet, or Beatrice, they have that option.
All Wendy’s die at puberty. Regrettable, but necessary. I sort of like being called Scotty, besides it’s better than my middle name – Doug. Look, I gotta run.
But before I go, I just want to say that I hope all the guys who are sitting here tonight with a girl named Heidi, wake up tomorrow morning with a Desiree.
2. Container of Sharks!
A monologue from the play by Don Zolidis
JOYCE
(JOYCE, a nervous inventor presenting her idea to investors)
Hello Sharks. (She takes a deep breath) Sometimes with all of the trauma we are experiencing on a daily basis, we need something that’s a little bit of a stick-me-up. Pick-me-up.
A pick-me-up. (She is trying to hold it together) I mean a pick-me-up. I said the word wrong. Which is really stupid of me.
I always do this – as soon as I have a chance at doing something great I screw it up.
I forgot to tell you my name. My name is Joyce. Actually you probably already know that from what the Voice said so why am I bothering to say it again?
(She shivers and twitches) Can I start over please? (She starts over)
Hello Sharks! (Takes another moment) Hello Sharks. Hello Sharks! Hello Sharks. I am so sorry. Hello Humans and Shark!
My name is Joyce, and sometimes with the daily trauma in our lives we need a little something to… a pick-me-up.
(She’s about to lose it again. She hisses to herself) ‘Get it together, Joyce. You can do this.’ ‘Everyone was right about you.’
‘Shut your face. Shut your stupid face. I’m not listening to you.’ ‘That’s why you fail.’ ‘No. NO. Nooooo.’ (She growls like the Hulk and rallies, talking really fast)
So what I decided to do was make these stickers! Yes I did! And these stickers come in packs of twelve and you can put them on things!
Like this one if you need to remind yourself of your capabilities! It says “You can do it!” (She puts the sticker on herself)
But of course you can’t read it if you put it on your shirt, so you need to put it somewhere else so I’m actually going to take the sticker off and put it here.
(She takes the sticker off and puts it on her arm) It doesn’t really stick as well to skin because that’s not how stickers work, but I’m working on that,
this is just the prototype actually, but… there are other stickers, like this one that says “I believe in you!” Yes!
Sometimes you need that. Sometimes you need to have someone believe in you, even if you’re the only person who believes in you.
Even if everyone else thinks you’re a loon, and thinks you’ll never make it, and says that your sticker idea is dumb and you’ll never amount to anything and you should’ve never left Bemidji and you’re going to fail in a blaze of fire and you will die alone. Even then.
(She puts the other sticker on herself and looks at it. Sadly) Sometimes the stickers don’t work. (She sniffles) (She rallies) But I have others!
Like this one which says “You will not die alone.” (She contemplates that sticker) This one is dark.
I mean you probably don’t need a sticker to say this if you were a confident person.
I guess I’m the kind of person who needs a sticker to tell me I’m not going to die alone. But what does the sticker know, honestly?
The sticker doesn’t have some kind of stranglehold on truth. The sticker is just a meaningless saying. Why did I even make them?
Who would do that? (She takes another sticker, reads it) “You can avoid poor decisions.” (She stops) Can I start over?
3. TEEN
A monologue from the play by Kristen Doherty
Jeannie
Okay so, I was on Insta right and saw Pete McIntire’s name online. I don’t know what possessed me, but I got brave and just wrote “Hi” … I know! … I can’t believe I did either…
Anyway, he writes back! Straight away, almost, and said “Hi Jeanie… How R U?” Just the letters R U… Ok pay attention to that because it becomes important later in the story… Ok?
So anyway, I wrote “Great!” but with an 8 instead of the letters… so like Grr and then the number 8.
Because I thought that sounded cooler… and he just used RU…
Are you keeping up? Yes? Good! Because then he wrote “We should totally catch up and watch a movie or something!” Yes! He actually did.
I couldn’t believe the words that popped up on the screen. Pete McIntire asking me to hang out… and see a movie with him …
In a dark cinema, where he could totally like want to kiss me or something.
And anyway, I was like you know… trying not to get too excited. Because this is Pete! Pete McIntire… So, I just like waited for like a whole minute, which was torture…
But I didn’t want to be too keen, so I was patient for like 65 agonising seconds… Then finally I wrote “Yeah I’m up for that”.
So, all casual like when I felt like screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ll have your baby Pete McIntire!” Anyway… Now this part is what I need your advice on…
Because now it gets confusing…. Ok, so he wrote. “I can ask Steven to come and you can ask Stace” Boo! Double date…
Harder to get a pash when we have our besties in tow.
Anyway, I’m thinking “at least I will be on a date with Pete McIntire” … But then I thought “Does he mean a double date like as in ‘him and I’ and ‘Steven and Stacey?’
… Or a double date of ‘Steven and me’ and ‘him and Stacey?’ Does he like Stacey? … He’s never met Stacey… or has he? Are they secretly together?
I mean she would have told me, right?… She tells me everything… But then why would he call her Stace if they’ve never met?
Stace is a nickname and you only give people nicknames if you know them personally and generally like them… If you are friends… Or more than friends….
Do you think they are together, and Stacey hasn’t told me because she knows I am totally in love with him and have been for months?
Anyway, then it got really, really confusing because I said. “Sure I’ll ask her” I know! I showed so much restraint because I really wanted to scream at him “Are you cheating on me with my best friend?
… But I didn’t I just said “sure.” Then anyway, then he wrote “Thanks Jeannie, I love you.” What the actual…? I love you! Exclamation point.
Spelt out. ‘I L.O.V.E you.’ Not just ‘L.U.V’. That means something right? I mean it’s got to mean something!
And this relates to the RU reference from earlier.
If he is the sort of guy to use letter abbreviations in his texting like RU, why would he use the actual word LOVE if he didn’t actually love me… Like for real?
