THE TIN WOMAN

By Sean Grennan

NURSE

#1-

Joy?! Can I get you anything? Wake up, honey bear, are you hungry? We have to get you to eat! Joy. ARE YOU AWAKE? What do you want? Do you want to go to the bathroom? HONEY, can you hear me? Do you want this? Are you awake or not, sleepyhead? How is the pain? THE PAIN, HOW IS IT? BECAUSE IF YOU’RE IN PAIN, PRESS THE BUTTON AND THE MACHINE WILL GIVE YOU SOME MORPHINE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? DO YOU UNDERSTAND!? DO YOU WANT TO PEE PEE?! PEE PEE!?

#2-

Are you feeling OK today? Oh, that’s good. It’s a big day! You’ve made a lot of progress. You’ve got that interesting sense of humor. Most of your levels have stabilized. You’re reacting well to the drugs. What? Your sense of humor! Were you that way before? Well, a lot of our patients are changed by things like this. They get more religious, or less, or they see life in a different way. Well, maybe it will come later. I guess that’s it then. I see you’ve got a care and someone waiting downstairs. Someone will be up in a minute to wheel you down and, well, I guess you just go live your life now! Great advice, huh? “Live your life.” Ha-ha! My sense of humor! Ha-ha! Ok… take care of yourself, Joy. Oh, I hope you can give me and your hospital experience a good rating when you’re contacted. Bye now!

#3-

The donor, yes? Uhm, I’m sorry, the donors’ identities are kept confidential. I can tell you that the donor was a male. The only thing I can tell you is that it was a man and that he met the protocol standards to be a donor, as far as age, disease, like that. Given all that, I’d guess there was some kind of accident, but I don’t really know… You can’t contact them. The family’s privacy has to be respected. Those are the rules. Well, you can send a note. That’s allowed. Here, this is a card with the address of the donor organization on it. You can send a note to them, and they’ll read it and if it’s OK, they’ll forward it to the family. Okay… Bye!

DARLA

#1-

JOY TO THE WORLD, YOUR NAME IS JOY! Hey, you look great! I haven’t seen you in forever! Hug me! HUGGG MEEEE! I MUST HAVE HUGS!!! What? Ooo, of course, the surgery, sorry! Ok, I brought you something…! There are lots of very fine screw-top wines… This certainly isn’t one of them but there are lots of… hey, life goes on. Why haven’t you called me? I’ve wanted to come by forever, you know! Seriously, you are having a hell of a year! Seriously, you seem sad… sadder than usual. What’s up?

#2

Whoa, what’s going on? You’re gonna clean this? I wouldn’t clean. I would burn and walk away. When was the last time you showered? This is not funny. This is stopping now. Go, go take a shower, I’m cleaning up. (Pause) Kid, I’m trying to help. You don’t want me here? (beat) OK, I’ll make a deal with you. Set down and talk to me for five minutes and then I’ll leave and I won’t come back unless you ask me to. Deal? (Sits) How’ve you been? You look tired. Have you seen a doctor? Maybe gotten some pills or something? Is this part of the heart thing, depression? Sweetie, I think you should get some help. This isn’t normal. Remember when you wrote to that family, the family of the heart donor? Did they ever respond? I know what I said but I think you should go see them, talk to them. That’s all I’m saying. And yeah, you should really shower.

JOY

#1-

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Joy O’Malley. I am the heart recipient that your family donated to. I’m’ writing because I want to say, “Thank you.” I thought you might like to know a little about who ended up with your gift.

To begin, I’m in my mid-thirties, a graphic artist, which may sound cool but mostly I make cans of soup look fantastic. The good thing is that I can work at home and most of my clients stuck by me during my convalescence. Let’s see, I’m currently single, I’m from the Mid-west but moved east after college, chasing a boy. I’ve learned a lot since then including, never chase a boy.

I wish there was something remarkable about me. I know you’d have liked the heart donated to someone who was going to cure cancer or fight crime. That’s not me.

This morning I got up, made some tea, and put on some music, an album by a group called The Swell Season. I looked out my window at a little park across the way and saw the tree that’s always there.

Before the surgery, when I was very sick, there were a lot of bad days, and I was angry. I thought, someone else will move in here, make tea, look out the window and the tree for a while longer. I’m so sorry that it comes at such a cost to you.

I’m including my contact information below. If you want to write back or whatever, please feel free.

Above all, I’m sorry for your loss and thank you. Joy.

#2-

Darla, no, there isn’t, there really isn’t! What? Stare out the window some more? Look at my tree? Pass the time? Oh, but you’re right, I could do some beautiful graphic to sell more corn, make more money, spend more money, get old and then die…?

(Recovering from the gales of laughter.) Darla, my parents, my parents were kind of like… I don’t know, swinger/hippies? They felt everything and did everything, and nothing held them back. Not even me. My father left us when I was six because being a Dad was just “not his thing.” My Mom lasted another two years and on my eighth birthday, had the decency to drop me at her sisters on her way out of town. And do you know what she gave me? To remember her? As she went off to find herself with a new guy, do you know what I got? A hug. A hug is what I got. I have no idea if they’re alive or dead and I truly do not care. So, all of this heart stuff happens, and it makes me realize, I’m asking myself, why? Why am I supposed to live? For what? For who? And the kicker here is that for me to have all this extra time, for me, “special, special” me to be alive, someone else had to die, fantastic! Some guy who might have had… who might have done something, been in love, maybe HE had a family that loved him, I don’t know… he’s dead and I’m alive, what is that? But really, come on, what was he going to do anyway What was I? I WAS GOOD TO GO!? I was good to go…

HANK

What are we doing here? I’ve got a lot to do. There’s a lot of paperwork with all this, let me tell ya. And we’ve got people coming by in an hour. Tell you the truth, I don’t know why people have to come by with so much food. And all desserts! What is that, anyway? We’ve got enough cupcakes to get diabetes! And it’s not like I even know that many of his friends anyway. Really, everybody standing around looking sad, gee, that helps! That’s what we need! What about that one guy! The one with the earrings. One ear was pierced like fifty times or something! I tell ya one thing, he’ll never get through the airport… And the tattoos. That one young “lady” looked like she was wearing long sleeves… but she wasn’t! Sammy has a tattoo? A daughter of mine with… Well, I hate to say this but it just fits her, doesn’t it? The way she dresses. The way she is. Always talking about ‘sending good energy” and being “spiritual” but not religious. What does that even mean? “I believe in God just not in God…” Excuse me?! Now with Jack… (He trails off.)

JACK

JACK #1: Oh God, I was getting nowhere with her and everything I said just made it worse. Finally, I’m so rattle I just blurt out “You want to eat food with me?!” Not, “Want to get dinner?” Or “We should go out.” “YOU WANT TO EAT FOOD WITH ME?” I sounded like the Incredible Hulk on Match.com… “YOU WANT MAKE KISSES WITH ME?!!! YOU LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT? HULK SMASH!”

JACK #2: What was I like? What do you mean, “I’m just a kid”? Because I don’t want to take over your business? And just because I’m photographer doesn’t mean I can’t see the big picture. Dad, I don’t want to go into the business. Got it? I was thinking about doing my own life! What are you talking about, ‘grow up’? So, I went to three colleges and changed majors. What else? Oh, I lived in the city and in five places in eight years. What, I should have lived with you, out here? Yeah, living at home would have been a sign of growing up. (laughs) Why can’t I just be happy like you? You know what I’ve got. Integrity! If I quit my life and did yours I’d be just as miserable as you, more. I’d be having this fight with my son someday. You’re my father, but you’re a coward, you know that!?

ALICE

Dear Joy,

What a surprise to get your letter. I’m so glad you wrote. As you mention it’s still a difficult time here, but, speaking for myself, it’s nice to know that you’re doing so well and that we were able to help with that. That’s the blessing in all this.

I’d love to tell you about our song, Jack, your donor. He was about your age. Interestingly, like you, he lived in the city and worked in the arts. Well, actually, he worked as a corporate accountant but was an aspiring photographer. He used to make fun of himself saying that he wanted to be Ansel Adams but he would have settled for Weegee. I’m sure that means something. So, anyway, you’re both in the arts.

Let’s see, he was single, having just broken up with someone that we’d hoped would give us a few grandchildren. He was so very nice-looking and sweet and we miss him desperately.

Finally, I’d like to invite you to come see us when you can. Are you free next week? Maybe dinner? You could come early, meet our daughter Sammy? It would be lovely to meet you. Our phone number is below, best wishes,

Alice.

SAMMY

SAMMY #1: (SAMMY is fiddling with Jack’s camera) They make these things so complicated… I like to figure things out. So far, I can take pictures and save them but… I don’t know where they are in here. He had a huge memory card though so I think they’re fine. I’ll get it. I think it’s a really nice camera. Jack must have spent a fortune on it.

SAMMY #2: Class, class? OK, let’s all sit down in a circle. That’s right. Everyone sit down. That’s nice. It’s going to be a special story time now. OK, now, during story time, were do our eyes go? (She points to her own eyes.) Where do they go? Yes, they go on Ms. Borden. I want to talk about flowers today. How many of you like flowers? Ooo, all the girls do. No, Bobby, boys can like flowers too! And what do flowers do? They sit and they look pretty and that’s about it? Is that all right? So, what do your Mommies and daddies do with the old flowers when it’s time for them to go away? Maybe they get mulched. Mulching is when you take a bunch of old things and turn them into plant food for next year’s flowers. And then those new flowers can be healthy and pretty and the dead flowers are still there, in a way. (She becomes a bit emotional.) Nothing goes away, does it? It just changes into something else. And nothing is lost. (Pause.) And that makes us happy. (Pause.) Let’s clap our hands if we’re very happy…

SAMMY #3: I’m sorry. You must think I’m a nut. (She tries to control herself but it’s a fragile truce.) Jack loved the arts and took pictures. And you both went to the Bluebird Café! No! No! No coincidences. I Don’t believe in accidents! It’s all part of the river. And we’re like leaves from a tree that fell into the river. And maybe you never knew Jack but now this is happening and you’re together in a very profound way and the river keeps lowing and it’s a circle, you know!

FROZEN

Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez

Book by Jennifer Lee

Based on the Disney film written by Jennifer Lee

YOUNG ANNA: (To her father) I love sleeping! Good night! (He leaves.) Elsa, they’re gone! It’s just us! So you know what it’s time for….Snowman. Snowman. Snowman!! Please, Elsa, can we do it tonight? You said there’s a recipe for making a proper snowman. Can we try it out? YAY!!! Okay, sorry, I’ll be quiet, I promise.

YOUNG ELSA: You know we’re supposed to be sleeping. But I guess we could maybe build just a little snowman. Shh, don’t get so crazy or they’ll hear what we’re doing. (She begins to build a snowman.) A little bit of you...a little bit of me...the proper snowman recipe is made out of things we both like. Careful! There, good. Want to think of a good name for him?

KING AGNARR/QUEEN IDUNA: (To the audience) Please, our daughter is hurt. It was an accident. (Now indicating Elsa) She was born with the powers, not cursed. But they’re getting stronger. She can learn to control it, I’m sure. (To Elsa) Elsa, wear these gloves. See if they help you keep it inside. We need to get more answers.

HANS: (To Anna) Hello again. You look upset. Are you okay? Ah. I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, too. If my twelve older brothers weren’t humiliating me, they were ignoring me. It’s not going to be like that when I have a family. (Extra suave) I could never shut you out, Anna.

ANNA: (To Kristoff) Hello. I am Princess Anna of Arendelle. I’m looking for my sister. She went all ice-crazy and I guess it was my fault. I got engaged to Prince Hans, but then Elsa freaked out because I only just met him, you know, today. Yes I got engaged to someone I just met! Why is everyone so hung up on that? What can I say? I’ve got good instincts. Anyway, can you tell me the way to get up the North Mountain, or not?

ELSA 1: (ANNA rushes in to request ELSA’s blessing to marry HANS) Marriage? May I speak with you alone please, Anna? All right. You can't marry a man you just met. What do you know about true love? (rattled by ANNA’s anger) You asked me for my blessing, but my answer is no. (to the CASTLE STAFF) The party is over. Close the gates.

ELSA 2: (To Anna) Anna! I’m so happy to see you! Do you like it? (indicating ice palace, in response to Anna’s awe) I never knew I could create something like this. You don’t have to apologize for what happened. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. Only Mother and Father knew, and for your own safety, they wanted to keep it from you. (taking a moment) When you were only six years old, I nearly killed you with my magic. Now, my powers are much stronger than they were. You should probably go now, please.

KRISTOFF: The name’s Kristoff, and I’m an ice harvester. I mean, a recently unemployed ice harvester. Wait, you got engaged to someone you just met? I’m not trying to get hung up on it, but, um, did you maybe stop to consider–Hey, I wouldn’t go that way if I were you. What do you think, Sven? As a matter of fact, I do know how to get up the North Mountain. Without dying.

OLAF: Okay. Let's start this thing over. Hi everyone, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs. And who's the funky-looking donkey? Ah-huh. And who's the reindeer? Oh good. They're both Sven. Makes it easier for me. And you're Anna. Of course, I know you. You’re the one who gave me my big, bouncy (enthusiastically mouths the word “butt”). Don’t you remember?

SVEN: (ANNA slams into HANS, creating a domino effect in which they knock the ice bag out of KRISTOFF’s hands. KRISTOFF and SVEN are irritated. KRISTOFF yells “Hey, my ice!”) [using your best reindeer voice] Yeah, his ice! (SVEN sniffs HANS, butting him with his antlers. KRISTOFF says “Come on, Sven, Let’s go”) You got it, Kristoff

HANS: (after being bumped by Anna and seeing her for the first time. Anna says “Oh, I’m sorry”) It’s perfectly fine. Hi. (SVEN sniffs HANS, butting him with his antler) Whoa. Reindeer in the castle. (bowing to Anna) Prince Hans, of the Southern Isles. (Anna introduces herself as Princess Anna of Arendelle) Princess? (HANS falls to his knees) My Lady (in admiration)

PABBIE: (examining the hurt young ANNA). This is a magic strike. You're lucky she did not strike her heart. A heart is not so easily changed, but a head may be persuaded.

