Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 1 DRAMATIC

TREPLEV from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

(SPEECH 1). [Pulling a flower to pieces] She loves me, loves me not; loves--loves me not; loves--loves me not! [Laughing] You see, she doesn’t love me, and why should she? She likes life and love and gay clothes, and I am already twenty-five years old; a sufficient reminder to her that she is no longer young. When I am away she is only thirty-two, in my presence she is forty-three, and she hates me for it. She knows, too, that I despise the modern stage. She adores it, and imagines that she is working on it for the benefit of humanity and her sacred art, but to me the theatre is merely the vehicle of convention and prejudice. When the curtain rises on that little three-walled room, when those mighty geniuses, those high-priests of art, show us people in the act of eating, drinking, loving, walking, and wearing their coats, and attempt to extract a moral from their insipid talk; when playwrightsgive us under a thousand different guises the same, same, same old stuff, then I must needs run from it, as Maupassant ran from the Eiffel Tower that was about to crush him by its vulgarity.

(SORIN. But we can’t do without a theatre.)

TREPLEV. No, but we must have it under a new form. If we can’t do that, let us rather not have it at all. [Looking at his watch]

(SPEECH 2) I love my mother, I love her devotedly, but I think she leads a stupid life. She always has this man of letters of hers on her mind, and the newspapers are always frightening her to death, and I am tired of it. Plain, human egoism sometimes speaks in my heart, and I regret that my mother is a famous actress. If she were an ordinary woman I think I should be a happier man. What could be more intolerable and foolish than my position, Uncle, when I find myself the only nonentity among a crowd of her guests, all celebrated authors and artists? I feel that they only endure me because I am her son. Personally I am nothing, nobody. I pulled through my third year at college by the skin of my teeth, as they say. I have neither money nor brains, and on my passport you may read that I am simply a citizen of Kiev. So was my father, but he was a well-known actor. When the celebrities that frequent my mother’s drawing-room deign to notice me at all, I know they only look at me to measure my insignificance; I read their thoughts, and suffer from humiliation.

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 2 Emily from Thorton Wilder’s OUR TOWN

I’m not mad at you. But, since you ask me, I might as well say it right out, George. (Oh goodbye, Mrs. Corcoran) I don’t like the whole change that’s come over you in the last year. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings; but I’ve just got to – tell the truth and shame the devil.

Well up to a year ago, I used to like you a lot. And I used to watch you while you did everything – because we’d been friends so long. And then you began spending all your time at baseball. And you never stopped to speak to anyone anymore – not to really speak – not even to your own family, you didn’t. And George, it’s a fact – ever since you’ve been elected captain, you’ve got awful stuck up and conceited, and all the girls say so. And it hurts me to hear ‘em say it; but I got to agree with ‘em a little, because it’s true. I always expect a man to be perfect and I think he should be. Well, my father is. And as far as I can see, your father is. There’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t be too.

But you might as well know right now that I’m not perfect – It’s not easy for a girl to be perfect as a man, because, well, we girls are more – nervous. Now, I’m sorry I said all that about you. I don’t know what made me say it. Now I can see it’s not true at all. And I suddenly feel that it’s not important, anyway

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 3 George from Our Town by Thornton Wilder Emily, I’m glad you spoke to me about that – that fault in my character. What you said was right; but there was one thing wrong with it. That’s where you said I wasn’t noticing – people – and you, for instance – why, you say you were watchin’ me when I did everything – Why, I was doing the same about you all the time. Why, sure – I always thought of you as one of the chief people I thought about. I always made sure where you were sitting on the bleachers, and who you were talking with, and for three days now I’ve tried to walk home with you; but something always got in the way. Yesterday, I was standing over by the wall waiting for you, and you walked home with Miss Corcoran.

Listen, Emily, I’m going to tell you why I’m not going to Agricultural School. I think once you’ve found a person you’re very fond of – I mean a person who’s fond of you, too, and who likes you well enough to be interested in your character – Well, I think that’s just as important as college is, and even more so. That’s what I think: Emily, if I do improve, and make a big change, would you be – I mean, could you be?