Okay. Then it gets really, really complicated because he put one love heart emoji and one laughing crying emoji.
Does the laughing crying emoji cancel out the love heart, or is it the other way around?
Because it changes the whole meaning if it does.
4. Provenance
A monologue from the play by Ronnie Burkett
PITY
And just as I was about to give up, there was a miracle. There was a school play. See my high school had this drama teacher, Mr. Garfinkel, who apparently had studied at a lesser institution of higher learning in a suburb of Toronto that made him like this total theatre expert.
He was always doing collectives and student-created work. That‟s just a step up from musicals and murder mysteries, I suppose, but, just the same, they were always so lame.
But in his mind they were completely relevant to our teenage angst.
Anyway, there was a play – or rather a student collective – called Beautiful Voices, a hodge-podge of melting-pot stories reflecting the diversity of teenage experience and the one-ness of our global village, blah blah blah.
It was a series of monologues and choral chanting with yoga-base movement, and featured the usual cast of characters.
Amy Tamblidge, this totally annoying born again “ho” with giant t*ts talking about her dreams for global peace, Randall Betrick ranting on about his parents‟ divorce again,
Trey Fergusson and Amber Witherspoon in this embarrassing dialogue regarding teenage suicide without having the courtesy to actually perform it for us,
Blaine Hawker confessing that he was gay – oh puh-leese, like that was news – and now were all supposed to like him even though he was just as annoying as before but out, and on and on and on, blah, blah, blah.
But in the end, there he was. My miracle. A boy who had never dipped his toe into the cesspool of drama club before, but had been coerced into my group by Mr. Garfinkel because of his brooding intensity and sullen mystique.
Which meant he was totally hot, in that damaged and dangerous kind of way.
5. Surface Tension
A monologue from the play by Elyne Quan
WOMAN
(Sighs) I‟ve always wanted to be taller. I‟ve wanted to be taller and… different. Sometimes blond. That would be something.
I clearly remember that in grade one I wished I had blond curly hair so I could wear pale blue ribbons in it and be really cute.
Not just kind of cute, but really cute. I was walking home for lunch. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.
I was looking down at the ground at my silhouette – specifically my head – and I remember wishing I had curly blond hair.
I would be noticed. Pale blue ribbons and pigtails. And a matching dress, frilly but not too frilly. And matching little blue shoes with white patent bows on them.
Shoes can make or break an outfit, you know. Well as hard as I wished I never became blond. Go figure. And dye jobs in the early eighties weren‟t the science they are now.
Curly blond hair for a little Chinese girl was bit far-fetched so I did the best I could. Perms! So I could actually have curly pigtails if I wanted them.
Of course I was older by now so pigtails were out of the question. (Takes out a photo and presents it to the audience.)
Parted down the middle and curly and away from my face. Like the girl in Aha‟s “Take On Me” video. Yeah.
So I had bad hair all the way through my formative years. But hair isn‟t everything.
6. All This Intimacy
A monologue from the play by Rajiv Joseph
JEN
Ty… I wasn’t going to bring this up today, but seeing as you have laryngitis, I figured this might be the best time for a conversation.
Because any inclination you may have to interrupt me, well that just won’t be possible because you can’t speak. Ha. Oh well.
Ok, OK, just sit still for a second and let me speak before you start scribbling away like a madman, Jeez!
I knew you’d do this or something, just sit there and let me say my peace!
Listen… Okay. Ty: So as you know, as we both well know… there has never been a time in my life, when I haven’t been, you know in school! (she sees him scribbling) Let me finish!
(she reads what he holds up) You know I don’t like that word, it’s rude. (He starts writing again) I can’t believe you have laryngitis and you’re still interrupting me! Constantly!
Look I’m going to talk and you can listen or not listen, but (Ty holds up a note) No, I don’t want to order in pizza!
I am not staying for dinner!
BREAK UP, OK, BREAK UP. Me. Break up. With you. How about that? Oh this has never happened to Ty Greene before, because he is so smooth and no one can ever get in two words in edgewise (pause)
And don’t look at me like that. Don’t act so heartbroken. It’s not you. I just never feel we’re on the same page. This is what I’m talking about, Ty.
I’m trying to pull things together. I love you, but when I’m around you, things come apart. They come apart.
7. Hold Me
A monologue from the play by Jules Feiffer
Katy
I talk too much. I’m quite bright, so it’s interesting, but nevertheless, I talk too much. You see, already I’m saying much more than I should say.
Boys hate it for a girl to blurt out, ‘I’m bright.’ They think she’s really saying, I’m brighter than you are.’ As a matter of fact, that is what I am saying.
I’m brighter than even the brightest boys I know. That’s why it’s a mistake to talk too much. Boys fall behind and feel challenged and grow hostile.
So when I’m very attracted to a boy I make a point to talk more slowly than I would to one of my girl friends.
And because I guide him along from insight he ends up being terribly impressed with his own brilliance. And with mine for being able to keep up with him.
And he tells me I’m the first girl he’s ever met who’s as interesting as one of his mates. That’s love.
8. Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
A monologue from the play by Bert V. Royal
VAN’S SISTER
I was pregnant. Don’t worry. It wasn’t yours. I had just gotten an abortion the day before and the next day in Biology, we were ironically learning about reproduction.
I’m listening to Miss Rainey talking about fallopian tubes, the uterus, eggs and I’m feeling sick to my stomach already. Trying to zone out on anything I can.
So I start reading a note over Miss Puritanical Princess’ shoulder and she’s telling her friend “how happy she is that she’s a virgin and that she’s going to stay that way until she gets married and how repulsed she is by all the little wh*res at our school.”
Without thinking, I reached into my pocket for my cute, little red Bic lighter and lit her cute, little red hair on fire. And every day in therapy, they ask me if I’m sorry yet and I just can’t be.
No matter how hard I try. B*tches like that make me sick. They’ve made me sick. I am officially sick, psychotic, unrepentant and unremorseful.