BULDA: (examining the hurt young ANNA). Born with the powers or cursed? We are removing all magic. Even the magic that fills her memories, to be safe.

Character: CARRIE. Carrie is a young girl desperate to get a part in her high school’s production of A Chorus Line, and to finally get the approval from her mother that she needs. In this moment with the audience, she tells us of the moment she knew she loved the theater, and the disappointment she felt.

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 out 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 a 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 couldn’t 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.

Character: GINA, a nervous girl auditioning for a role.

GINA: What exactly are you looking for? I think I would do a better job of auditioning if I knew exactly what it was you were after, you know? Cause I can do anything. I mean, not anything. But pretty close. Like if you wanted flirty and funny, I can do that. Or if you wanted me to be like all mean and everything, I can do that too. Or if it’s like a really sad role I cry just about every day. Not for any real reason, just for practice. I practice crying. In case it comes in handy sometime. You never know when you might need to cry. I’ll stand in front of my mirror at home and then I’ll try to imagine my Mom dying. That usually doesn’t work. But then I think about all those starving kids in Africa, and that doesn’t make me cry either, and then I think about puppies and they make me cry. Not like hurting the puppies or anything. Just puppies. I hate puppies. They’re always looking at you like look at me I’m so cute, well you’re not cute, you’re just a baby dog, that doesn’t automatically make you cute. And personally, I think puppies are sell-outs. I mean, try and turn on the TV and not see a puppy selling something. So I think about puppies. And then I cry. I can also burp on command.

Character: Alison, who has won every lead role in every school play since kindergarten. Her audition is only a list of the title roles she’s played; she feels she ought to get the lead on principle. It is a huge shock to her system when she isn’t even called back.

ALISON: Hi there. I’m Alison Bass. Of course you know that. Let’s see… experience… last year I was Anna in Anna and the King. The year before that I was Belle in Beauty and the Beast. The year before that I was the Crucible in the Crucible. Well okay I wasn’t the crucible, that’s not really a role, but if there was a role for the crucible, that would be me. And when I was a little kid I played Annie. In Annie. Impressive, isn’t it? That was a joke. Look um… do I really have to audition? I mean who are we trying to fool here, right? I know when everyone’s here you can’t make it look like you’re going to give a part to a certain person, but… come on, we both know what’s going to happen.

(short pause.)

Does that make me sound conceited?

Character: TOMMY. He reads from the script Sarah has given him for the first time. SARAH has a huge crush on Tommy. Tommy is the unwitting object of Sarah’s attention. He wants to be in a show, but not necessarily as the love interest.

TOMMY: I don’t know if I love Anne any more. I think there’s somebody else that I love more. You see, Anne is… fat and ugly and wears too much makeup around her eyes. It makes her look like a pig ran through a department store. Also I hate her high, whiny voice. It’s like when she talks all the dogs in the neighborhood come running. And she smells like bacon all the time. I don’t know why. Why did I ever start going out with her? I know I was crazy, but now I see you. (to SARAH who is playing the opposite role of what TOMMY is reading) Compared to you, my current girlfriend is a bloated dead octopus washing up on the shore punctured with thirty hypodermic needles left over by the mafia. But you-- You are the most beautiful girl in the world. You are a star, a diamond, a diamond star, you are the cherry on top of my sundae, you are the whipped cream in my hot chocolate, you are the teeth in my mouth. I want to kiss you. And not just a regular kiss, a super kiss, the kind of kiss where you it’s like you’re been hit in the head with the brick of love and you’re bleeding out the side of your head where you got hit with that brick, and even the blood that’s oozing down your hair is beautiful. Like that.

Okay, um… I need to go.

Character: ELIZABETH. Elizabeth is on track to go to a top-tier college. It is not the track she would choose. She’d rather be at home doing nothing. Her mother is on a mission to fill her college resume with as many impressive activities as possible and this month it is the high school musical.

ELIZABETH: Hi. My name is Elizabeth Walker and I’ll be performing the role of Hamlet. (ELIZABETH performs the monologue. She’s very good.) I have of late-- but wherefore I know not-- lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you this brave o’er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth to me nothing but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, now infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action, now like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.

Character: SOLEIL. Soliel has had a difficult time in life. Her parents died young and she has never had money to dress or style herself to fit in. Every ounce of her seems to scream, “I’m different!” She has recently come to accept herself and enjoy her individuality. Or has she?

SOLEIL: I grew up alone. My Dad left us. My Mom didn’t make it. And I was alone. And I’d look at the girls who were pretty and the girls who were thin and the girls who seemed to know everything. They knew everything about clothes and money and music and what to say and how to laugh and they were so beautiful and I looked at myself in the mirror and I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t like them. I was something ugly, something diseased, something to be laughed at and destroyed and hated because I existed, just because I existed I was wrong and they were so easy, life was so easy for all of them as they got in their cars with their mothers on the way home and I was on the bus, I was alone on the bus and I’d always put my bag next to me on the seat and I’d sit up front next to the bus driver, and there was this boy who would sit behind me and he said I was the garbage can. And they’d throw garbage at me and he’d flick my ears and every day at recess I didn’t want to go outside, because I had no one. No one at all near me. No one likes me. No one to talk to, and I just hoped the other kids would leave me alone and they wouldn’t say anything to me and they’d just let me read a book and most days they just ignored me, but sometimes they’d take the kickball and they’d throw it at me, and they’d back me up into the wall and I’d stand there with my head against the wall and they’d throw the ball at me again and again and every once in a while a girl would come up and shove my head against the wall or kick me in the back of the legs or put mud in my hair. The teachers watched. They thought we were playing. And I went home alone and I cried on the way home and then I cried at night for my Mom who died when I was six and after that I just wanted her to come back and they stared at me all the time they stared--- And I stopped caring what they said. And I stopped wishing I was like them. When I got to high school-- I found this. And suddenly it wasn’t all that bad to be different. And suddenly it wasn’t all that awful to be weird. And I’m happy. And if someone asked me tomorrow if I’d trade it all to be average, to be just like them, to be pretty and simple and not think too much and have boys fall in love with me and write me notes and go to the movies with my friends on weekends-- if someone offer me that trade, you know what I’d say?

(Short pause.)

Yes. In a heartbeat.

SANTA is discovered sitting in the easy chair beside a TV table on which there is a pitcher of eggnog and a bowl of Doritos. He looks slightly disheveled. His jacket and boots are off, he is wearing his red paints, a t-shirt and suspenders. He picks up the remote and clicks it.

SANTA: I don’t believe it! The DVR didn’t tape the football game I was gonna watch. East Carolina vs. Boise state. What did I do wrong? I mean, I can fly around d the world in one night but I can’t set the DVR! What’s wrong with me? (He turns oft the TV, looks at his watch.) In-laws. They come every year on Christmas day. I finish my rounds, just start to unwind, then the door bursts open and the kids run in, start dancing with the elves and the elves get into the eggnog and start riding the reindeer. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m a big fan of Christmas. It’s just well, I had fifty bucks on Boise. What am I complaining about? It’s Christmas! Let’s read a Christmas story. (He picks up a large book) Ah. Here’s one. The story of Buddy the Elf—well, he thought he was an elf—we’ll get to that part. Oh! You know what? Before we start, I’m going to turn off my cell phone. It’s pretty irritating when one of these things goes off in the middle of a story. Gonna unwrap my candies not, too. Okay. It begins once upon a time, in a little village here at the North Pole called Christmas Town. Now this town is unique for two reasons: One, there’s no Starbucks and two: everyone who lives here is a elf.

Buddy Monologue #1

(BUDDY and JOVIE stroll along 5^th Avenue on a date.)

BUDDY: We’ve still got so much to do on our date! It’s too early to take you home and get you into bed. Oh! Bells! (BUDDY spies a SALVATION ARMY bell ringer standing on the street. BUDDY rushes over) May I try? (BUDDY takes the bells and with a small, effortless gesture plays a stunning rendition of Carol of the Bells. Handing them back.) Thank you. This one’s a little flat. (To JOVIE) I used to be in a band; it was me on bells, Charlie on toy piano and Tiara on lead vocals and glockenspiel. We had a good thing going there for a while, but then Charlie started hitting the syrup pretty hard and we had to call it quits. Those were cray, crazy days. Hey, did I tell you? You look miraculous. It’s the night before the night before Christmas. Let’s do something Christmas-y!

Buddy Monologue #2

BUDDY: Dear Dad and Mom and Michael: I’m sorry I ruined your lives… and I also feel read upset about pouring that bottle of maple syrup into your DVD player. My bad. Anyway, thanks for the nifty suit and coat but I won’t be needing them anymore. I don’t belong here with you. I don’t belong at the North Pole, either. I’ll never forget you, love and goodbye forever, Buddy. P.S. Merry Christmas!

Buddy Monologue #3

BUDDY: you didn’t ruin Christmas. No one can! Oh, I could stand here all night reading names out of this think and you still wouldn’t believe in him, would you? Well, it doesn’t matter, because Christmas is a lot more than just Santa Claus. Christmas is… is… sleeping on a futon. Having cold spaghetti for breakfast with your little brother. Right? It’s going ice skating with your girlfriend and kissing her for the very first time under a big, glittery Christmas tree. It’s travelling miles and miles to be with your family, walking through the Lincoln tunnel with cars blowing their horns the whole time and truck drivers yelling things that no person should say to another human being, let alone to an elf. It’s hoping that when you wake up on Christmas morning all the cars, and all the big grey office buildings, and all th4e piles of garbage will be covered in snow. You see? You can’t ruin Christmas! Its all around you. You just got to get into the spirit of it. And the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Everybody! Sing! Sing! Anybody?

(BUDDY and JOVIE stroll along 5^th Avenue on a date. They arrive at Rockerfeller Center and see the enormous Christmas Tree. To BUDDY as she puts on skates)

JOVIE: I came here last year too, my first Christmas in New York. I came from LA. Christmases there are surreal. No snow. I’ve never seen snow I’ve always wanted to. I’ve been here for almost two years and it hasn’t snowed once. You know, when I was a kid I dreamed of having a snowy Christmas Eve dinner at Tavern on the Green with Billy Crystal. That sounds so stupid. He was in my favorite movie of all time: “City Slickers”. Anyway, last year I spent Christmas Eve in a 400 square foot studio apartment with no heat binge watching “Gilmore Girls” on Netflix. Sad huh?

RIFF: Round Out!

(This is RIFF’s beckoning of the gang, and THEY surround him).

We fought hard for this territory and it’s ours. But with those cops servin’ as covet, the PRs can move in right under our noses and take it away. UNLESS we speed fast and clean’ em up in one all-out fight!

(seeing ACTION make a jabbing gesture)

Cool, Action boy. The Sharks want a place, too, and they are tough. They might ask for bottles or knives or zip guns.

(BABY JOHN reacts scared.)

I’m not finalizing and saying they will: I’m only saying they might and we gotta be prepared. Now what’s your mood?

(ACTION, BIG DEAL, BABY JOHN, and SNOWBOY each react differently)

I say this turf is small, but it’s all we got. I wanna hold it like we always held it: with skin! But if they say switchblades, I’ll get a switchblade. I say I want the Jets to be Number One, to sail, to hold the sky!

1) LT. SHRANK: If I don't put down the roughhouse, I get put down -on a traffic corner. Your friend don't like traffic corners. (meaning himself) So you buddy boys are gonna play ball with me. I gotta put up with them and so do you. You're gonna make nice with them PRs from now on. Because otherwise I'm gonna beat the crap outa every one of ya and then run ya in.

2) LT. SHRANK: I always make it a rule to smoke in the can. And what else is a room with half-breeds in it, eh, Riff? Clear out, Spics. Sure; it's a free country and I ain't got the right. But it's a country with laws: and I can find the right. I got the badge, you got the skin. It's tough all over. Beat it! Say, where's the rumble gonna be? Ah, look: I know regular American don't rub with the gold-teeth otherwise. The river? The park? [Silence.] I'm for you. I want this beat cleaned up and you can do it for me. I'll even lend a hand if it gets rough. Where ya gonna rumble? The playground? Sweeney's lot? [Angered by the silence.] Ya think I'm a lousy stool pigeon?

GLAD HAND:

All right, boys and girls! Attention, please! Attention! Thank you. It sure is fine turnout tonight. We want to make friends here, so we're going to have a few get-together dances. You form two circles: boys on the outside and girls on the inside.

All right. Now when the music stops, each boy dances with whichever girl is opposite. O.K.? O.K. Two circles, kids. Well, it won't hurt you to try.

MARIA:

(after being shot by CHINO, TONY has just died in MARIA’s arms. She sees a group of JETS move toward CHINO. Cold, sharp.)

Stay back. (She gets the gun from CHINO. In a flat, hard voice.) How do you fire this gun, Chino? Just by pulling this little trigger?

(With one hand SHE points it at him suddenly; HE draws back. SHE holds the gun out to all of them and her voice gets strong with anger and savage rage)

How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you? (points gun at another) And you? All of you? WE ALL KILLED HIM; and my brother and Riff. I, too. I CAN KILL NOW BECAUSE I HATE NOW.

(SHE holds the gun straight at ACTION)

How many can I kill, Chino? How many—and still have one bullet left for me?