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 4 Marisol from ‘Marisol’ by Jose Rivera

MARISOL: (No? Then what is it?) Are you real or not? ’Cause if you’re real and God is real and the Gospels are real, this would be the perfect time to tell me. ’Cause I once looked for angels, I did, in every shadow of my childhood—but I never found any. I thought I’d find you hiding inside the notes I sang to myself as a kid. The songs that put me to sleep and kept me from killing myself with fear. But I didn’t see you then. C’mon! Somebody up there has to tell me why I live the way I do! What’s going on here, anyway? Why is there a war on children in this city? Why are apples extinct? Why are they planning to drop human insecticide on overpopulated areas of the Bronx? Why has the color blue disappeared from the sky? Why does common rainwater turn your skin bright red? Why do cows give salty milk? Why did the Plague kill half my friends? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MOON? Where did the moon go? How come nobody’s seen it in nearly nine months . . . ?

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 5 Teri from ‘Stage Door’ By Edna Ferber & George S. Kaufman

I feel so low because this show closed after only 4 performances. The idiotic part of it is that I didn’t feel so terrible after the first minute. I thought, well, Keith’s coming around after the show, and we’ll go to Smitty’s and sit there and talk and it won’t seem so bad. But he never showed up. I don’t expect Keith to be like other people. I wouldn’t want him to be. One of the things that makes him so much fun is that he’s different. If he forgets an appointment it’s because he’s working and doesn’t notice. Only I wish he had come tonight. I needed him so. Kaye, I’m frightened. For the first time, I’m frightened. It’s three years now since I’ve been trying to be a professional actress. The first year it didn’t matter so much. I was so young. Nobody was ever as young as I was. I thought, they just don’t know. But I’ll get a good start and show them. I didn’t mind anything in those days. Not having any money, or quite enough food; and a pair of silk stockings always a major investment. I didn’t mind because I felt so sure that that wonderful part was going to come along. But it hasn’t. And suppose it doesn’t next year? Suppose it never comes? I know I can always go home....and marry some home-town boy—like Louise did. I can’t just go home and plump myself down on Dad. You know what a country doctor makes! When I was little I never knew how poor we were, because mother made everything seem so glamorous—so much fun. Even if I was sick it was a lot of fun, because then I was allowed to look at her scrapbook. I even used to pretend to be sick, just to look at it—and that took acting, with a doctor for a father. I adored that scrap-book. All those rep-company actors in wooden attitudes—I remember a wonderful picture of mother as Esmeralda. It was the last part she ever played, and she never finished the performance she fainted, right in the middle of the last act. They rang down and somebody said, “Is there a doctor in the house?” And there was. And he married her. Only first she was sick for weeks and weeks. Of course the company had to leave her behind. They thought she’d catch up with them any week, but she never did. I know now that she missed it every minute of her life. I think if Dad hadn’t been such a gentle darling, and not so dependent on her, she might have gone off and taken me with her. I’d have been one of those children brought up in dressing rooms, sleeping in trunk trays, getting my vocabulary from stage-hands. (As she creams her face.) But she didn’t. She lived out the rest of her life right in that little town, but she was stage-struck to the end. There never was any doubt in her mind—I was going to be an actress. It was almost a spiritual thing, like being dedicated to the church.

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 6 Walter from A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Talking ‘bout life, Mama. You all always telling me to see life like it is. Well- I laid in there on my back today... and I figured it out. Life just like it is. Who gets and who don’t get. (He sits down with his coat on and laughs) Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the “tooken.” (He laughs) I’ve figured it out finally. (He looks around at them) Yeah. Some of us always getting “tooken.” (He laughs) People like Willy Harris, they don’t never get “tooken.” And you why the rest of us do? ‘Cause we get all mixed up. Mixed up bad. We get looking ‘round for the right and the wrong; we worry about it and cry about it and stay up nights trying to figure out ‘bout the wrong and the right of things all the time... And all the time, man, them takers is out there operating, just taking and taking. Willy Harris? Shoot - Willy Harris don’t even count. He don’t even count in the big scheme of things. But I’ll say one thing for old Willy Harris... he’s taught me something. He’s taught me to keep an eye on what counts in this world. Yeah - (shouting a little) Thanks, Willy!

