MALE MONOLOGUES:
Off to College
By Saint Bede Academy Genesians
SON: I don’t know why it’s so hard to say what I’m thinking and feeling right now. It
would be easier if it were an English essay: “My Father: a retrospective.” Then I could
look at it objectively…analyze it, take some time to organize my thoughts. But it’s all so
random. Thanks for making me learn the hard way sometimes. Thanks for Little League
and Bitty Basketball and Youth Football and summer camps and picking me up at
practice, and for throwing a ball with me in the backyard, even after a hard day at work.
Thanks for telling me “no” sometimes—a lot of times. Thanks for telling Grandpa to
shut up and butt out. Thanks for Saturday morning trips to the hardware store and
Sunday afternoons at the park, and for teaching me the fine art of falling asleep while
watching the Cubs on TV. Thanks for showing me how a husband takes care of his wife.
And I never thought I’d say this, but thanks for making me buy my own car and fight my
own battles and find my own way, and for never saying “I told you so.” Well, almost
never. I know you’ve always wanted me to go to college, you wanted me to have it better
than you did. But I want you to know—I’d be proud to be a plumber if I could be half
the man you are.
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
Tom: What do you think I’m at? Aren’t I supposed to have any patience to reach the end of, Mother? You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that celotex interior? With flourescent tubes? Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains than go back mornings. But I go. For sixty five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self- self’s all I ever think of. Why listen, if self is what I thought of Mother, I’d be where he is, GONE! I’m going to the movies! I’m going to opium dens, yes, opium dens, Mother. I’ve joined the Hogan Gang, I’m a hired assassin, I carry a tommy gun in a violin case. I run a string of cat houses in the Valley. They call me Killer, Killer Wingfield. I’m leading a double life: a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night, a dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother. On occasion they call me El Diablo. Oh I could tell you many things to make you sleepless. My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They’re going to blow us all sky high some night. I’ll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentleman callers. You ugly, babbling old witch....
The Outsiders
By Christopher Sergel
JOHNNY: I asked the Nurse to give you this book so you could finish it. I want you to tell Dallas to look at a sunset. He’ll probably think you’re crazy, but ask him for me. Listen, I don’t mind dying now. It’s worth it saving those kids. Some of their parents came by to thank me, and I know it was worth it. That guy who wrote the poem—he meant you’re gold when you’re a kid, like green. When you’re a kid everything’s new, dawn. It’s just that when you get used to everything that it’s day. The way you are, Pony. That’s gold. There’s still lots of good in the world. Tell Dallas. I don’t think he knows.
The Outsiders
By Christopher Sergel
RANDY: I’m not going to show at the rumble tonight. I’m sick of all this. And no matter what you think, Bob was a good guy. He had a problem, but he was a real person. And now he’s dead. All I know, they spoiled him; they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say “No” and they never did. He needed somebody to lay down the law, set limits, give him something to stand on. One time he came home drunker than anything—falling down disgusting. He thought sure they’d raise the roof. Know what they did? They said it was their fault, they’d failed him, they took the blame. Maybe if his father had given him a belt instead, he’d still be alive. Only person ever told Bob “No” was Cherry Valance. No wonder he was so crazy about her.
FEMALE MONOLOGUES:
The Audition
By Don Zolidis
CARRIE: When I was ten years old I got cast in the school play. We were doing this play our teacher wrote about Winnie the Pooh. I was Tigger. Probably because I was pretty hyper. I even got to sing a song about Tiggers. I was so excited I stayed after school every day, and I learned my lines in the first week, and every night at home I’d sing my song about Tiggers and how they were made our of rubber and everything. Our school didn’t have a lot of money, but my friend’s Mom made me a costume and we had a lot of fun. And I felt really good about it. I mean, I felt…amazing. It was like my whole life I was looking for something I was good at, and then all of a sudden here it was, I was good at being Tigger. I couldn’t run fast, I wasn’t good at math, I couldn’t even spell, but when I sang that Tigger song, I was proud. So the day of the show came, and I was backstage in my Tigger costume, and I was really nervous, I had to pee like every five minutes, and then I went out there on the stage, and the lights were really bright, and I could see the outline of all these heads out there, and I could hear them, and I did my song—and I just put everything I had into it, and I wasn’t nervous any more, I was happy, and when I finished…the whole audience applauded for me. For me. I had never been applauded for anything my whole life. And then after the show, all the parents were coming up and hugging their kids, even the kids who played trees. I remember this Dad came up and he was like, “you were the most realistic tree of all of them” and everyone was there. And everyone was getting hugged. And there were all these flowers. And I looked around for my Mom…and I kept looking around for her…and I kept looking. And then everyone started to go home. And I was still there. And I was still in that stupid Tigger costume. I asked her later why she didn’t come to my show, and she said, “What show?”
(Pause.)
I was really good, too.
Our Town
By Thornton Wilder
EMILY: I can't bear it. They're so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I'm here. I'm grown up. I love you all, everything. - I cant look at everything hard enough.(pause, talking to her mother who does not hear her. She speaks with mounting urgency)Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at one another.(pause, looking desperate because she has received no answer. She speaks in a loud voice, forcing herself to not look at her mother)I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another.(she breaks down sobbing, she looks around)I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back - up the hill - to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.(she asks abruptly through her tears) Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute?(she sighs)I'm ready to go back. I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.
Our Town
By Thornton Wilder
EMILY: Mother Gibbs, George and I have made that farm into just the best place you ever saw. We thought of you all the time. We wanted to show you the new barn and a great long cement drinking fountain for the stock. We bought that out of the money you left us. Don't you remember, Mother Gibbs - the legacy you left us? Why, it was over three hundred and fifty dollars. Well, there's a patent device on the drinking fountain so that it never overflows, mother Gibbs, and it never sinks below a certain mark they have there. It's fine.(Her voice trails off and her eyes return to the funeral group)It won't be the same to George without me, but it's a lovely farm.(pause, she looks directly at Mrs. Gibbs)Live people don't understand, do they? They're sort of shut up in little boxes, aren't they? I feel as though I know them. Mother Gibbs, when does this feeling go away? - Of being one of them? How long does it last? I never realized before how troubled and how… how in the dark live persons are. From morning till night, that's all they are - troubled.
The Fantasticks
LUISA: This morning a bird woke me up. It was a lark, or a peacock; something like that. So I said hello. And it vanished, flew away, the very moment I said hello! It was quite mysterious. So do you know what I did? I went to my mirror and brushed my hair two hundred times, without stopping. And as I was brushing it, my hair turned mauve. No, honestly! Mauve! Then red. then some sort of a deep blue when the sun hit it.... I'm sixteen years old, and every day something happens to me. I don't know what to make of it. When I get up in the morning and get dressed, I can tell...something's different. I like to touch my eyelids, because they're never quite the same. oh, oh, oh! I hug myself till my arms turn blue, then I close my eyes and cry and cry till the tears come down and I can taste them. I love to taste my tears. I am special. I am special! Please god, please, don't let me be normal!
Gypsy
LOUISE: I said turn it off! Nobody laughs at me, because I laugh first. At me. Me from Seattle. Me with no education. Me with no talent, as you've kept reminding me my whole life! Well, Mama, look at me now. Look! Look where I live. Look at my friends. Look where I'm going. I'm not staying in burlesque, I'm moving. Maybe up maybe down. But wherever I'm going, I'm having the time of my life, because for the first time, it is my life! And I love it! I love every second of it! I am Gypsy Rose Lee! And I love her! And if you don't you can just clear out! Now!