I’ve been branded a sociopath and I have no choice but to believe it.
9. August: Osage County
A monologue from the play by Tracy Letts
VIOLET
I ever tell you the story of Raymond Qualls? Not much story to it. Boy I had a crush on when I was thirteen or so. Real rough-looking boy, beat up Levis, messy hair. Terrible under-bite.
But he had these beautiful cowboy boots, shiny chocolate leather. He was so proud of those boots, you could tell, the way he‟d strut around, all arms and elbows, puffed up and cocksure.
I decided I needed to get a girly pair of those same boots and I knew he‟d ask me to go steady, convinced myself of it. He‟d see me in those boots and say, “Now there the gal for me.”
Found the boots in a window downtown and just went crazy: I‟d stay up late in bed, rehearsing the conversation I was going to have with Raymond when he saw me in my boots.
Must‟ve asked Momma a hundred times if I could get those boots. “What do you want for Christmas, Vi?” “Momma, I‟ll give all of it up for those boots.” Bargaining, you know?
She started dropping hints about a package under the tree she had wrapped up, about the size of a boot box, real nice wrapping paper.
“Now Vi, don‟t you cheat and look in there before Christmas morning.” Little smile on her face. Christmas morning, I was up like a shot, boy under the tree, tearing open that box.
There was a pair of boots, all right… men‟s work boots, holes in the toes, chewed up laces, caked in mud and dog poo.
Lord, my Momma laughed for days. My Momma was a mean, nasty old woman. I suppose that‟s where I got it from.
10. Hello
A monologue from the play by Stefan Marks
ALICE
Have you started filming? No! Please don’t start, can you rewind it? Okay. Alright. Okay… Can I stand? No, okay. Alright. I’ll sit. Um, okay, you’re really going to cut this part out, right?
Okay, okay, sorry, okay. Start now. Hello, everybody. My name is Alice and I write untraditional children’s stories. I try to write with the wisdom of an adult and the honesty of a child. I’ve written seven books.
There Is No God and I Can Prove it, that’s one of them, and Waking Up Early Sucks, Grandma’s Gonna Die Soon But That’s Okay, Mom and Dad Lie All the Time, and.. oh God, I’m thinking… Okay, well, there’s three more.
And I try to teach kids that you know, you’re probably not going to get everything you want when you grow up, but that’s okay because society has brainwashed you into thinking that you want something that you probably didn’t want in the first place.
OH, do I want to have children… Well, you see, I like to think of my stories as my children, you know, ones you can legally kill off after they’ve been published. (Awkward laughter.)
.. And usually I think before I speak, but lately I’ve been speaking and then thinking and I’m like Oh my God Alice why the f*** did you just say that and I’m like… Oh my god, I’m so sorry I don’t usually swear.
Can you please cut that out? Okay, thank you. Do I actually think that there’s no God? Um, well, I don’t think that’s going to help me get dates.
…Okay. I believe that if there is a God, it’d probably be smart enough to hide its existence from me.
11. Skid Marks: A Play About Driving
20 Dramatic Monologues For Teenage Guys
1. L’APPEL DU VIDE
A monologue from the play by Molly Kirschner
Quentin, a college freshman, is speaking to his new roommate, Simon. He has spent the last several minutes trying to convince Simon that the whole room belongs to him,
Quentin, as he needs a medical single, and insisting on putting up a poster of Nietzsche, much to Simon’s horror.
After assuring Simon that Simon’s personality is “flaccid and women aren’t attracted to that,” Quentin continues to assert his dominance over Simon, describing his own great successes with women.
Quentin (eighteen)
We’re roommates. We gotta help each other out. I’m just trying to show you as much of the ropes as I know.
Which isn’t a whole lot, I’ll admit. But once I liked a girl. Yeah. In high school. Elissa. She was on the model UN team.
I think she was also a model. If she wasn’t she shoulda been. Anyway I used to pick white and purple violets for her.
I’d tape them to her locker. Sometimes dandelions. I think she liked it because after a while she caught on and started smiling at me in the hallways.
But then winter came and there weren’t any more flowers but I did find this dead baby snapping turtle so i taped that to her locker.
And she acted all weird about it. Like she stopped smiling and even looking at me in the hallway even though she obviously saw me.
And one day I saw her and before she could breeze by me I said, “Hey, Elissa! What’s your problem?”
She didn’t say anything so I explained to her that the flowers were also dead they were just better smelling.
I didn’t kill that baby snapping turtle, but I did kill those flowers. Flowers don’t die when they dry they die as soon as you pick them.
After that she didn’t act any different but I could tell she realized I was right. She went to the prom with a jock who was a jerk.
Anyway, I’d never go out with a girl who didn’t get Nietzsche. I met him first.
And the thing you vegans don’t get or have an impossible time digesting is that plants are conscious and you have to kill to live.
2. DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
A monologue from the play by Stuart Carolan
Thomas’s family is under suspicion. The IRA thinks there might be an informer in their midst.
Here, Thomas talks with a farmhand, Barney, about the death of his brother Seamus.
THOMAS (twenty)
All the time, Barney. All the time. I think about him all the time. Every day. Sure, it’s only been a year.
There was only a year and a half between us. Barney. Fourteen months. . . . But I thought of him I suppose like a child. . . . I know.
The worst thing is I can look at him in the picture but I can’t picture him in my head . . . And sometimes I have dreams where I see him getting shot in the dreams or somebody’s tellin’ me he’s dead.
Coming up to the backdoor of the house and saying your brother Shamey’s been shot. And I’m going sweet God no, please no, no, please God, let him be OK.
You can get shot and survive. He’ll be all right. He’s not dead. And the person’s saying, it’s too late, Shamey’s dead.
He’s dead. And I’m saying no, no way, this is my worst nightmare.