(SHE has both hands on the gun now, but cannot fire and she breaks into tears. SCHRANK walks near TONY. Like a madwomen, MARIA races to the body and protects TONY from SCHRANK)

DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM! (Softly, privately:) Te adoro, Anton. (SHE kisses him gently.)

DOC:

Wake up! (Raging) Is that the only way to get through to you? Do just that you all do? Bust like a hot water pipe? Why do you live like there’s a war on? (low) Why do you kill? That was no customer upstairs, just now. That was Anita. (Pause) Maria is dead. Chino found out about you and her—and shot her.

1) TONY: (Taking the money DOC holds out automatically)

Thanks. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. Doc, you know what we’re going to do in the country, Maria and me, we’re going to have kids and we’ll name them all after you, even the girls. Then when you come to visit—Doc, what’s gotten—I told you how it happened, Doc. Maria understands. Why can’t you?

2) TONY: (thinks that MARIA has been shot by CHINO.)

Chino? COME ON: GET ME, TOO! (Swings around) Who’s that? (realizing it’s ANYBODYS) Get outa here. HEY, CHINO! COME GET ME, DAMN YOU! (to ANYBODYS) I said get out here! (Calling out) CHINO!

(savagely to ANYBODYS)

It’s not playing any more! Can’t any of you get that? You’re a girl: be a girl! Beat it.

Character: BREEZY. Act II, Scene 8.

Morning. The park by the duck pond. Sound of birds. Breezy is on Aaron’s big old cracked iPhone, shivering.

BREEZY: (Coldly.) It’s Angela, Rudy, lemme speak to my mom… Yeah, well, I don’t care what your sister told you, so just put my mother on the friggin’— (With great difficulty.) “Please.” Please put my mother on the friggin’ phone. (Waits. Softer.) ¿Como estas, Mami?... Ay, mami, what are you crying for? I just called to see how Sara and you was doing… (Listens to Mom complain.) Uh-huh… Uh-huh… Well, I’m sorry you’re not feeling good… Well, maybe go to a different doctor… Then go to the emergency room, they got to take you. Oye, Mami, I stopped smoking and all, and I’m thinking about maybe coming home for a few days… (Listens; then, as if to a child.) Pero ya sabes que ella es una mentirosa, Mami, no way am I pregnant, so you got nothing to be shamed about, mentiendes?... ¡No te llores! Please--… Okay, could you just put Sara on? (Upset) “She just left”— ¿Adonde se fue? (Furious) ¿Y porque? Why you let her go to church with him? Te deje—don’t let her stay alone with him! Why don’t you ever listen to me? (exasperated.) Look—I hardly got any bars left—stop crying in my ear already! Stop your crying!

She ends the call. Looks at the phone.

One bar.

She walks around, thinking. Then she takes a bunch of cards she’s collected from her back pocket and tosses them on the ground. She sits and looks through them, finds the one she’s looking for, and makes a call.

(Scared.) Hi, is Howard there?... You know when he’ll be back?... Yeah, I need a place to stay… Tonight, yeah. Look, miss, my phone is dying, could you just tell him Breezy called? Tell him Franklin’s friend. From the park.

She ends the call.

Character: JJ. Act II, Scene 9

(Late afternoon. JJ, 19, has just returned from questioning by the police and finally admits to Breezy what really happened to Franklin.)

JJ: Okay. You want the truth? They tried to stick me with… with what went down with Franklin. Just like I told you they’d do. Which is why we had to run, Breeze, we had to! Turns out he wasn’t even dead, just beat up—and still those pigs tried to stick me with—...(Breezy interrupts him) How do I know where he is? Are you listening—to me? (After a beat) he was just lying there… just like I told you. Somebody’d dragged him into the women’s bathroom and beat him and sh*t on him and left him for dead—and I—freaked. What if somebody’d saw me go in? What are you staring for?! I didn’t do nothing—I took care of that kid, you know I did. Taught him how to steal a bike—took him to the dumpster at Trader Joe’s, taught him ‘bout expiration dates, rotten meat… I thought he was dead, Breeze! What was I supposed to do? (Breezy tells him, 'call an ambulance, call the police') Call an ambulance? The police? With what? I just came from the friggin’ police—they tried to pin it on me! Luckily, they gave me a Jew lawyer, but I’m supposed to hang around in case they wanna ask more crap questions…(He tosses the empty beer can into the woods and opens the last can and drinks.) And it’s always gonna be this. They’re just gonna keep pinnin’ crap on me and pinnin’ crap on me… till something sticks. (laughs) Ever since the friggin’ first grade. I’m just that kid. (Hard now.) Look. It’s not safe here now, okay? I need beer. You coming?

Character: MEGAN. Act I, Scene 9. Part I

(An apartment. A hovel. TV’s on in the background. Megan, Breezy’s aunt, who is not all there in the head, hugs Breezy.)

MEGAN: Angela! Where you been, girl? I ain’t seen you in—get out of the rain! I wouldn’t tell that butt-hole brother of mine the day of the week. Come in, baby, come in. Place is a mess ‘cause we’re leaving. End of the month, we’re outta here. Where you stayin’? you got a boyfriend? You taking care of yourself, getting your food stamps? You know ‘bout the TANF and all that? Five hundred seventy-four dollars a month when the baby comes, from the TANF. Plus, you getting two hundred in food stamps… You could get a lot of stuff. They give you something you don’t need, just take it back to the store, get your money back. You know, I could show you lotta things. I could show you how to get Red Bull with your food stamps… Full Throttle—which they say you can’t have—but I can tell you how you can. Not Monster, you can’t get that. Got to check the can, check the back. Got to buy the drinks with the label that says “Nutritional Facts.” Not “Supplement Facts.” You cannot buy drinks with your food stamps that say “Supplement Facts,” did you know that? Well, I could help you out. You are my favorite niece.

Character JJ; Act II, Scene 4

JJ: My dad put me in a cage. With another kid. When I was six. Gave me a knife and told me to fight my way out. (JJ takes a drink from the bag.) My dad burned down the house down. My dad said, “life is a disappointment and I’m gonna be your first disappointment and show you that.” He gave me a dog and said, “You’re gonna love this dog and kill it after a year.” I didn’t believe him. (Crying.) He made me kill my dog with a rock after I loved it a whole year. So, what’s your story? Come on, everybody’s got a story. What’s your story, man? College boy? Rich boy? You’re all crusted out but your teeth are pretty friggin; white. Think you’re all that—with your ecosystems and your “point is,” so hot no one can friggin’ touch you? Come on, lemme give you a little hug— (laughs) Peace and love, man.

Character: COP. Act II, Sc. 5

A female cop enters.

COP: Sir? You want to stop playing that guitar please? It’s quarter past one. May I see some ID? (looks at ID) Jasper joseph Hoffer? Have anything with a photo? I hope I’m not sensing an attitude. Because I just got a complaint about a young man shouting obscenities at a tourist, would that be you? Stand up please and raise your arms. (JJ does. She frisks him and finds the open bottle.) Did you know this is against the law? Come with me please. I’m writing a ticket for the open bottle and for impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic. But I’m going to have to run you through the system and check the backpack as well… So you want to cooperate with me or not?

Character: JJ.

(JJ has hopes of being on America’s Got Talent. Below are the lyrics to his song, Shades of Grey, about his life on the street. The song is pretty good, and he’s pretty good, but maybe neither are that good. He sings a few times throughout the play.)

ACT I, Scene 8

JJ: (Singing)

Don’t call me up,

Don’t ask ‘bout my day,

I’m on the road, headed to L.A.

Pack on my back, guitar to play,

Still livin’ my life..

Just livin’ this life…

In shades of grey.

Came into this life on a rainy day

And I’m livin this life…

Just livin’ this life…

I’m livin this life…

In shades of grey.

(The refrain, the high part.)

Do you think about me?

Do you wonder…

‘Bout the one you threw away-

ACT I, Scene 10

It’s cold on the road,

It’s could in town,

Rain don’t stop,

Snow comin’ down…

Got a girl to love,

A guitar to play,

And I’m livin my life,

Just livin this life…

In shades of grey.

ACT II, Scene 1

Had a brother,

Lost along the way,

Picked up my pack, what can I say?

Had a brother

Lost along the way,

Think about him most every day—

Still livin’ my life…

Livin’ this life…

Just livin’ my life…

In shades of grey.

Character: AARON. Act II, Scene 4

(AARON plays a progressive rock/trance song in his iPhone. He passes a bottle of wine around with SHANNON, BREEZY & JJ. AARON explains how the world is about to change.)

AARON: If you’re afraid of the storm, learn to dance in the rain. It’s all about to Blow. You go to Portland, Washington Park… And you can see, in the subway, this point where the earth went under a complete magnetic shift. The electromagnet grid is least intense over Shasta—so I deduced that the people in places that have the least electromagnetic activity are the most open-minded. See, the electricity in the houses, especially from the cell towers, causes disruption in your brain waves… And the negative messages that the government programs from the thousands and thousands of cell towers… is transmitted to your cell phone, your computer, your TV, Xbox, even your toaster to a lesser extent, and right into your brain. But when the grid shifts again, it will all change. And we will be able to not kill each other off… and there will be peace.

KACIE: (To Jess) Looked like you and Kelvin really hit it off…? Kelvin couldn’t wait to meet you. Even offered to fly with me to Texas to pick you up from the hospital. Oh, give me that. It’s um, my dream board… You glue on – your ideas, what you want from life. So you can see it… The universe could see it too… That’s how I got Kelvin. The pictures of the snow are because I’ve never seen it. Me and Kelvin’re renting an RV next summer, drive through the Rockies, I wanted to go tent camping, but Kelvin wants a refrigerator when we go, so we’re saving. Not a big deal.

KACIE: (To STEVIE) Here. Listerine strips. Her doctor said whoever spends time with her has to carry them, you can fit’em in your pocket. They’re less bulky than smelling salts. When this happens. And it doesn’t happen a lot. But it’s happened before… and it’s more than likely gonna happen again, she needs something to ground her in reality. Sucking on Listerine makes her snap to. Loud noises. The beach. Crowded places. All that’s out. And here (she throws a tub of medicated cream) Rub it on her skin grafts. Her scalp, her back, four times a day. On the new raw skin. There are places she can’t reach. You’ll have to scrub until the scabs break open. Or else her skin hardens too tinck and she can’t move. That’s what happened to her knee, she couldn’t bend it. And the patches on her spine sill ooze a little, bandages stick, so you’ll need to rub on this. (She throws another) She probably didn’t want you to know—She is living on hope. And there’s very little of it around here… So if you’re taking away even a fraction, even a decimal… If you’re giving her even this much—and it’s not real… You are. You don’t know it but you are. Figure it out. And tell your wife we all say hello.

STEVIE: (To Jess) Oh, hey you…(he smiles openly, affectionately.) Missin’ my favorite customer. Gets lonely without my stalker. (He creaks his smile wider. She’s not going for it.) I thought about bringing’ you scratch offs, but didn’t wanna support your gambling habit… No? Nothin? … Heh. (as if the mop handle was a microphone) Is this thing on? Whoa! I thought you didn’t know I worked here… You said you just came in. Things’re complicated a little You were in Texas. Send you a card? And write what? Can you—maybe sit down… There are things – once – said. Cant be – unsaid… I want – one – normal second with you / before—I’m not breaking up with you again- You dumped me, but let’s not—No, you volunteered. And I was fine waiting through round one, round two. But—the ultimatum… I didn’t think you’d choose what you did.

(long beat)

But -- you need to understand… This – is all I wanted… Work. Go home. Put something funny on TV. Go to bed. Hopefully—next to somebody. That’s about – all I can handle. Most people just wanna be happy. You would not have study around town as the wife to a gas station attendant. I – I wish I could quit my life to take care of you, that’s it, or… or gone back in time and gone over and – like shot everybody in the head to stop it from happening, arg – I sound like an idiot! I think you are – (he searches, but the right words don’t exist.) Like – (He instead gestures something grand) And.. I – want you to have, just – (Still searching) –all the things… All the things that’re good. But I can’t give’em to you. The --- thing about my life is… it’s already – going. And it would take – a braver person than me to – fix that.

MOM: Your house always so big? Even bigger in here. A special guess—is it Johnny Carson? Ilove Johnny Carson. Who is that What? What’s going on. Hello… What, honey? I’m not deaf. What’s wrong with you? You think I don’t know my own daughter?

(long beat)

If you wanna be Jess now, fine, but I like Jessica better, -- why I named you that… Why’re you all staring at me?

(beat)

I dropped you girls at school this morning, didn’t I? … (to herself, quiet, confused) Didn’t I? … (scolding) Kacie, did you let Jessica sit with you at lunch today? I don’t want her crying she has no one to sit with… You two watch out for each other. That school’s so big… And you’re just little girls… Now. Where’s this special guest?

Agnes: Do 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 while mine…had George Michael 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 like boys. I didn’t know her. 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.

Tilly (1) : Welcome to New Landia, stranger. I am Tillius. The Paladin. This is a D&D adventure, not therapy. So, are you sure you want to do this? You’re a noob. Okay, big sis. If you really want to play, then let’s play. But first you’re going to have to meet the rest of our party. Every adventurer has a party.. This one’s ours. Cue the intro music. Go. First up is Lilith Morningstar. Class: Demon Queen. She acts as our squad’s muscle. Whenever you’re surrounded by an armada of Ogres, she’s the one you want holding the steel. She is a perfect combination of both beauty and brawn. Next up is Kaliope Darkwalker. Class: Dark Elf. Along with her natural Elvin agility athleticism, and butt-kicking abilities, she’s also a master tracker, lock-picker, and has more than a few magical surprises up her non-existent sleeves. No pointy-eared creature has ever rocked so much lady hotness. And then there’s me. I’m the brains of this operation. Name: Tilly Evans aka Tillius the Paladin, healer of the wounded and the protector of lights. Class: Awesome.