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 7 COMEDIC

Jane from ‘‘DENTITY CRISIS’ by Christopher Durang When I was eight years old, someone brought me to a theatre with lots of other children. We had come to see a production of Peter Pan. And I remember something seemed wrong with whole production, odd things kept happening. Like when the children would fly, the ropes breaking and the actors would come thumping to ground and they’d have to be carried off by the stagehands. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of understudies to take the children’s places, and then they’d fall to the ground. And then the crocodile that chases Captain Hook seemed to be a real crocodile. It wasn’t an actor, and at one point it fell off the stage, crushing several children in the front row. Several understudies came and took their places in the audience. And from scene to scene Wendy seemed to get fatter and fatter until finally by the second act she was immobile and had to be moved with a cart. The voice belonged to the actress playing Peter Pan. You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that Peter’s about to drink, in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says that Tinkerbell’s going to die because not enough people believe in fairies, but that if everybody in the audience claps real hard to show that they do believe in fairies, then maybe Tinkerbell won’t die. And so then all the children started to clap. we clapped very hard and very long. My palms hurt and even started to bleed I clapped so hard. Then suddenly the actress playing Peter Pan turned to the audience and she said, “that wasn’t enough. You didn’t clap hard enough. Tinkerbell’s dead. “ Uh..well, and..and then everyone started to cry. The actress stalked offstage and refused to continue with the play, and they finally had to bring down the curtain. No one could see anything through all the tears, and the ushers had to come help the children up the aisles and out into the street.

I don’t think any of us were ever the same after that experience.

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 8 Fortinbras from ‘Fortinbras’ by Lee Blessing

God, what is all this? You can’t keep something like this quiet. Captain, why don’t you take these, um — bodies (Indicates the bodies.) and put them someplace safe for now, ok? Is everyone dead? The whole family, I mean? Two families?! No one’s left? Of the whole royal —? They all just kill— each other, or what? Say, who’s in charge now, anyway? I mean, who can understand all this stuff?

So, what you’re telling me is a ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him his uncle killed his father, so Hamlet pretends to go crazy — or maybe he really is, who cares?— and he decides to kill his uncle. But he stalls around for a long time instead, kills a guy who’s not his uncle, gets sent to England, gets rescued by pirates, comes back and kills everybody — including himself. I mean, come on. Horatio, we’ve got to have a new story. You want to tell everyone in Denmark that their entire royal family killed itself, plus a family of reasonably innocent nobles, plus two attendant lords? Good God, Horatio — how much do you think people can take? No one wants to hear their whole royal family’s incompetent. Personally, I think we should just replace the whole story. We need a story that’ll do something for us: explain the bodies, preserve the monarchy, give the people some kind of focus for all their — I don’t know — anger, loss, whatever. And most of all, something that’ll show people that everything that’s happened up till now had to happen so that I could become king. I know how I’d like to explain it. A Polish spy. It’s the perfect idea. Look — the Poles, bitter at Claudius’s pact with my uncle to grant me and my troops free passage through Denmark so that I can kick their Polish butts, send a spy to the court here in Elsinore. His job is to destroy the entire Danish royal family. You know, as a lesson to all who would conspire against the Polish crown — all that crap. Anyhow, he successfully sabotages the fencing match, bares the swordtip, poisons the weapon, the wine — see how easy this is, all one guy — sets the unsuspecting participants against each other in a sort of frenzy of sudden rage and paranoia, and executes the most extraordinary mass-regicide in the history of Europe. And we can even add a lot of stuff about the horror when the royal Danes, each mortally wounded and/or poisoned, suddenly realized that Poland had achieved its ultimate revenge — blah, blah, blah. You don’t think it will be believed, Horatio? I bet it will be. It’s just so much better. Anyone can understand it. And the best thing is, it gives me that historical reason-for- being that’s so important to a new king. You see? I’m here to save Denmark from an imminent attack by Poland. (Horatio looks incredibly dubious.) Of course, if you want to tell people that ridiculous story of yours, be my guest. But I’ll bet mine’s the one that catches on. (He winks conspiratorially)

July 2020 Monologues Broadway Student Summit 2020 9

Casey from ‘Anton in Show Business’ by Jane Martin

I used to think that theatre could change people’s lives. The truth is, two months later the audience can’t remember the name of the play. I mean, honestly, has anybody you know to be a sentient being ever walked up to you and said the play changed their life? No, fine, okay. You know who is changed by Chekhov? Me. I finish a play, it’s like, “Get me an exorcist!” He eats my life. He chews me up. He spits me out. I’m like bleeding from Chekhov. The audience? Who knows what their deal is? They come from the mists; they return to the mist. They cough, they sneeze, they sleep, they unwrap little hard candies, and then they head for their cars during the curtain call. And once, once I would like to step out and say to the ones who are up the aisles while we take the bows, “Hey! Excuse me! Could you show a little mercy because I just left it all out here on the stage and even if you don’t have the foggiest notion what it was or what it meant, could you have the common courtesy to leave your damn cars in the garage for another forty seconds and give me a little hand for twenty years of work!”

July 2020