Shamey’s dead and then just like that, Shamey walks in the door and says what’s all the fuss about boy,
and I’m thinking thank you God, thank you God, Shamey’s all right. He’s not dead.
And then I’m happy like I’ve never been happy and then, and then, then I wake up. And for the first couple of minutes I’m happy.
I’m still half asleep and I’m thinking Jasus, that was some nightmare that was. Shamey dead. Jasus.
I must tell Shamey I had this nightmare where I thought he was dead. . . . And then I wake up proper and I remember he is dead.
He’s cold and he’s in the ground. Shamey is dead and I can’t go and tell him about my dream. Shamey is dead.
3. IS THERE LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL
A monologue from the book by Jeff Kindley
The setting is a high school gymnasium and the plot revolves around the lives of people who are ten years older than they were in high school, but not so very much older at all in terms of their emotional lives.
Jim Wanamaker
I had a dream last night where someone found out I never took these courses that were necessary for graduation, and I had to go back to school to make up the work.
I sat down at a desk which was way too small for me, but nobody else in the classroom seemed to notice that I was any different from them.
Then Mrs. Delaney—my American Problems teacher—hands out these test booklets, and I look at the cover and someone has drawn obscene pictures all over it.
I don’t know what to do. Should I tell Mrs. Delaney, and call attention to myself, or should I just ignore the pictures?—
in which case she’ll probably think I drew them. The pictures are in pencil, see, so I start to erase them.
All of these little breasts and penises and stick people doing horrible things to each other. But as soon as I get one part erased, I notice another one—and another.
Finally the bell rings and Mrs. Delaney starts collecting the book lets, and I realize I never even opened mine.
I don’t even know what the test was about. And what’s worse, all the pictures are still there.
I start tearing up the booklet like crazy and sticking pieces of it in my mouth, trying to chew it all up and swallow it before she gets to me.
Then she’s standing over me and she says, “Where’s your booklet, James? What have you done with it?” That’s as far as it went.
I woke up in a cold sweat. I’d wanted to say, “I ate it, you b*tch! I ate it!”—but I never talked back to Mrs. Delaney in my life.
4. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
A monologue from the play by Simon Stephens (based on the novel by Mark Haddon)
Christopher
Father said, “Christopher, do you understand that I love you?” And I said “Yes,” because loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble, and looking after them, and telling them the truth,
and Father looks after me when I get into trouble, like coming to the police station, and he looks after me by cooking meals for me, and he always tells the truth, which means that he loves me.
Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And Father had lied about this.
I tried really hard to think if there was any other explanation but I couldn’t think of one.
And then I couldn’t think of anything at all because my brain wasn’t working properly. I felt giddy.
It was like the room was swinging from side to side, as if it was at the top of a really tall building and the building was swinging backward and forward in a strong wind (this is a simile, too).
But I knew that the room couldn’t be swinging backward and forward, so it must have been something which was happening inside my head.
I rolled onto the bed and curled up in a ball. My stomach hurt.
5. Neet Teen
A monologue from the play by Lindsay Price
Toch
The future for me is… I don’t know. Uncertain. Unclear. A lot of un words. Un-talked about, oh that’s not a word.
Wait, unspoken! Ha! This week we had heat. And I was able to cook dinner for my sister. Spaghetti.
I’m getting good at that. Afterwards we did the dishes. I wash. She dries. We… we laugh. Like we’re doing something normal, like we do it all the time.
“I can’t do the dishes, I have a date tonight…” you know. Normal. We had food. And we didn’t have to wear seven sweaters inside.
We washed and dried the dishes like normal people do. And we talked about our day. Normal. We did not talk about Mom.
Why would we? Nothing has changed. Where is she? Don’t know. Did she give you any money? No. The rent is due. (beat)
The rent is due. I have no energy to think about the future. The present takes everything I got.
Doing the dishes isn’t normal. It’s fake but we do it because that’s what a brother and a sister are supposed to do.
“You dry, why do I have to dry, I always dry…” (beat) The rent is due.
6. P***Y BOY
A monologue from the play by Christine Evans
Algy is a dreamy young boy who has run away from his violent father, Bill. He has taken shelter with the Dog Lady, who hoards dogs and takes Algy in as a pet.
Here, Algy justifies his dad’s actions to the Dog Lady, who only intermittently listens.
What begins as a straightforward explanation moves toward Algy’s own need to untangle for himself the complex knot of love and abuse that ties him to his father — and to work out what to do next.
Algy (eleven)
He just wants me to be strong like him. It’s training. It’s for my own good. He doesn’t want me to get soft. (Beat.)
It’s not so bad. I can sleep on my stomach after. I count to a hundred when he does it, it stops hurting after about thirty.
That’s a good trick I learned. It’s best not to hold your breath. You can breathe out when the belt comes down, and if you breathe really fast you can sometimes get dizzy and faint, and he stops then.
Once I fainted when I was up to forty, he was really worried about me. Are you all right Son, he said and he put his arms all round me, Jesus Son, wake up, come on Son, I’m just trying to help you, please please Jesus. . . .
I held my breath and everything was perfect, so perfect like on a seesaw and you balance exactly, your feet are off the ground and you feel like you never ever have to come down.
But it always tips and you get heavy again. And you wish and wish you could stay in the air with the sky under your legs and everything . . .
but the more you wish the heavier you get — I think if I was a unicorn I could balance there forever. I wouldn’t wish ’cause that makes you heavy.
I would be white as amnesia and when people saw me I would just look at them, not angry or happy but just . . . looking
. . . And they would slow down — like they were walking through water — And they’d feel all sweet inside and when they blinked I’d disappear.
That’s what unicorns do. They disappear. And they wouldn’t remember me but they would keep that sweet feeling inside them. (Beat.)
He put his arms around me you know. I can still feel his arms all round me like water. He’s really strong.
I can’t feel him belting me, only breathing and counting but I can feel his arms round me. Is that amnesia?