Tilly (2) : Are you judging them? I know they’re geeky, I’m geeky, we’re all geeks. Everyone else cared that I was geeky. They never let me forget it. I mean until I died in a car crash and then suddenly, wow, I’m the most popular girl in school. Why do we play? We play because it’s awesome. It’s about adventures and saving the world and having magic. And maybe, in some small teeny capacity, I guess it might have a little to do with wish fulfillment. Kelly gets to walk again and Ronnie gets to be super strong and me? I get the girl.

Farrah: Look, you overgrown sack of stupid, just cause I’m pretty don’t mean I won’t break your face. Seriously, did you see a sign on the way in here that said “Petting Zoo”? Then don’t try to touch me! Now get out of my magically enchanted forest, freakzoids. Ain’t no one gonna be nice all the fairy time. Faeries are happy. No one said nice. HAP-PY. And I’m brimming like mad with some magical happiness. And guess what makes me happiest? Laying the smackdown on any lame adventurers who decide to trespass on my magically enchanted forest!

Narrator: (like Cate Blanchett in Lord of the Rings) In a time before Facebook, Worlds of Warcraft and Massive Multiplayer Online RPG’s, there once existed simply a game. Forged by the hands of nerds, crafted in the minds of geeks, and so advanced in its advanciness it would take a whole second edition to contain all its mighty geekery. And here in the land of Ohio during the year of 1995, one of the rarest types of geeks walked the earth. A Dungeon Master without fear, prejudice, or a penis. This nerd was a girl-nerd, the most uncommon form of nerd in the world and her name was Tilly Evans. But this story isn’t about her. This story is about her sister Agnes, the girl who never left home.

Chuck: My homies just call me simply DM Biggs cause, you know, I’m “big” where it counts. As in MY BRAIN! Not because I’m fat. Seriously, it really has nothing to do with body mass index, I’m actually in pretty good shape and my D&D IQ is da bomb! What? You were expecting some near? Cause I’m no nerd. I’m a straight up lady-killah! Yeah, I got a girlfriend! She’s not from here though. She lives up in New York and you know what they say about them New York honey’s – them girlies are cray cray! Well, we haven’t officially met….I mean, in person. We met on the internet. You’ve been on the intern, right? Have you ever been to New York? I’ve been there. Seen the Statue of Liberty. Empire State building. Hard Rock Café. Pretty awesome.

Orcus: Man, you’re gonna make me miss Quantum Leap! Have you ever seen Quantum Leap? The dude time travels…through time…by leaping INTO different bodies. Different BODIES, yo, and putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. But for YOU, to be able to face the Tiamat, you must fight and defeat all three of its guardians, the Big Bosses of New Landia. And each one of them are totally badass so – most likely- one if not all of you will die before you get there. So, yeah, you gotta do that….OR we can chill out in my cave and rock us some Thursday Night Must-See TV! Who’s feeling me? No? Really, none of you guys are into ER?

1. BELLE: (Speaking to the Bookseller) Good Morning! I’ve come to return the book I borrowed. I couldn’t put it down. I wondered if you have got anything new? If not, I will just borrow one I have already read. It’s my favorite. Far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise…Mine? You are giving it to me? Well, thank you! Thank you very much!

2. BELLE: (To the Beast) who’s there! Oh, then you’re the one responsible for locking up my poor father! Release my father at once! No! Wait! Forgive me! Please let him out. Can’t you see he’s not well? He’s an old man. He could die! Wait, please…take me instead! If I take his place, will you let him go? Come into the light and let me see you. (Belle sees him and reacts.) You have my word. I will stay here forever. (Belle falls down in tears.) I’ll never see him again…and I didn’t even get to say good bye.

3. LEFOU: (To Gaston) You didn’t miss a shot, Gaston. You’re the greatest hunter in the whole world. (Gaston: I know) No beast alive stands a chance against you! And no girl for that matter. (Gaston: It’s true, Lefou. And I’ve got my sights set on that one) The inventor’s daughter? (Gaston: She’s the lucky girl I’m going to marry) But, she’s – (Gaston: The most beautiful girl in town) I know, but – (Gaston: And don’t I deserve the best?) Well, of course you do!

4. GASTON: (To Belle, Handing her flowers) for you…Mademoiselle. I know I shouldn’t have, so don’t mention it. Belle, this is the day your dreams come true! I know all about them. Picture this. A rustic hunting lodge. My little wife massaging my feet while the strapping boys play on the floor with the dogs. We’ll have six or seven. Boys, not dogs. So Belle, what’ll it be? (Belle leaves.) That Belle, always playing hard to get. She turned me down for now, but I’ll have Belle for my wife. Make no mistake about that!

5. GASTON: (To Belle & Villagers) If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had feelings for this monster. She’s as crazy as the old man! She says this creature is her friend. Well, I’ve hunted wild beasts and I’ve seen what they can do! The Beast will make off with your children. He’ll come after them in the night! Forget the old man! I say…we kill the Beast! Try and stop us! We’ll rid the village of this Beast. Who’s with me?

6. BEAST: There’s a stranger here! Who let him in? You have all betrayed me! Who are you? What are you doing in my castle? You’re not welcome here! I am hideous aren’t I? You’ve come to see the Beast, haven’t you? I’ll give you a place to stay! ((Grabs Maurice) (Pause, change mood.) (To Belle) Belle, are you happy here? With me? Is something wrong? You miss your father? There is a way to see him again. This mirror will show you anything …anything you wish to see. He is lost? You should go to him. You’re not my prisoner, Belle. You haven’t been for a long time. Take the mirror with you. So you’ll always have a way to look back…and remember me. Go…Go. (She exits) I’ll never see her again.

7. LUMIERE: (CANDLE): (Try a French Accent) (Kissing Belle’s hand) Enchante’ Mademoiselle. Remember, Cogsworth, she is not a prisoner. She’s our guest! We must make her feel welcome here! Oh, and what is a dinner without a little music? Ma Chere mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax. Let us pull up a chair as the Dining Room proudly presents…your dinner?

8. COGSWORTH (CLOCK): (Try a British Accent) (To Belle) Hello, I am Cogsworth, head of the household. And this is Lumiere…If there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, anything…anything at all! Except feeding you! Can’t do that. You heard what the Master said! Oh fine. A glass of water, crust of bread and then… Oh all right, dinner. But keep it down! It the Master finds out, it’ll be our necks! What?? You want music too?

9. MRS POTTS (TEAPOT) (Try a British Accent) (To Beast) try to be patient. The poor girl has lost her father. We won’t be human again that soon. These things take time. Master, you must help her see past how you look. You could start by trying to make yourself more presentable. Be gentle. And above all….you must control your temper! Deep breaths, Master. Deep breaths. (After Belle refuses to come out) Well, what did you expect? Would you have us give up? I like the girl. I like her spunk. (To Belle) Hello, Dearie. I hope the Master didn’t frighten you too much. He can be a little temperamental...

YENTE (The Matchmaker, speaking with Golde, the mother)

Golde! Golde! I have such news for you. And not every-day-of-the-week news...Once-in-a-lifetime news! Hmm [thinking about at all the daughters] Such diamonds, such jewels. I'll find a husband for every one of them. But you shouldn't be so picky, right? Of course right! Because, after all, even the worst husband, God forbid is better than no husband, God forbid! And who should know better than me? Ever since my husband died, I've been a poor widow. All alone, no-one to talk to, nothing to say to anyone. All I do at night is think of him. And even thinking of him gives me no pleasure. But what's the use complaining? Other women enjoy complaining, but not Yente! Not every woman in the world is a Yente!

HODEL (One of Tevye's daughters, speaking to him about her love for Perchick)

Yes. But he did nothing wrong. He cares nothing for himself. Everything he does is for other people. [TEVYE, her Father SAYS: Yes, but if he did nothing wrong, he wouldn't be in trouble.] Papa, how can you say that? What wrongs did Joseph do? And Abraham, and Moses? And they had troubles. He is far away, Papa. Terribly far. He is in a settlement in Siberia. He did not ask me to go. I want to go. I don't want him to be alone. I want to help him in his work. Papa...God alone knows when we shall see each other again.

GOLDE (Tevye's wife)

Papa isn't up yet? Then enough lessons. We have to do Papa's work today. How long can he sleep? He staggered home last night and fell into bed like a dead man. I couldn't get a word out of him. [To her daughters] Put that away and clean the barn....Call me when papa gets up. [Sees that Tevye is finally awake] Ah, he's finally up. What happened last night, besides your drinking like a peasant. Did you see Lazar Wolf? What did he say? What did you say? Do you have news....ugh, you could die from such a man!

TEYVE (A poor milkman, narrating to the audience)

A fiddler on the roof....Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune, without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word! Tradition!

PERCHIK (A revolutionary, speaking with one of Tevye's daugthers)

Hodel, your father, the others here, think what happened at Tzeitel's wedding was a little cloudburst and it's over and everything will not be peaceful again. It won't... Horrible things are happening all over the land...pogroms, violence, whole villages are being emptied of their people...and it's reaching everywhere and it will reach here. You understand? I have work to do. The greatest work a man can do. But, before I go....there is a certain question I wish to discuss with you. A...political question...The question of marriage.

LAZAR WOLF (A butcher, and older man, interested in marrying Tevye's daugther)

A milk cow! A milk cow so I won't be lonesome? I was talking about your daughter Tzeitel! I see her every Thursday in my butcher's shop. And she's made a very good impression on me. A very good impression. And as for me, Tevye...as you know I'm pretty well off. I have my own house, a good store, a servant. Look, Tevye, why do we have to try and impress each other? Let's shake hands and call it a match. I will be good to her. Tevye,...I....I like her. Well?

Game of Tiaras

Don Zolidis

CINDERELLA: (To Snow White) I’m Cinderella and we’ve been anxiously awaiting your arrival! Oh my gosh let me look at you! You are so pretty! Just so pretty, just so so pretty. I love this bow thing that you’re doing. Gosh. Mm. You are going to have no shortage of princes after this package, let me tell you that much. They pretty much fall in love at first sight around here. You are so precious! I wanted to let you know something though, if you see Prince Charming—HE’S MINE. Ha hahahah! Seriously, though, we’re all sisters here and I will put venomous snakes in your bed at night if you so much as look at him. Okay? Okay! Let’s be friends! Also—just and FYI- trust no one. (She claps her hands.) Servants! Snow white needs some help out here! Servants! (No one enters.) They must be on lunch break or something. That’s okay a little torture will get them back to work. It’s part of being a princess.

ARISTOCATS:

Duchess: Now kittens, you must not fight. Toulouse! Aristocats do not fight. Aristocats behave like ladies and gentlemen. Now it’s time for your music practice. It’s important to have a well rounded education. You never know when a knowledge of music might come in handy.

FINDING NEMO:

Dory: No. No, you can't. ...STOP! Please don't go away. Please? No one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave...if you leave... I just, I remember things better with you! I do, look! P. Sherman, forty-two...forty-two... I remember it, I do. It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And...and I look at you, and I...and I'm home! Please...I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget.

SEUSSICAL:

Cat In The Hat: Cat (Can be used as a song or spoken) I can see that you’ve got quite a mind for your age! Why, one think and you dragged me right onto the stage! Now, I’m here, there is no telling what may ensue.... With a Cat such as me and a Thinker like you! Oh the things you can think! Oh the things you can think if you’re willing try... Think invisible ink! Or a Gink with a stink! Or a stair in the sky If you open your mind, oh, the things you will find, lining up to get loose... Oh, the things you can think when you think about Seuss!

THE WIZARD OF OZ:

Dorothy: But it wasn't a dream. It was a place. And you and you and you...and you were there. But you couldn't have been could you? No, Aunt Em, this was a real truly live place and I remember some of it wasn't very nice, but most of it was beautiful--but just the same all I kept saying to everybody was "I want to go home," and they sent me home! Doesn't anybody believe me? But anyway, Toto, we're home! Home. And this is my room, and you're all here and I'm not going to leave here ever, ever again. Because I love you all. And... Oh Auntie Em! There's no place like home!

HAIRSPRAY:

Corny Collins: Now don’t forget, Guys and Gidgets: Our very first prime-time spectacular is coming up on June 6th. We’ll be live at Baltimore’s brand-new Eventorium broadcasting nationwide! Talent scouts will be on hand from all of the major record labels, and sponsoring the event will be none other than our own ULTRA CLUTCH HAIRSPRAY. So, let’s give a great big fawning Baltimore salute to the President of Ultra Clutch, Harriman F. Spritzer.

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown

Character: Lucy Van Pelt

Comedic; Contemporary/Musical

LUCY: Now Linus, I want you to take a good look at Charlie Brown's face. Would you please hold still a minute, Charlie Brown, I want Linus to study your face. Now, this is what you call a Failure Face, Linus. Notice how it has failure written all over it. Study it carefully, Linus. You rarely see such a good example. Notice the deep lines, the dull, vacant look in the eyes. Yes, I would say this is one of the finest examples of a Failure Face that you're liable to see for a long while.

Baby with the Bathwater

by Christopher Durang

(Daisy is actually a boy, and he is wearing a dress. His mother always told him he was a girl, so he always wore dresses. When he starts picking up the characteristics of his crazy parents, he goes to see a psychologist, who he's talking to in this piece.)