But I did have to breathe in the end, and so he knew I was awake, just pretending — and then he was so angry, more angry than before.
(Beat. Quietly.) He’s really angry now.
7. Tigers Be Still
A monologue from the play by Kim Rosenstock
Zach has been very disturbed since his mother died. He has decided to leave home and here,
in direct address to the audience, he tells us what he was thinking when he made that decision.
Zach (late teens)
This is how it happens . I wait until my dad has gone into his room for the night and then I grab the suitcase that’s been sitting under my bed, packed, for months.
Then I go to the kitchen to grab a box of cookies and leaning up against the leg of the table I see the rifle. And for the first time it hits me:
My dad has a rifle. And that’s not ok. He needs someone to take it away. So I do that.
I walk out of the house I’ve lived in my whole life with a rifle, most of my belongings and a box of cookies and I have no idea if I have the courage to go any further than the town pond,
which is where I’m standing, looking at the ducks when I hear it: a soft rumbling, a growling. And I turn around.
And there it is . The tiger. At the town pond. And I’m, like, armed, you know. And I think—I can be the guy who defended the town from the tiger.
And I’m about to pull the trigger when everything just becomes really, really still . I stare into the tiger’s big, yellow eyes and I swear it’s like he wants me to shoot him.
He’s tired . And alone . And lost . And I think: yeah, sure this tiger’s dangerous—but like if you really think about it, who isn’t?
And he squints and stares at me in this sad, broken way and in that moment, for him, I choose life.
I slowly lower the gun and as I do the tiger glares at me like “Oh great. Thanks for nothing, asshole.”
And he just turns around and walks away. So then I’m just standing there, thinking to myself, “Now what?”
When suddenly I drop the rifle and it goes off at my feet and at the sound of the gunshot I run—I run as fast I can, suitcase and everything.
I run until I’m at the bus station and then I get on a bus and then I get on another bus. And that’s how I escape.
8. SECOND CLASS
A monologue from the play by Bradley Slaight
Marvin speaks of the violent world he hopes to escape.
MARVIN
I spend a lot of time just hangin’ in the halls, checkin’ out some of the kids in the school. I start thinkin’ about what it would be like to be them, to live their lives.
And I wonder what it must be like to live in a house that has plenty of room. In a neighborhood where helicopters don’t fly overhead all night long.
I wonder what it would be like to have both a mom and a dad.
To not worry about my little sister gettin’ hit with a stray bullet because somebody’s fightin’ over a street they don’t even own.
To have my own bedroom where I have my own things that no one will mess with. To not have to watch my brother racing to the grave with a never-ending need for twenty dollar pieces of rock.
And I wonder what it’s like to go places— like the beach, another state, another country. To go somewhere . . . anywhere.
To buy a pair of hundred dollar Nike basketball shoes instead of stealin’ them. To not worry about the electricity bein’ turned off, or the car bein’ repo’ed.
I wonder what it’s like to have dreams instead of nightmares and to know that those dreams someday may actually come true.
To look through brochures of colleges and universities and know that I have a choice. To see myself living long enough to become an adult.
(He watches several more students as they walk past him.) And as I watch the lucky ones, I wonder most of all, what it would be like to have hope.
To have just a little bit of hope. (Marvin exits.)
9. THE PERFECT SAMENESS OF OUR DAYS
A monologue from the play by Michael Tooher
In the grip of PTSD, the Soldier has taken a Gardener prisoner in the mistaken belief that he is an enemy from a forgotten battle.
After being repeatedly asked by the Gardener why he wants to hurt him, this is the Soldier’s reply.
Soldier (nineteen – twenty six)
You want an answer? Here’s your f***ing answer. We’ve lost lots of people, Ali. Men and women. Good people.
People with futures. People who joined up because they just wanted to do their time and get a little money so they could get an education or start businesses.
Or just chase their dreams. People like me. And a lot of them are no longer here. They are dead, Ali. Dead.
And those of us who are still here are really angry about that. Really angry. We’re angry about what your raghead brothers have done to us.
We’re sick of saying goodnight to our buddies and discovering them dead in the morning, slit open ear to ear.
Put yourself in our place, Ali. Thousands of miles from home with an enemy that can appear and disappear at will.
Once, you’ve seen the sh*t come down, it makes you hard, man. Sh*t that would have made you blow chunks before you got here becomes standard operating procedure.
People can become used to anything. I know I have.
And when you’ve had a friend, a buddy, someone you care about, someone who was very much alive a second ago,
suddenly stone dead at your feet, well, you’ll do anything to anybody to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Anything.
10. FOURTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY SKECTHES OF YOUR LEFT HAND
A monologue from the play by Duncan Pflaster
Alonso is a young painter with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. He is speaking to his art school friend Paul, on whom he’s had a huge crush.
Paul has come to stay for the summer with Alonso and his sister Blanca, who has enlisted Paul to keep Alonso taking his medication.
Alonso (Twenty, Latino)
Look, taking the pills dampens everything down for me. It’s like wearing a blindfold made of a black and white movie.
I can’t do it. There’s that Leonard Cohen line: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
”The broken part is where the art comes from. I can’t paint, I can’t do it, I can’t do anything right when I’m on these f***ing pills.
People didn’t have these pills in olden times. Like they didn’t have dentists. And they were fine.
All my life I’ve been told I had a special gift. That my art was something magical. I liked it, I wanted to be special.
A brilliant tortured artist. Right? We all fall for that image. But then I went to college and met you and bunch of other tortured artists, and we were all special.
I mean, you remember Lenny, with his fauvist style? All those bright colors just exploding everywhere.
And Sarah’s intricate line work, so tight and controlled. How could I compete with Monti, who made me cry once with a painting of Dominick’s elbow? And god: and you.
We were all the gifted children wherever we came from, and I had no idea how to cope once I got in with everyone who was just as talented and special and stressed just like me.
I had to up my game. And then I realized that this talent, this weirdness I have of seeing things a different way, that’s what really makes me special.
I don’t see things like anyone else, so I don’t paint like anyone else. I am unique. Without my f***ed up brain, what am I?
We’re shooting stars, that’s all we are. Burn brightly, then fade away. Wouldn’t you give your life up if it meant that you could be the genius you always knew you were?
And you are a genius, my friend; don’t be bashful, you know that. If someone was going to take that away, but let you live forever, would you take that bargain?
11. Chalk Farm
19 Comedic Monologues For Teenage Boys
1. Spacebar: A Broadway Play
A monologue from the play by Kyle Sugarman & Michael Mitnick
Kyle has written a play which he thinks is a sure-fire hit. He is sending it off to “Broadway.” This is his cover letter.
Kyle (sixteen)
Dear Broadway. My name is Kyle Sugarman. It is such a pleasure to meet you. I am currently a sophomore at Harold Ferguson Senior High School just outside Fort Collins, Colorado.
Home of the Mighty Panthers. I am an honors student. I have a three-six. I am also the playwriter of my enclosed play which I am enclosing here to send to you.
(He reaches into a plastic bag and pulls out a thick script. He smiles at the audience. He tosses the script onto the floor where it lands with a BANG. The script should be 350-502 pages. He cocks his eyebrows as if to say, “Impressive, huh?”)
My play is named Spacebar. I am basically positive that you will find Spacebar to be the best play you’ve ever read.
Spacebar is a story about HUMANITY.
I am 16 and don’t have an agent yet, but I ask that you please consider Spacebar like it was written by some of my favorite playwriters that do have incredible agents, like Neil Labute or Shakespeare.
My drama teacher, Mr. Ramirez, told me that I should include a brief description of my play in the cover letter which is what I’m about to do after this colon:
(He pauses to indicate the colon.)
Let me clear something up right off the bat: Spacebar is not about the space key on the computer keyboard. Spacebar is about a bar in outer space.
AND. It takes place in the year nine-thousand-and-three. That’s right, Broadway, it’s set in the FUTURE.
You may be wonder- ing how I, Kyle Sugarman, know what the world will be like in the year ninethousand-and—three. And the truth is: I don’t.
And this is definitely something Mr. Ramirez and I wrestled with. That’s why I decided (and Mr. Ramirez agreed) that it would be a good idea to set Spacebar at a specific time in the Waaaaay Future.
A time that will make this play completely produceable for the next roughly seven thousand years. And I am not bragging.
Sophocles wrote 2,000 years ago and we’re still doing his dumbass boring plays.
You’ll see that I attached my business card— (He holds up a business card.) Kyle Sugarman, Playwriter It has my personal home phone.
If a woman answers, it’s just my secretary. JK, Broadway. It’s my Mom. So, yeah, take a look when you have a chance. Give it a little looksee.
I’ll just be here in Fort Collins, Colorado. Waiting. Sincerely and best, Kyle Sugarman PS—Spacebar is copyrighted so don’t try any funny business!
2. Betweenity
A monologue from the play by Lindsay Price
BLAKE starts off with his arms folded, looking off to the side. His girlfriend is talking nonstop. He tries to say something, no dice. He tries to get her attention.
No dice. He turns to the front.
Blake
I think I have to break up with Brittney. We don’t have anything in common. Sometimes, I can’t even hear what she’s saying. It all just runs together, (toward her) blah, blah, blah, like wet gravy and cranberry sauce.
(out to front) I know gravy is normally wet, you don’t eat dry gravy. But if the consistency is overly runny ‘cause Jimmy likes runny gravy and you don’t make a big enough well in your mashed potatoes the gravy just runs all over your plate right into the cranberries.
It looks like a crime scene. I don’t like eating a crime…
He trails off. There’s a look of horror on his face. He whips his head to the side and then whips his head to the front.
She stopped talking. (he whips his head to the side and then whips his head to the front) When did she stop talking? What did she say? Did she ask me a question?
I have to say something, otherwise it’ll look like I haven’t been listening. Even though I haven’t been listening. How long has it been?
Are we just staring at each other? Say something, anything! (He takes a breath, turns to his girlfriend and smiles. He speaks very tentatively) Yes…?
I am…? (with slow horror) Celine Dion here we come? (calling after) Wait! (runs after her).
3. BLUE/WHITNEY
A monologue from the play by Steven Haworth
Virgil’s fifteen-year old white girlfriend ran away from her home in Westchester and was murdered, Virgil is accused, but Whitney’s mother is convinced of his innocence
and bails him out of jail so he can give her a tour of the life her daughter lived before she died. Here Virgil tells the story of how he met Whitney, who he knew as Blue.
Virgil (sixteen, African-American)
Check it out. I’m on the One train. Back in May. Goin’ downtown. Morning rush hour. Some train went out a service so Number One is packed tight.
All the suits is miserable. I say suits ‘cause when I say downtown I mean everybody going to Wall Street. We pull into Franklin Street station.
Doors stop in front a this white dude. Pinstripe suit. Gold watch. Briefcase. Like in his thirties. He is like aaarrrgh! He need to get on that train!
Nobody gets off. Now way nobody gettin’ on. He ain’t just put out. He is like a straight up exploding brain! He got to get to Wall Street or his life is over!
So what does he do? Reaches out. Pulls a young lady off the train. Gets in her spot. This shorty little white rabbit on her way to Wall Street.
Yellow blouse. Pearls around her neck. Short blonde hair tucked around big ears with a little pink nose. Little White Rabbit standing on the platform.
She can’t believe it. People on the train they can’t believe it. Doors jerkin’ tryin’ to close. Pinstripe Dude holding his briefcase to his chest.
Squeezin’ his eyes shut please God let the doors close! Then I see. Right there. This pretty little white girl with blue hair. Now who is this white girl with blue hair, Mrs. Wing?