Daisy: When I was eleven I came across this medical book that had pictures in it, and I realized I looked more like a boy than a girl, but my mother had always wanted a girl or a best seller, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. But then on some days, I don’t know what got into me, and I just feel like striking out at them. So I waited till she was having one of her crying fits and I took the book to her-- I was 12 now-- and I said, "Have you ever seen this book? Are you totally insane? Why have you named me Daisy? Everyone else has always said I was a boy, what’s the matter with you?" And she kept crying and said something about Judith Krantz and then something about being out of Shake –n- Bake chicken and then she said I want to die, and then she said perhaps you are a boy, but we don’t want to jump to any hasty conclusions, so why don’t we just wait and see if I menstruated or not. When I asked her what that word meant, she slapped me and washed my mouth out of soap. Then she hugged me and said she was a bad mother. Then she washed her mouth out with soap. Then she turned on all the gas jets and said it would just be a little while longer for the both of us. And then my father came home and he untied me and turned off all the gas jets and then when he asked her if dinner was ready she would lay on the kitchen floor and wouldn’t move, and he said I guess not, and then he sort of crouched next to the refrigerator and tried to read a book, but I don’t think he was ever really reading, because he never turned any of the pages. And then eventually, since nothing else seemed to be happening, I just went to bed.

Baby with the Bathwater

by Christopher Durang

(Daisy is actually a boy. His mother always told him he was a girl, so he always wore dresses. When he starts picking up the characteristics of his crazy parents, he goes to see a psychologist, who he's talking to here. This monologue takes place two years after his first visit to the doctor, as indicated in the monologue above this one.)

I’m sorry. I should have called. I was just too depressed to get here. And I’m in college now, and I’ve owed this paper on Jonathan Swift and Gulliver’s Travels for one and a half years. I keep trying to write it, but I just have this terrible problem beginning it. I’m still on the first sentence. “Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a biting, bitter work that…” I keep getting stuck on the “that.” It’s not just the Jonathan Swift paper I owe. I owe a paper comparing a George Herbert poem with a Shakespeare sonnet; I owe a paper on characterization in The Canterbury Tales; and an essay on the American character as seen in Henry James’s Daisy Miller. (Daisy looks off into the distance, and sings softly.)

Daisy, Daisy,

Give me your answer, do,

I’m half-crazy…

(He looks grave, sad, repeats the line.)

I’m half-crazy…

(His sadness increases, he speaks slowly.) " ‘I’m half-sick of shadows,’ said the Lady of Shallot.” I learned a certain love of literature from my parents. My mother is a writer. She is the author of the Cliff Notes to Scruples and Princess Daisy. And my father liked reading. When he was next to the refrigerator, he would often read. I like reading. I have this eerie dream, though, sometimes that I’m a baby in my crib and somebody is reading aloud to me from what I think is Mommie Dearest, and then this great big dog keeps snarling at me, and then this enormous truck or bus or something drops down from the sky and it kills me. (With a half-joking, half-serious disappointment that he’s not dead.) Then I always wake up.

Cinderella Waltz

by Don Nigro

Zed: You don’t want to talk to me. I’m incoherent. I am speaking in tongues and various Romance and non-Romance languages. Amo, amas, amat. Veni, vidi, vici. Ho perso il passaporto Oú est la bibilothéque? Mein Freund Herbert und ich sind Studenten aus Amerika. La Vida Es Sueňo. Futari no heya go hoshii desu. Kufungua kata hapa. Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. She sells sea shells by the sea shore. The Leith police dismisseth us. (What he has actually said, by the way, is roughly, in Latin, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Swahili, respectively, “I love, you love, he loves. I came, I saw, I conquered. I have lost my passport. Where is the library? My friend Herbert and I are students from America. Life Is A Dream. We want a double bedroom. To open, slit here.”) I’m drunk. I’m thoroughly plotzed. I’m incoherent when sober, but I enunciate exquisitely when snookered. Give up, don’t care, talk fine. Thanks to Mother Magee and her wonder gin. I danced many dances with Mother Magee. It was wonderful. Of course I’m an idiot. I live like an idiot, hole in the woods, that’s VERY idiot. Act like an idiot. (He puts his finger to his mouth and burbles his lips.) BLABLABLABLABLABLA BLABLA. I belong to the village idiots union, I go to the convention every year, I’d show you my membership card but I think I ate it. I eat like an idiot, berries, leaves, grass. No chickens, though. Don’t like that. Eyes look up at you, little beady ones, say, “Don’t wring my neck, “I’ve eggs to lay, poems to write, roads to cross, SQUAWK!” So I just dress them up in little sweaters and let them go. I look like an idiot, think like an idiot, walk like an idiot, I think I must be an idiot, all the evidence seems to point in that direction. Because because because because BECAUSE. Sorry. Drunk. It’s my brain, you see. My brain gets to running in high gear and I can’t stop it. And this affects my mouth, which begins to move, and prose comes out. Oh, I haven’t got any problems. What, me? The village idiot? Have any problems? No, far be it from me to try and explode your infantile delusions. No brain. Sorry. I gotta go now.

Cinderella Waltz

by Don Nigro

PRINCE ALF: Ahoy. Tally ho. Troll, old boy? Are you there? (walks in) There you are, Troll. Watch out there, you’ll fall into the well, what? At ease, Troll. And uh, whoever. Troll, you didn’t come home last night, old boy. Not like you, Troll. Bit of hanky panky, what? You old dog. Glad to see you’re all right. You smell rather ripe. Came out crack of dawn with old Betsey- That’s the gun- Got something, too, some sort of bird thing- Here, take my things, (to Troll) all right? Oh, yes, well. Thanks so much folks. And, who’s this here (regarding Rosey) It must be somebody. I mean, she’s got teeth and hair. Charming creature you are, Rosey, charming. Bit underwashed, but well, who isn’t? I do wish there was something I could do to repay all you good people? I say, I have an idea. Would you girls like to come down to a ball? My farther, the king, bless his heart, a merry old soul, and all that, if you like sadistic fat men with satyriasis, anyway, he and the queen, my mother, sweet woman, nose runs all the time, they’ve got this idea that it’s time I ought to get married, you know, and I wasn’t much keen on the idea myself, if you want to know the truth- am I boring you? I’m boring myself. Happens all the time. Pay attention, Troll. So, mother got this idea for a great awful BALL, you see, isn’t that clever? Clever woman my mother, bit of a squint she’s got, but clever, sometimes, alternate Thursdays, in any case she thought we might invite all the eligible MAIDEN types, and that sort of thing, and a few buxom wench types from the countryside for variety, minor gentry and whatnot, and, this is an awfully long story, isn’t it? What point was I trying to make, Troll? You have very nice—I mean, you’re quite a pretty girl, you know. Oh, my. I knew this was going to be a bad day when Mother’s glass eye fell in the oatmeal. Well, let’s be off, what? Things to do, you see, don’t you know? Prince business awaits. Ta ta, cheerio, see you at the ball, what? Listen here Troll, give these people their tickets. Oh, by the by, watch out, I hear there’s a homicidal idiot on the loose. Bye bye.

Crimes of the Heart

By: Beth Henley

Babe is talking to her attorney, Barnette about how she shot her husband "as a result of continuous physical and mental abuse". Babe shot her husband after he beat a young black boy with whom she was having an affair with. This play takes place in the Deep South, so a Southern accent would fit nicely if you can do it. After reading this monologue, use your best judgment over the complete sanity of Babe. Is she a tad bit insane, or is she just purely innocent? A good thing to know about Babe's background is that her father ran off, her mother hung herself in their basement with her pet cat, and her husband is a senator who can get away with anything.

BABE: After I shot Zackery, I put the gun down on the piano bench, and then I went out into the kitchen and made up a pitcher of lemonade. I was dying of thirst. My mouth was just as dry as a bone. I made it just the way I like it, with lots of sugar and lots of lemon- about ten lemons in all. Then I added two trays of ice and stirred it up with my wooded stirring spoon. Then I drank three glasses, one right after the other. They were large glasses- about this tall (she demonstrates). Then suddenly my stomach kind of swole all up. I guess what caused it was all that sour lemon Then what I did was? I wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand, like this? (she demonstrates) I did it to clear off all those little beads of water that had settled there. Then I called out to Zackery. I said, "Zackery, I've made some lemonade. Can you use a glass?" But he didn't answer. So I poured him a glass anyway and I took it out to him. And there he was, lying on the rug. And he was looking up at me trying to speak words. I said "What? Lemonade? You don't want it? Would you like a Coke instead?" Then I got the idea- he was telling me to call on the phone for medical help. So I got on the phone and called up the hospital. I gave my name and address and I told them my husband was shot and he was lying on the rug and there was plenty of blood. I guess that's gonna look kinda bad. Me fixing that lemonade before I called the hospital. (thinks) I tell you, I think the reason I made up the lemonade, I mean besides the fact that my mouth was bone dry, was that I was afraid to call the authorities. I was afraid. I - I really think I was afraid they would see that I had tried to shoot Zackery, in fact that I had shot him, and they would accuse me of possible murder and send me away to jail. I mean, in fact, that's what did happen. That's what is happening - 'cause here I am just about ready to go right off to the Parchment Prison Farm. Yes, here I am just practically on the brink of utter doom. Why, I feel so all alone.

Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay-Abaire

(A tragic accident affects an entire family and leaves a married couple inconsolable and confused as to how to deal with each other’s grief. When a teenage boy from the neighborhood loses control of his car, Becca and Howie lose their five year old son.

NAT: “Do you remember Maureen Bailey? Well, I couldn’t get rid of her after your brother passed away. Always at the house. Always checking on me. Eatin’ up the cinnamon buns Uncle Jimmy brought me. I never had a moment to myself. And of course it was nice, I guess, but it didn’t feel like it was about me. It just felt like she had nothing else to do. Like consoling me became her hobby. Something to fill up her day. And finally in the middle of coffee one afternoon, I said ‘Maureen, why are you here all the time?’ She said, ‘I want to be there for you, Nat, I want to share in your grief.’ And so I said, ‘Well it’s not working. I seem to have it all to myself still. You plant your fat ass in that chair every frickin’ day and suck up all my coffee, and I don’t see you leaving with any of this grief you’re allegedly sharing with me. In fact, the only thing you do take outta here are my cinnamon buns.’ So I never saw her again obviously. Which was too bad actually, because she was the only one willing to talk about Arthur.”

IZZY: (Izzy is talking to Howie and asking why her sister Becca is mad at her)

“So it’s just the baby then. The fact that I’m having a baby. She thinks I can’t do it, right? I’m not cut out to be a good mother? I know I’ve been a screw-up, but people get their act together. And maybe I’m not as organized as Becca, or homey, or whatever…but I’m a capable person who can raise a child, and look after it and protect it. I resent the feeling I get from her, and you too sometimes, honestly, that I don’t deserve the baby. Or that I’m not mature enough, or smart enough or something, to take care of it. I mean, my god, if my mother could do it, how hard could it be?”

BECCA: (Becca and Howie are fighting about Danny. Becca has just accidentally taped over a videotape of Danny and Howie and Howie is furious with her)

“Do you really not know me, Howie? Do you really not know how utterly impossible that would be? To erase him? No matter how many things I give to charity, or how many art projects I box up, do you really think I don’t see him every second of every day? And okay, I’m trying to make things a little easier on myself by hiding some of the photos, and giving away the clothes, but that does not mean I’m trying to erase him. That tape was an accident. And believe me, I will beat myself up about it forever, I’m sure. Like everything else that I could’ve prevented but didn’t.”

(As the parents struggle to make sense of a senseless act, Jason, the young man at the wheel, also tries to come to terms with the accident. When Jason reaches out in an effort to speak to the family, Becca invites him by when Howie isn’t home, knowing that her husband would be furious to see him in the house.)

JASON: So, I don’t see any photos anywhere. The one in the article was nice. Him at the beach. I used to have a shirt just like that one. The one he’s wearing in the picture. (Beat) I might’ve been going too fast. That day. I’m not sure, but I might’ve been. So… that’s one of the things I wanted to tell you. (Beat) It’s a thirty zone. And I might’ve been going thirty-three. Or thirty-two. I would usually look down, to check, and if I was a little over, then I’d slow down obviously. But I don’t remember checking on your block, so it’s possible I was going a little too fast. And then the dog came out, really quick, and so I swerved a little to avoid him, not knowing, obviously… (Beat) So that’s something I thought you should know. I might’ve been going a little over the limit. I can’t be positive either way though.

The Balkan Women, by Jules Tasca

JELA: (To SAMIRA) They told me I was a potential danger to their military operation. That’s what they told me when I asked. When they came through my village, they saw a slogan painted on a wall. Serbs are shit. Watch were you walk. They had no one to blame so they took me and my grandfather, because the wall was on our street and my grandfather smiled at their anger, when they saw the slogan. I don’t know, where he is. Separated. Everyone in the country is separated. Everything in the world is separated. I’ve been punched, mauled, raped and now I’m a slave in this camp. Vlaco and the rest of them are getting ready for the new commandant. That’s why they’re not sniffing around. You know these army types always kissing the ass of someone higher up. Come close. Samira, come close. It’s all right to talk to me. I know. It’s safe to talk to me. (She kisses SAMIRA’s fingers.) God bless you for what you did. It was you who parked the car that blew the depot. I’m proud of you. Samira. They have no fuel now for their tanks and trucks in this area. Tanks and trucks full of troops that would’ve killed more Muslims. They’re all proud of you. Samira. I did nothing, but I’m here. I didn’t even write that slogan on the wall. Be proud.