That’s right, it’s Blue, Mrs. Wing. But I ain’t know her yet so I’m a call her Blue-headed White Girl. Blueheaded White Girl got her hands on the door and won’t let it close!
Pinstripe Dude lookin’ at her like “What you doin’, b*tch!” But she won’t let the doors close. So the doors open up again. What does she do?! SHE TRIES TO PUSH HIM OFF THE TRAIN!
She tryin’ to push this Pinstripe Motherf***er right out the door! I am like damn! But she can’t budge him. He like twice her size. So I say to myself “V?! THIS A MOMENT A TRUTH, N*GGA!
You gonna let this little white girl lose this battle?! Lose this battle against Pinstripe Muthaf***a Tyrannical Bullsh*t?! And do you know what the answer was, Mrs Wing?
The answer was NO! Hell no! I take Pinstripe Motherf***er up by the collar! I throw that Pinstripe Motherf***er off the train! I’m like “Get off the train, Pinstripe motherf***er!”
I grab little White Rabbit, pull her back on the train. Point at Pinstripe Motherf***er, I’m like “Stay there, motherf***er.” Blue-headed White Girl is like “Yeah, motherf***er!”
So there’s Pinstripe Motherf***er. Standing on the platform. Mouth hangin’ open. Soul gone. Cryin’ like a b*tch! Blueheaded White Girl lets go the door. Train start to move.
And the whole subway car – BURSTS INTO APPLAUSE! I look at my new friend. I say, “Hey! I’m V!” She’s like: “I’m Blue.” I say, “Really? ‘Cause you look happy.”
She’s like: “No, ‘cause a my hair, stupid.” I’m like, “I know I’m just playin’.” She’s like, “Oh okay.” And that’s how I met Blue!
4. Puffs, Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years At A Certain School Of Magic And Magic
A monologue from the play by Matt Cox
Mr. Voldy
I’m going to ask an uncomfortable question right now. I ask for an honest response. Where are my shoes? I’ve been back three years, and three years – barefooted.
No one has offered me a pair of sneakers, or some lounge loafers. Wingtips. At first, I thought oh – maybe this is the fashion – but quickly learned – no – that’s not it.
One year later, my little piggies are still out for all to see – it became about the principle of the matter – I’m the Dark Lord.
Surely someone will offer me some shoes. Or at least ask if I’m comfortable. But now; we are in the woods. We’ve spent a whole evening outdoors.
My feet are wet – I’ve stepped on several pointy rocks – I may need a tetanus shot. So, no. I am not comfortable. So where are my – what?
The megaphone is still on? Really? Oh my. I am just having a day, aren’t I? YAH! Harry!
5. A Seagull In The Hamptons
A monologue from the play by Emily Mann
ALEX ’s mother is a Famous Actress—a fact that he finds infinitely oppressive—particularly as he detests the theater . . . well, the kind of theater his mother loves. Here, he tells this to his uncle, his mother’s brother.
ALEX
My mother hates me. I’m nineteen years old and a constant reminder to her that she’s not thirty-two. Her whole life is the “theatuh!” And she knows I hate the theater.
Not pure theater. I don’t hate that. I hate her kind of theater! It’s so fake! People marching around pretending like they’re in some living room.
I mean, all they do is talk and they’re boring and pathetic and old . . . and they have nothing to say. I mean, who cares, really?
The world is falling apart, or worse, the planet is dying! And these people go to the theater to be entertained by people who are just like them—or even worse, more clueless than they are!
And because the producers are so concerned about not offending anybody while they pay their one hundred f***ing dollars, there is nothing controversial or worthwhile going on.
Unless, of course, it’s from England! Then, of course, like good colonialists we bow down to their British accents—anything in British accents makes Americans feel inferior, especially in the theater —
and we say it’s brilliant, even when it’s just— pretentious crap or little dramas with tiny little morals posing as great art—or those f***ing cheerful musicals!
Oh my God! I don’t know. The whole New York theater scene makes me sick. We have to have a new kind of theater, that’s all.
Something vibrant, and young, and dangerous, and alive or, you know what? Just have nothing at all! Why do we have to have theater ?
I mean, I love my mother but she leads such—a stupid life! She dedicates every waking hour to something that just doesn’t matter!
And you can imagine how utterly revolting it feels to be me! Here I am at all her stupid parties full of celebrities and people who have all won prizes for something or other—you know, it’s ridiculous!
Pulitzers and Nobels, and book awards, and Oscars and Tonys and all that crap and here I am! I have nothing to say for myself;
I can’t even understand what they’re talking about half the time; and they’re all wondering how Maria could have spawned such a pathetic little loser.
6. Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea
A monologue from the play by Nathan Alan Davis
Robby
Listen, people gonna do what they do. ’Specially your brother. You were prolly too young to remember this. I was five. So D was four. And we’re playin’ Power Rangers.
We’ve created this epic wild-animal gladiator battle-type scenario, and it’s getting kind of intense—so we’re on a break. And we’re knockin’ back some KoolAids and whatnot, and allasudden he leans over all secretive and he’s like “I’m going to the zoo tomorrow.”
And I’m thinkin’—cool. We goin’ to the zoo tomorrow —’cause you know how I do: I don’t like to miss events. So I clear my schedule for the next day.
And when I come over here in the morning your mom answers the door and she calls for D, and he doesn’t come. And I say, “He’s not still sleeping is he?
We gotta get to the zoo.” And your mom looks at me like “zoo?” And I walk with her back to D’s room and that little baller has bounced.
I’m sayin’ like Kunta Kinte bounced. Forreal. Got up all early, put some miles behind him before the sun came up, this kid was not playin’.
And he was actually going the right direction, too, is the crazy thing.
’Cause when the cops finally find him he’s like on the r oute . But I just remember waiting … right here. Lookin’ at the door. Terrified.