AMINA: I was home. Cooking. Rice and a few chicken thighs. I never heard a word. All we women talk about is our families and water and food and if the electric will come back. We did nothing. We were eating, daughter and me. We were eating. The floor shook, the windows rattled. S JELA: (To SAMIRA) They told me I was a potential danger to their military operation. That’s what they told me when I asked. When they came through my village, they saw a slogan painted on a wall. Serbs are shit. Watch were you walk. They had no one to blame so they took me and my grandfather, because the wall was on our street and my grandfather smiled at their anger, when they saw the slogan. I don’t know, where he is. Separated. Everyone in the country is separated. Everything in the world is separated. I’ve been punched, mauled, raped and now I’m a slave in this camp. Vlaco and the rest of them are getting ready for the new commandant. That’s why they’re not sniffing around. You know these army types always kissing the ass of someone higher up. Come close. Samira, come close. It’s all right to talk to me. I know. It’s safe to talk to me. (She kisses SAMIRA’s fingers.) God bless you for what you did. It was you who parked the car that blew the depot. I’m proud of you. Samira. They have no fuel now for their tanks and trucks in this area. Tanks and trucks full of troops that would’ve killed more Muslims. They’re all proud of you. Samira. I did nothing, but I’m here. I didn’t even write that slogan on the wall. Be proud.

Smoke, foul smelling smoke seeped into the house, we were scared. Yes. Scared, that it was a shelling. The whole war… the whole war’s an atrocity. What can I say. You think I gloat over 16 men burnt alive? Well, I don’t. Believe me, I don’t. I have family in this war. She’s a child. She’s not even 20 years old yet. She… She was with me. We were eating…7:30. I know. I know because we always eat at 7:30. My husband always insisted we eat at 7:30, and we keep that schedule even though he and my son…I’m hoping to hear from them. I want to go home. I want to take my daughter out of this place. She’s getting sick. I want to speak to the new commandant. I want to tell him my daughter’s not… What could she know? She was with friends, young friends. They sit and giggle and act silly. Some of them are in here on the other side of the camp. She was home with me at 7:30. Samira’s a teen-aged girl. What does she know about timing devices? Why would she do such a thing? Why would she cause such destruction? She has no cause. She… she was… she was and then… and then she…she came home.

AMINA: (To HERAK, the real father of SAMIRA) Colonel,… you’re… you’re Colonel Herak… Branislav Herak… I’m Amina. That’s why I’m familiar to you. I’m Amina Sacirhev. My married name’s now, Jusic. This is my daughter, Samira, Colonel. They arrested us both. They did question me. But we’re still being held. We know nothing. Colonel, you must believe me. You must help us. Please, we want to go home…. Even before the fire was put out they dragged us from our houses. All the women in the area. Pulling us by our hair. Kicking us. Butting us without mercy, with their rifles. My daughter and I know nothing. We get stale bread. No chance to wash up. And I was forced. To take my clothes off. I didn’t even tell my daughter. I just want you to know. This is not just a place to wait for questioning. It’s a prison. I fear for my daughter. She’s too young to be in a place like this. It’s making her sick. Why? God, why this fight? Why this fight? So the World War never ended. It won’t end until all the Muslims are dead… Say it. That’s why, I’m afraid for my family. This camp is a field of snakes. There’s hate in every glance and stare.

SAMIRA (To AMINA, her mother) I have to watch myself mother… In a place like this, you become so starved for a crumb of humanity that when you get a crumb… it looks like a whole loaf. (referring to her brother and father) I miss them so much. Vedran looked like a boy in that uniform, as if he were dressing up in his father’s clothes. He should be in his shorts out kicking a soccer ball. Now he’s got a rifle instead and the world has made him a killer. I can’t imagine Vedran or father killing anyone. Do you think Father or Vedran would… would rape a Serbian woman? I mean, I hear that all sides do it. When they left our house, they left for war, Mother. I think war twists the face of humanity, I do, wrings out the decency… That’s why everyone now is in some way a monster… I burned 16 soldiers to death. Me. Samira. Who used to go to school with red ribbons in her hair, who couldn’t sleep at night unless the cat was in bed with her. I burned 16 people to death. I thought I’d never sleep again when I found out. I thought these lids would stay open forever. It’s scary, Mother. Now, only a few weeks later…I sleep. I sleep soundly. I sleep on this cement floor as if it were grandmother’s big fluffy mattress. Only, when the guard pounds on this cage in the morning, do I wake up. It’s scary. It’s scary that we can get over killing people. It’s scary, Mother…

SAMIRA: (To HERAK) I haven’t been a child since… since death wiped the innocence from my eyes. I remember the day… coming home from school… they were right in front of me… a man and his wife crossing, the street… a sniper’s bullet struck him. The crowd ran… the man’s blood splattered his wife… a whole cloudburst of blood… He fell… Shock froze me. I didn’t’ hear the others shouting at me to get down. Someone grabbed at my collar and yanked me into a doorway, but I could still see the wife screaming and holding her hand over the wound, as if her little trembling white hand could stop the giant death that tore up her husband’s heart… I never even told my mother I was so close to them when he was hit…

After, By Chad Beckim

(When a wrongfully imprisoned man (MONTY) is exonerated by DNA evidence after seventeen years in prison, he is forced to re-assimilate into a cold, foreign world of toothbrush shopping, doggy day care, and a friendship with an anxious young woman with secrets of her own.)

LIZ: (Monty's sister. To the Chaplin) He should be here anytime. He just went to the store. I think he’s… fine. I’m mostly guessing, because he doesn’t talk a lot. Also he doesn’t really eat a lot? And he never sleeps. He paces all night. He doesn’t think that I know, but I know. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but. This is just. A lot, you know? And. I’m not really used to having anyone here, so there’s that. Does everything look okay? If there’s anything you can think of--? I tried googling it, like “What to expect?” but there’s nothing. Not for this situation, anyways. And it’s just me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do .Like, am I supposed to try to talk about any of it? Do I ask him questions? Do I help him with stuff? Or leave him be?

MONTY: Liz asked me to go to the store. It’s nice out. So I figured I would take a little walk. And I was crossing- about to cross- the street. And the little ‘walk’ guy comes on and I start to cross and I can’t move.

I’m just.

Stuck.

Just…

There.

My legs won’t move and the people behind me are bumping into me and yelling at me and calling me names but.

And then the light starts blinking red

And then the little hand comes on and.

I think, “If I run now, I can make it.”

But I don’t.

I.

Can’t.

Stupid, you know?

I couldn’t.

Can’t.

Cross the street.

And this buy behind me yells, “Walk, you freaking idiot!”

And I did.

And. Yeah.

I don’t even know how to walk any more without someone telling me.

MONTY: Ripley was a good dog, man. A good dog. No, a great freaking dog. The best. I taught her to sit. I taught her to stay. I taught her to lie down. I taught her to shake- even though I wasn’t supposed to. I taught her to nudge someone’s hand when they were scared or angry or anxious or just, just shut down. Me. I did that.

The first night in that place with me, she cried. She whined, man. Just scared. Cold and dark and metal and concrete and… hell, man. Freaking hell. And because I was used to it, I had to make her okay. And I got down on the floor with her, on her bed, and laid down next to her, and I talked to her all night and stroked her head- that was her favorite- the top of her head- and took care of her. I made her not afraid. I made her okay. I did that. I got her through hell and I made something good happen. One good thing that I did.

And not it’s like everything else. Gone, man. It’s all gone.

I have nothing.

$250,000? $10 mill? What’s the difference, man?

I am seventeen years old.

I don’t know how to tie a tie.

I don’t know who to shop for toothbrushes or deodorant or toilet paper.

I don’t know how to us a computer.

I don’t know how to kiss.

I can’t help my friend, I can’t protect a woman.

I cannot do anything ANYTHING without being told to.

The only freaking good think I ever did is gone, and you come in here telling me that the good news is that they want to pay me for missing my prom and college and keg parties and my first apartment?

Show yourself out, man.

LIZ: (the dining room. MONTY sits at the table. LIZ enters, holding a cup of tea. She watches him. A beat.)

Can I sit? (LIZ glowers at him. A beat.)

Don’t ever say that to me again. Don’t ever tell me, “Shut up” again, you understand me? I don’t talk to you like that, you don’t talk to me like that. And you don’t ever remove me from decisions that directly affect me, or this family. I know it’s not my money. That’s not the point. You need to do something with that money, to take it for you. I don’t want your money- (MONTY: Sounds like it) (LIZ slams her hands down on the table.) Don’t you be smart don’t you dare be smart! If you’re going to live here, and we’re going to try to pretend to be a normal freaking family, you at least owe me a conversation about it! That’s what familys do! Families talk to each other and listen to each other and take each other in-in-into consideration! None of this is okay! Talk to me, Monty. When chap comes here? You talk to him. I stand on the other side of the door, and lean against the wall, and listen to what you talk about. Or yell about. Or laugh about. About you playing chess at work, and how your suit itched at First Communion, and when Sammy Day scratched your neck at school, and how you can’t walk at the street lights.

And today, how you have nothing.

And I don’t understand that. Because you have a roof over your head. A home. And you have a job that you really like. And you have a girl to go to the movies with. And you have your freedom.

And you have me.

And I’m like, “that’s nothing? Really? That’s nothing?”

Because it doesn’t sound like nothing.

I would trade for that.

I feel like I’m all by myself. Still. And it shouldn’t be like that anymore.

Up, by Bridget Carpenter

MARIA: Everybody has a personal mythology. Their own symbols. You have a kind face I’ve seen the girls around here. Snotty, right? Those kind of girls always want to call some shit-bag football player their “boyfriend.” Kinda guy who’ll take you out, get tanked on keg beer playing quarters, then try to shove his hand up your shirt. Pathetic. You shouldn’t worry about it too much. Not having a girlfriend I mean. Anybody who peaks in high school is a dismal failure, bound to be on a downward spiral for their rest of their lives. That’s what my aunt says, anyway. She says that high school is the worst fucking mess anyone ever has to endure, and that every job that follows is socially simpler, so I’m just waiting it you, you know? I live with my Aunt Chris. My mom tried to kick me out when she found out I was gonna have the sprout. The pitter-patter of little feet would have put a cramp into her booze time. Aunt Chris called my mom a drunk bitch with no sense of responsibility and she said I could move in with her. So I did. Week after I got there, we moved to Sacramento. Me and my mom used to live in Venice in a shithole but it was cool to be near the beach. My aunt’s work takes her all over, that’s why we went to Sacramento. I’ve been all over California: Fresno, Temecula, San Diego, San Dimas, Santa Maria, Riverside… this is a big state.

(beat)

I just change schools when we move. Swing with the changes, that’s what my aunt says. That’s why this dump doesn’t faze me. You don’t talk much, do you? Well, Michael, I think you’re very sweet. I’m Maria. You know what I like most about you so far, Michael? You haven’t said a word about this. (indicating pregnancy) Very polite. You wouldn’t believe how rude some people are when you’re pregnant. They’re like, “unwed teen mother… illiterate.” Cest la vie. Someday you’ll have a girlfriend and she’s going to be very lucky, Michael, because she’ll see how tres gentil you are. I’m not like other people. I’m two people. Isn’t that amazing? I tell you, being pregnant is the most educational experience I have ever had. Science, psychology, sociology, biology, all rolled up into one event. It’s rad.

---------------------------------------------------

MARIA: I’ll tell you. I know I don’t have to, I’m pregnant Michael, I’m not porcelain. I’m not going to break because you asked who the baby’s father is.

My mom thought it was her gross boyfriend. That’s what she was afraid of. That’s why she kicked me out. It wasn’t him.

There was this person at school. My old school. This guy. “Jared.” He was a senior. He played tennis. He was going to go to some Ivy League college on scholarship. Pretty much a Ken doll who could walk and talk and drive. And play tennis.

Anyway, I was a freshman. And like everyone was looking at me all the time. It was crazy. One day, I’m some low rent nobody who wears clothing from TJ Maxx, the next day I’m Ms. Popularity. With the guys.

I knew I was going to lose it eventually, right. The question was, how? Like my mom? She had her story, she told it endlessly, how she got nailed in the back of a truck and the guy spit on her afterwards. It was her anthem. “give it away, see what it gets you.” And I was thinking, not me. I can choose how it happens. I can write my own story. Its going to happen, so I’m going to figure out the best way. So I chose. I looked around at all the girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day, and I thought, who do you want? And they all wanted Jared. That’s who I picked. Weird that it was so easy.

So “Jared and Me.” We did it. A lot. We’d go to different places. Sometimes hotels. Sometimes his house. He was nice. That was unexpected. He talked to me like an actual human being. Treated me like a precious object, at least when we were alone. I thought, oh, I chose right. It was-fun. Then I missed my period. I wasn’t like the bad cop of contraception and neither was he.

Yeah I told him. He completely flipped, and then I said Jared don’t worry about it, I wouldn’t fuck up your shiny golden future, no one will ever know it was you. He was like, really? And I said, hey, my body, my business. And he went oh, Maria, you are a wonder. He called me a wonder.

Its so fucking stupid. He wasn’t even a truly nice person, the day after I told him he stopped speaking to me and the week after that he wasn’t in school anymore. He’s just some jock that I allowed to get into my pants and that makes me as deluded as every other pathetic girl at our school. Deluded and pregnant.

Here’s a perfectly happy baby. Now I have this baby inside of me, this baby that I made. She’s going to understand me, and I’m going to understand her like we’re twins. Twin stars. Wanna feel her?

--------------------------------------

The following scene is provided to give the actress performing HELEN to better understand the situation. Please edit as needed.

HELEN: (to MIKEY) Where do I start. What’s wrong. What’s wrong? Well today I drove to Los Padres. I Thought it would be fun to surprise your father. I borrowed Cynthia’s car. Drove. Two hours. I tried to find the Los Padres Chamber of Commerce. There’s no Los Padres Chamber of Commerce. There’s no Los Padres. It doesn’t exist. There isn’t a place. I passed Gorman. I bought a map at a gas station. I asked people. I called information. I drove home and I started going through our papers to see if there was an address on a paycheck. I didn’t find any paycheck stubs, so I kept looking through everything-

(WALTER enters, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Silence. He looks at them.)