’Cause, to me at the time, the dangerous thing about going to the zoo without a grownup was one of the animals would eat you.
So I’ve got these visions of D like, standing at the snack shop tryna buy a five dollar hotdog and then a bear tackles him and it’s over, and I don’t have a best friend anymore, you know?
And as far as my five-year-old brain is concerned the probability of that happening is like 95% so I’m basically in mourning—and then the door opens and it’s your mom and she’s got D in her arms and he’s lookin’ straight up pissed.
He’s lookin’ grown man angry. ’Cause he wasn’t finished with his business. Knowhatimsayin’, and your mom is just crying and crying ’cause, you know she thought she had lost her baby …
And the only thing I could think was: Dontrell’s invincible. He wrestled the bear and he won. And he doesn’t even have a scratch.
And I’ve never doubted him and I’ve never worried about him ever since. That’s on the real.
7. Peter And The Starcatcher
A monologue from the play by Rick Elice (based on the book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson)
PRENTISS
Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m the leader, and I say we got some things. The leader has to be boy. It doesn’t matter how old you are!
This is Ted, but I call him Tubby, ‘cuz he’s food obsessed.
(to Ted) Yeah, you are! D’you write poems about pie? Hide beans in your blanket? Faint at the merest whisper of—(to Molly) get this— (back to Ted) sticky pudding? (watches Ted faint at the sound)
Like I said, food obsessed. I’m Prentiss. I’m in charge here. Don’t take him (about boy) personally. He’s rude to everybody. It’s why he gets beatings and why he’s got no friends.
He doesn’t have a name. Been orphan’d too long to remember. Grempkin calls him. . . mule! (laughs cruelly then grabs his stomach in hunger)
(to Molly) Ok, You can be like temporary leader—but only ‘til we eat.
8. Techies
A monologue from the play by Don Goodrum
High school student Charlie Porter is the fragile star of Jezebel’s Last Chance and has just found out that Bonnie, his long-time friend and co-star, is not going to make that night’s performance.
To make things worse, she is being replaced by Camille Curry, an unforgiving actress who has no patience with Charlie’s sensitive nature.
CHARLIE
(Almost hysterical, crosses to Tony and grabs him by the shoulders.) Anthony, you have to help me! What am I going to do? Bonnie, my dear sweet Bonnie who would never hurt a fly has abandoned me,
cast me aside like an old doll—! My lines, Anthony! You know how I am in a play, flying along one moment, focused with the razor-sharp intensity of a laser and then poof!
One errant down draft and I’m cast out of the nest, falling into a spiral of —Bonnie used to help me, Anthony! She knew that my mind could betray me like snow on a hot sidewalk, and so, with that phenomenal memory of hers,
she would memorize my lines as well as her own and feed mine to me under her breath whenever tragedy would strike! Not that I would need it often, of course-but the idea of her,
the security of her, waiting there, ready to lift me up and help me to fly—
9. Hurt Village
A monologue from the play by Katori Hall
Skillet tells Ebony, the neighborhood comedian and smalltime doughboy, about a money-making plan he’s come up with. He speaks very slowly.
Skillet (late teens to early twenties, African-American)
You know how weed make you forget; I forgot. Speakina’ which, I forgot to tell you. This n*ggah down by the Pyramid gone axe me, which one I rather have. P***y or weed?
I say, “N*ggah? Now what kind of question is that?” I’m the type a n*ggah, can’t live without neither, but I much rather have some weed than some p***y.
P***y and weed . . . got some similarities. P***y and weed taste good when they wet. they both . . . got a distinct smell. They both can have you happy and give you the munchies til six o’clock in the morning.
They both can burn ya’ if you get too close to the tip. They both can turn yo’ lips black, you suck on it too much. See, I likes em’ both, but p***y leave you.
Weed don’t care nothin’ ‘bout yo’ job, yo’ credit or yo’ car. Weed’ll chill witcha . . . anywhere and nowhere. Make everything real . . . slow . . . motion like.
P***y speed sh*t up: the decreasement of the gas in yo tank, yo’ bank account, and yo . . . beloved weed. Hell muthaf***in yeah! That’s my next ‘speriment. I can make p***y-smellin’ weed!
I’m on a marketing grind: “P***y weed.” N*ggahs’ll eat that sh*t up, you know what I’m sayin’?
“Gotta make that money, cuz I gotta get my own place Can’t stay wit’ my cousin no mo. Gotta go. Gotta go I stay high on the ya-yo. Jump the boogie Woulja puff puff pass that p***y to me.”
That was brilliant. I’ma have ta record that Triple Six Mafia could use that verse.
10. Stupid Is Just 4 2Day
A monologue from the play by Lindsay Price
Trombone (young male)
So I’m standing in front of the whole school. It’s some world environment, world recycling, some kind of save the world kind of day. I’m supposed to read a poem.
A save the world poem. I really hate save the world poems. The only reason I’m in the Environment Club to start with is because my parents said, “Join more clubs.
You’ll get into a better school if you look like you’re well-rounded.”
They didn’t say I was well-rounded. I just have to look like I am. So, whatever. I’m in the Environment Club, but I hate the people in the Environment Club.
They’re very serious about the environment. It’s not a fun club. It’s very much a “the earth is dying” kind of club. Every day the earth is dying.
Every day. Which I know, we should be concerned about the earth. But couldn’t we be concerned AND eat pizza at the same time? Every once in a while?
But I’m a trooper. No one can say I don’t troop. So I start reading the stupid save the world poem. And I can see my friends out of the corner of my eye, off to the side. Laughing.
I try to turn so I can’t see them. But I still hear them. I don’t want to be laughed at because my parents made me join the Environment Club. So I fart. Loudly.
Right in the middle of the poem. Right in the middle of the assembly. It’s a spectacular fart. One of my best. (pause) I’m not in the Environment Club any more.
Get the full play at theatrefolk.