What do you do? Answer me. What do you do? What do you do, Walter, it’s not a confusing question. What. Do. You. Do. You get up you shave you take the car and you leave the house every morning, what do you do after that?

WALTER: Mikey, why don’t you go to your room.

HELEN: NO you stay right here, you need to hear this. I want you to explain to your family what you do every goddamn day. Because you don’t go to “Los Padres.” Are you having an affair?

WALTER: No.

HELEN: What have you been doing. Just say it. Say it. You tell me. You don’t do anything. Right? ANSWER ME.

WALTER: What does it matter?

HELEN: YOU INVENTED A TOWN. “I get on the one-ten from Gaffey Street. I merge onto the four-oh-five, it becomes I-five after thirty-six miles. Just past Gorman.” Every day for the past three months that you’ve left the house has been a lie, it-

WALTER: A lie that you enjoyed! A lie that- I mean, tell me Helen, did you ever really care what I did? Or where I went? As long as I brought in money, you didn’t ask a thing!

HELEN: “Brought in” money! Brought it in. Do you think I’m an idiot?

WALTER: No, I-

HELEN: You’re wrong! You’re wrong I AM an idiot, I AM, because I wondered where the money was coming from but I didn’t check! You said “direct deposit” and I bought it. And that makes me a goddamn idiot. Tell me how! You’ve been taking money out of our savings. Out of the pension. For months, you’ve been withdrawing everything I saved, and it’s gone now.

All of it.

I mean you’ve been taking out money and giving it to me as if it was money you earned. Like a crazy person. Why did you do that? We will be taxed for every single occasion you made a withdrawal, there are huge penalties- it’s not only the money’s gone, it’s that we have to PAY for you taking it! I saved twelve years, tell me how you’re going to make it up, tell me, are you going to build a submarine now? Sixteen years after the precious lawn chair, he finds Atlantis!

HELEN: I wish it was an affair, I wish it was, who makes up a job- forget it, a town, who allows a thing, a chair to define his life, instead of people! I don’t have any idea of what to do in order to TELL ME I’m BEGGING YOU, WHAT DEFINES YOUR LIFE!

WALTER: (With above) What do you know about what defines my life!

MIKEY: (With above) STOP IT STOP BEING SUCH A JERK! DAD WANTS TO DO BIG THINGS!

HELEN: Congratulations. You spent the last three months lying to me, devastating our savings, and I’m the jerk. Kudos.

(HELEN slams out of the door)

Scooter Thomas Makes It To the Top of the World, by Peter Parnell

SCOOTER: Jesus Christ. What have I gotten myself into... Oh, Jeezo, jeezo, jeez... (he comes forward tentatively, looking around. He talks out beyond the audience) Leslie?...Leslie Pinkus?...Are you still out there? I know you can hear me, because I can hear you. I can understand if you don't want to come out again, I mean I probably wouldn't either, but I just want you to hear what I have to say. Just listen to the sound of voice, Miss Pinkus. Okay? Because the things is, ya see, I know you won't believe this or anything, but the truth is I never woulda tried to do what I did with you if it hadn't been for a stupid crazy bet I made six weeks ago with my idiot friend Dennis Wright who told me he once tried to feel your boobs underwater and you let him. That's what he told me, that's the God's honest truth, and I know I was an even bigger idiot for believing him, but the thing is he made it sound really good and there was no way out of it but for me to tell him I could do the same thing and maybe even go farther, you understand what I mean? Anyway, I'm sorry I tried to put my tongue down your throat. I'm even sorrier it missed and got stuck in your braces. It wasn't too pleasant for me either. I hope we can still be friends and maybe write letters to each other after we go home tomorrow. Okay? You can stop crying and come out of the bushes now, Leslie. Or if you want, I'll go away. Do you want me to go away? I just don't want you to have to walk back through the woods alone, that's all. See, I've got a compass, so I'm sure we won't get lost. I know not to walk in circles, Leslie. So why don't you come out now. Or if you want, pretend like I'm not even here. Okay? Just pretend like I'm not even here. LESLIEE! All right, Pinkus, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll just go away! And I hope you get lost in the woods and get eaten by a grizzly bear so nobody else ever gets to put their tongue down your throat ever again because nobody would ever want to, anyway! Nobody ever ever! Nobody nobody nobody... e nothing.

I HATE HAMLET, by Paul Rudnick

(His New York apartment is literally haunted by the ghost of John Barrymore, and thus, TV star Andrew Rally is persuaded to play Hamlet in Central Park. After the premiere, he evaluates his own performance. It is noted: the monologue must grow extremely passionate. Andrew must be transported back to the previous performance).

ANDREW: Last night, right from the start, I knew I was bombing. I sounded big and phony, real thee and thou, and then I started rushing it, hi, what's new in Denmark? I just could not connect. I couldn't get a hold of it. And while I'm...babbling, I look out, and there's this guy in the second row, a kid, like 16, obviously dragged there. And he's yawning and jiggling his legs and reading his program, and I just wanted to say, hey kid, I'm with you, I can't stand this either! But I couldn't do that, so I just keep feeling worse and worse, just drowning. And I thought, okay, all my questions are answered -- I'm not Hamlet, I'm no actor, what am I doing here? And then I get to the soliloquy, the big job, I'm right in the headlights, and I just thought, oh Christ, the hell with it, just do it!

To be or not to be, that is the question;

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

and by opposing, end them.

And I kept going, I finished the speech, and I look out, and there's the kid -- and he's listening. The whole audience -- complete silence, total focus. And I was Hamlet. And it lasted about ten more seconds, and then I was in Hell. And I stayed there. But for that one little bit, for that one speech -- I got it. I had it. Hamlet. And only eight thousand lines left to go.

Rumors, By Neil Simon

(Neil Simon is a god. He's untouchable w/ his humor. This monologue is just one of the many great ones he's written out of all of his plays. In this play, several affluent couples arrive at a party in an highly upper-class house in New York. When they get there, they discover that there are no servants, the hostess is gone, and the host has shot himself through the earlobe. The host, Charley Brock, is deputy mayor of New York, so they all want to keep it quiet. However, when the police arrive, they decide someone has to be Charley. So in this scene, Lenny is pretending that he's Charlie and making up a story for the police entirely off the top of his head.) (Please cut to your taste)

Lenny: Okay... let's see... the story... as it happened... as I remember it... as I'm telling it... oh, God... Well, here goes...at exactly six o'clock tonight I came home from work. My wife, Myra, was in her dressing room getting dressed for the party. I got a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and headed upstairs. Rosita, the Spanish cook, was in the kitchen with Ramona, her Spanish sister, and Romero, her Spanish son. They were preparing an Italian dinner. They were waiting for Myra to tell them when to start the dinner. As I climbed the stairs I said to myself, "It's my tenth wedding anniversary and I can't believe I still love my wife so much." Myra was putting on the perfume I bought her for Christmas. I purposely buy it because it drives me crazy! I tapped on her door. Tap tap tap. She opens it. I hand her a glass of champagne. I make a toast. "To the most beautiful wife a man ever had for ten years." She said, "To the best man, and the best ten years a beautiful wife ever had." ... We drink, we kiss, we toast again. "To the loveliest skin on the loveliest body that has never aged a day in ten wonderful years." She toasts, "To the gentlest hands that have ever stroked the loveliest skin that has never aged a day in ten wonderful years."... We drink, we kiss we toast. We drink, we kiss, we toast...By seven o'clock the bottle is finished, my wife is sloshed, and I'm completely toasted... And then I smell the perfume. The perfume I could never resist... I loved her in that moment with as much passion and ardor as when we were first newlyweds. I tell you this, not with embarrassment, but with pride and joy for a love that grows stronger and more lasting as each new day passes. We lay there spent, naked in each other's arms, complete in our happiness. It's now eight o'clock and outside it's grown dark. Suddenly, a gentle knock on the door. Knock knock knock. The door opens and a strange young man looks down on us with a knife in his hands. Myra screams. (he begins to act out the story) I jump up and run for the gun in my drawer. Myra grabs a towel and shields herself. I run back in with the pistol, ready to save my wife's life. The strange young man says in Spanish, "Yo quito se dablo enchilada por quesa in quinto minuto." But I don't speak Spanish, and I never saw Rosita's son, Romero, before, and I didn't know the knife was to cut up the salad and he was just asking should they heat up the dinner now? So I aimed my gun at him, Myra screams and pulls my arm. The gun goes off and shoots me in the ear lobe. Rosita's son, Romero, runs downstairs to tell Rosita and Ramona, "Mamasetta! Meela que pasa el hombre ay baco ay yah. El hombre que loco, que bang-bang"-the crazy man took a shot at him. So, Rosita, Ramona, and Romero leave in a huff. My earlobe is bleeding all over Myra's new dress. Suddenly we hear a car pull up. It's the first guests. Myra grabs a bathrobe, and runs downstairs to stop Rosita, Ramona, and Romero, otherwise we'll have no dinner. But they drive off in their Alfa Romeo. I look out the window, but it's dark and I think someone is stealing my beautiful old Mercedes, so I take another shot at them. Myra runs downstairs to the basement where we keep the cedar chest. She's looking for the dress she wore last year for Bonds for Israel. She can't find the light, trips down the stairs, passes out in the dark. I run downstairs looking for Myra, notice the basement door is open and afraid the strange-looking kid will come back, so I lock the door, not knowing Myra is still down there. Then I run upstairs to take some aspirin because my ear lobe is killing me from the hole in it. But the blood on my fingertips gets in my eyes and by mistake I take four Valium instead. I hear the guests downstairs and I want to tell them to look for Myra. But suddenly, I can't talk from the Valium, and I'm bleeding on the white rug. So I start to write a note explaining what happened, but the note looks like gibberish. And I'm afraid they'll think it was a suicide note and they'll call the police and my friend Glenn Cooper was coming and it would be very bad for his campaign to get mixed up with a suicide, so I tore up the note, and flushed it down the toilet, just as they walked into the room. They're yelling at me, "What happened? What happened?" And before I could tell them what happened, I passed out on the bed. And that's the whole damn story, as sure as my name is -- Charley Brock.

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consumation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To Sleep? Perchance to dream! aye there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of such long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pang's of depised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

KING JOHN

William Shakespeare

The wicked King has imprisoned his young nephew, ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne, and has sent orders to his keeper, HUBERT, that the boy's eyes are to be put out. Here, ARTHUR pleads with HUBERT.

ARTHUR:

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

And will you?

Have you the heart? When your head did but ache

I knit my handkercher about your brows,

The best I had, a princess wrought it me,

And I did never ask it you again;

And with my hand at midnight held your head,

And like the watchful minutes to the hour,

Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,

Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'

Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'

Many a poor man's son would have lain still

And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;

But you, at your sick service, had a prince.

Nay, you may think my love was crafty love

And call it cunning: do, an if you will,

If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,

Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?

These eyes that never did nor never shall

So much as frown on you?

Lost In Yonkers

By Neil Simon

EDDIE: It’s so hot in here, isn’t it? …. So, I just had a talk inside with your grandmother … Because I’ve had a problem … When your mother and I had a problem, we always tried to keep it from you boys because we didn’t want to worry you … Well, you can’t keep cancer, a secret forever … You knew without me telling you, didn’t you? I did everything I could. The best doctors, the best hospitals I could get into … she had a nice room didn’t she? Semi-private, no wards or anything … We’re not rich people, boys. I know that doesn’t come as a surprise to you ... but I’m going to tell you something now I hoped I’d never have to tell you in my life … the doctors, the hospital, cost me everything I had … I was broke and I went into debt … So I went to a man … a loan shark … A money lender … I couldn’t go to a bank because they don’t let you put up heartbreak and pain as collateral … A loan shark doesn’t need collateral … His collateral is your desperation … So he gives you his money … And he’s got a clock. … And what it keeps time of is your promise. … If you keep your promise, he turns off the clock … and if not, it keeps ticking … and after a while, your heart starts ticking louder than his clock… Understand something. This man kept your mother alive… It was his painkillers that made her last days bearable… and for that I’m grateful… So you never take for yourself… But for someone you love, there comes a time when you have no choice… there’s a man in New York I owe… Nine thousand dollars… I could work and save four more years and I won’t have nine thousand dollars… He wants his money this year. To his credit, I’ll say one thing. He sent flowers to the funeral. No extra charge on my bill… There is no way I can pay this man back… So what’ll he do? Kill me? …Maybe… If he kills me, he not only loses his money, it’ll probably cost him again for the flowers for my funeral… I needed a miracle… And the miracle happened… this country went to war… A war between us and the Japanese and the Germans… And if my mother didn’t come to this country Thirty-five years ago, I could have been fighting for the other side… Except I don’t think they’re putting guns in the hands of Jews over there… Let me tell you something. I love this country. Because they took in the Jews. They took in the Irish, the Italians and everyone else… Remember this. There’s a lot of Germans in this country fighting for America, but there are no Americans over there fighting for Germany… I hate this war, and god forgive me for saying this, but it’s going to save my life… There are jobs I can get now that I could never get before… And I got a job… I’m working for a company that sells scrap iron… I thought you threw crap iron away. Now they’re building ships with it… Without even the slightest idea of what I’m doing, I can make that nine thousand dollars in less than a year. Don’t say it till I finish… The factories that I would sell to are in the South… Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, even New Mexico. … I’d be gone about ten months … Living in trains, buses, hotels, any place I can find a room … We’d be free and clear and back together again in less than a year … Okay? So now come the question, where do you two live while I’m gone?

INHERIT THE WIND

written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

Henry Drummond: Yes there is something holy to me! The power of the individual human mind. In a child's power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted "Amens!," "Holy, Holies!" and "Hosannahs!" An ideas is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of waters. But are we now to halt the march of progress because Mr. Brady frightens us with a fable? (to the jury) Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You've got to pay fo rit. Sometimes I think there's a man behind a counter who says, "All right, you can have a telephone; but you'll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote; but at a price; you lose the right to retreat behind a powderpuff or a petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air; but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline!" Darwin moved us forward to a hilltop, where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this view, this insight, this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis.

Man of La Mancha

Storyteller Miguel Cervantes slowly surrounds himself with his alter-ego, Don Quixote de la Mancha: righter of wrongs, defender of justice.

Miguel de Cervantes: I shall impersonate a man. His name is Alonso Quijana, a country squire no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night and morn again, and all he reads oppresses him; fills him with indignation at man's murderous ways toward man. He ponders the problem of how to make better a world where evil brings profit and virtue none at all; where fraud and deceit are mingled with truth and sincerity. He broods and broods and broods and broods and finally his brains dry up. He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined---to become a knight-errant, and sally forth into the world in search of adventures; to mount a crusade; to raise up the weak and those in need. He persuades his neighbor, one Sancho Panza, a country laborer, and an honest man, if the poor may be called honest, for he was poor indeed to become his squire. He selects an ancient carthorse called Rocinante, to be the steed and the safeguard of his master's will. These preparations made, he seizes his lance! No longer will he be plain Alonso Quijana, but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha!

A Perfect Ganesh

by Terrance McNally

Margaret recalls trying to stop her son Gabriel from running in front of a passing car. The night Margaret arrives in India she impulsively tells the story of her defiant four year old son’s accidental death more than 30 years earlier to a sympathetic Japanese tourist.

MARGARET: ’d just bought him a Good Humor bar.… His little face was covered with chocolate. I took a handkerchief out of my purse and wetted it with my tongue to clean his face. He pulled away from me. “No!” I pulled him back. “Yes!” Our eyes met. He looked at me with such hate … no! anger! … and pulled away again, this time hurting me. I rose to chase him but he was off the curb and into the street and under the wheels of a car before I could save him.… His head was crushed. He was dead when I picked him up. Isn’t what mothers are supposed to do? Save their children? Didn’t tell the children that followed. What would be the point?

(singing)

"Swing Low Sweet Chariot"

And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson

By: Jim Leonard, Jr.

During this monologue, Elizabeth is about 16/17 years old.

Elizabeth Willow: Zelda? Listen to me...Zelda. Last night I was in bed, see? And I could hear them talking -- my parents in their room, whispering to each other; and the kids outside my window; and the kids outside my window; girls talking to boys and the boys with them and trying to touch them and tease them under my window...Zelda, I could hear them and I tried: I tried not to listen, wanting my hearing to go away. I said, if my hearing is gone then my thought is gone; and if my thought is gone then my mind is no longer hurting....and I dreamed it would make it be me, Zelda...I dreamed I could make it be me that was gone and not you at all. I dreamt a dream of your dying. (She begins to grow more passionate, more lost...) Your muscles are melting away and you cant stop them from turning to nothing inside you. And you have to eat, and you have to breathe, and you have to think: you can't stop the thinking inside yourself even while your body grows useless underneath you. You think, I'm dying now...I'm really dying now...and you can almost tell how many weeks there'll be before your lungs become too weak to hold the air you want; and when they begin to collapse, then you know that too. Your muscles are turning to water. You know that you're suffocating inside your own body, and still while you're dying you think of it.

(She lifts her U. foot off of the footrest and places it on the ground -- she must lift her legs with her hands and arms, treating them as perfectly motionless.)

Because the dystrophy separates the muscle from the bone -- (And as she takes her other foot off the footrest she speaks the next line.) The mind from the body...

(She swings the empty footrest into the side of the chair, crashing metal against metal, and lowers herself out of the chair; she wants to be closer to the grave, to be near it. Elizabeth should be far enough away from the flowers to allow her the room to prone on the floor, the room to pull herself to them just a foot or two. She uses her upper body, so her face is up, her eyes in the light. A bit like the Andrew Wyeth painting "Christina's World"...)

And last year you came to my room and my father had to carry you, Zelda. He sets you beside me like an infant to hold, and you cannot even talk then -- you're sixteen and then seventeen and you cannot force the muscles to move enough to say even a word. (Soft, remembering.) But it is all right still. We can sit still. We can sit and tough and hold and the words don't matter anymore, Zelda....nothing matters... (Incredibly intense now, all rage and anguish.) Zelda, it isn't right for this to happen to you! I wish it was me who was gone now and not you at all! Nothing changes for me -- nothing changes in me, Zelda -- Nothing! (Slowly) Nothing, nothing ever changes...

Beth Willow: She was born in October. In May, she took sick with a flu. It was two in the morning when I finally phoned Doctor Harris and got the poor man out of bed . I told him my baby had a temperature of a hundred and one. He told me to calm down. He told me to give her an aspirin and then take an aspirin or two myself and go back to sleep. What he said is that babies get sick. All babies get sooner or later take ill with a flu or the measles and I shouldn't worry so much. In the first week of August the sun was so hot and the air was so muggy you could cut through the sky with a knife. Elizabeth took sick again, in the first week of August again; and this time I stayed off the phone and I held her and fanned her and I tried not to worry so much. Because I knew that she was my first, and all mothers worry too much with their first, but that child's temperature -- my baby's temperature went up to a hundred and six. I went to bed at a hundred and two and I woke at a hundred and six. Well, I rushed her to the doctors of course and I knew and I know now I should have done something, but I don’t know what else I could do. We were all so afraid of the hospital then. Everyone said the surest insurance of giving a child polio was to take her into a hospital ward where everyone else had the disease. So I held her and nursed her and I took her home. And after the fever was gone...after the fever receded she couldn't move, didn't move, never will move...I don't know what else I could do. What could you do? I'm a good mother. I'm a good mother. I know that.

Ben Willow:

(Ben Willow enters as the catechism finishes. It's night. He's been drinking. He's not rolling drunk, but he's drunk enough. He enters on the stage floor level and sits on a step early in the speech and stays there...like he's on his porch step. Ben might have a small whiskey bottle. He talks right to the audience for the most part.)

Well, I'll be good and goddamned is what I'll be...good and goddamned...Coming in all hours of the night; nothing but the truth to tell her, she goes asking where I've been. Have my tail's what she'll do. Sit me down and start talking sassy about near thirty years of marriage and me drunk out on the porch one of the few times in all of em. Well, a man's got a right. A man's got a goddamn good right to tip a few back when he wants without getting sassed by his wife, I'll tell her...talking sassy...that's how they do it around here, sir. Nobody's got the spine in em to come up to you on the street and tell you what they're thinking to your face. All talking real strong on how they remember back a few years. Back when all they remember was worrying about where to get the money up for bill paying and house renting and where are they gonna get the money to take the whole goddamn family down to Florida come spring!?...Well how goddamn long do you think I been working? How many years do you figure I been loading those trucks and unloading em again? Every damn day, sir. Everyday, all day, all of my life at the same goddamn job till I feel like I'm caught on some sort of crazy Ferris wheel full of boxes needing to be lifted up and down and over here, over there!...(Quietly) Like to make me sick to my guts is what it's like to do...why don't you ask me where those years are? My little girl, she is twenty four now and she's never taken a step. Can't work her to walking; can't pray her to walking. No sir, no ma'am, no thank you, never. That's where your years are, you want to sass me...sleeping happy and warm with a coupla broke legs in that room...

_____

During this monologue, Elizabeth is 24 and insane.

Elizabeth Willow: SHUT UP--! (There is a tableau, the Chorus simply looks at her. She continues in anger.) You are always listing things! Lining things up in rows as if putting them in rows is suddenly going to make my mind make sense of it -- but there is no sense in it! You put things in lists that are backwards and wrong and turning inside my mind until I don't know where I started anymore! (Quieter, sifting through the thoughts.) And I want to remember: and then you make me remember and I look at the remembering and I feel the remembering and my stomach turns to knots because of it. I was a very nervous child, you know...high strung, my mother says...and this is not the best thing fore a person, do you see that? Do you see what I'm telling you?

(The Chorus turns away from her as she goes to each one of them, until all four backs are turned forming a sort of half-circle behind her.)

Talk to me...please, I have no one to talk to but you now. Please, please talk...please speak...please (Their backs are turned, giving her no response. She lowers deep into herself; the lights focusing brighter, tighter on her. Almost a whisper, imagining...) I'd like...I'd like to be someplace...(She grows more sure of her fantasy, her voice picking up strength and quality the deeper she grows into her dream.) ...someplace where there's grasses and trees and voices in the wind...

(The flute might begin to play behind her. The Chorus, their backs still turned, should vocally intensify and echo her fantasy, drawing her deeper and deeper into it...they giggle, they whisper her name; they become the fantasy -- without moving their voices become the dream.)

...someplace where it's never silent. For the wind...it's the wind that carries the laughter and the speaking of the children there. And they are good children there...children who aren't afraid of me. And as I wheel through the fields they come up running to me, Elizabeth! Elizabeth, come talk with us -- come be with us...and they smile and they touch me so gently. Because they aren't afraid there. They, they admire the chair there! Because of the flatness...yes, because of the flatness there. And the wind blows over the grasses, all alive to its touching, and it carries the voices of laughter as far as the ends of the ends of the earth there. Over the grasses and the people and the chairs there...because there are no hills or steps or cliffs there -- nothing but the flat flat land. And I can roll! I can roll and roll! In circles, in loops, in huge and swelling arcs across the fields, because there is nothing to stop me there, because of the flatness...and as I roll by them, the people reach out their arms and touch me so gently, so gentle...(The Chorus turns around, they reach towards her.)...as if they're saying Feel it! Can;t you feel the breeze here? Can't you feel the wind up over the land and it blows and blows and blows with nothing to stop it or block it from reaching the ocean! Feel it, Elizabeth! (She reaches out, touching each person in the Chorus with a phrase, a hand, with her eyes.) And we look. And we touch. And we speak. And we love. And we grow together, together like the grasses rooted in the earth of the flat land...(A moment of tableau...all swaying and together.) We are the grasses of the flat land..

Grace and Glorie

By Tom Ziegler

GLORIA: We had a son. Danny. He was killed in an automobile accident a couple of years ago. That’s okay. I’ve had plenty of time to learn to deal with it. Danny was only twelve years old. He wasn’t driving, I was. Grace, I can do this, okay? He was still very much a boy. My husband saw to that. But for every jock thing Peter pushed Danny into, I insisted on equal time. Like with his piano. Not that he was a child prodigy, but he did have talent. I mean he was only twelve years old, and already developing his own style—as his teacher would say, (Imitating the teacher) “somewhere between Vladimir Horowitz and Stevie Wonder.” But what was most unusual about Danny was the incredibly high standards he’s set for himself. He reminded me of—me when I was his age. (her face lights up) Oh, Grace, that was such a time in my life. I had just moved to a very large firm, brought in, I might add, as full partner. Know what that means? It means I had made it to the top. I finally had power, Grace. And money. I could now afford to send Danny to an extraordinary new school. I bought an expensive car. I had finally achieved, as a woman, respect. Oh, and I began having an affair. (Rising, going to the kitchen area) One warm, September afternoon… it had been Danny’s first day at the new school. I decided to pick him up. In the new car. We were heading back across town. I don’t know where it came from. The newspaper truck. When it hit us, it crumpled Danny’s side of our car like a paper bag. We were pinned inside the wreck for more than an hour. The collision had squeezed us into this tight sliver of space. Danny was on my lap. And as I held him I could feel his life slowly slipping from his body. And there was nothing I could do. But scream. So we buried him. This gentle, gifted boy. Disposed of his clothes, his—things. And then, I don’t know, I just shut down. I wouldn’t even go outside. There didn’t seem to be any point. Peter dragged me from one doctor to another. We ended up with a shrink who suggested a change, somewhere far from the city. Peter was thrilled. He’d always hated New York—the pace, the competition. He began calling his old law school buddies until he found—Don’t ask me why I came with him. I guess, at the time, I could have cared less where I lived lived. So now here I am, stuck in this—What still gnaws at me. Okay, maybe I did deserve to get slapped down. I mean, I had become a little lofty, a little full of myself. Peter was feeling very threatened by my success and I was loving it. And there was the affair. But if these were my sins, MY SINS, why was it Danny who paid for them? That’s what’s insane. That’s what makes me want to—you talk about God? What kind of God is this? Is he sick? Is he a sadist? If he’s not butchering us outright he’s… Look at your life. Haven’t you ever asked yourself… (She stops. Gropes for control) I’m sorry. I … I don’t know why I’m doing this. Of course, my husband’s answer- have another baby. THIS SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED, GODD*MIT! He was a brilliant, innocent boy with his whole life in front of him. What heavenly purpose was served by crushing his beautiful, young body and leaving it on my lap to die? All I want is an answer, Grace! One lousy reason! (A beat) except there is no answer, is there?

------

Cutting below.

GLORIA: We had a son. Danny. He was killed in an automobile accident a couple of years ago. Danny was only twelve years old. I was driving. He was still very much a boy. My husband saw to that. But for every jock thing Peter pushed Danny into, I insisted on equal time. Like with his piano. Not that he was a child prodigy, but he did have talent. I mean he was only twelve years old, and already developing his own style—as his teacher would say, (Imitating the teacher) “somewhere between Vladimir Horowitz and Stevie Wonder.” But what was most unusual about Danny was the incredibly high standards he’s set for himself. He reminded me of—me when I was his age. (Rising, going to the kitchen area) One warm, September afternoon… it had been Danny’s first day at the new school. We were heading back across town. I don’t know where it came from. The newspaper truck. When it hit us, it crumpled Danny’s side of our car like a paper bag. We were pinned inside the wreck for more than an hour. The collision had squeezed us into this tight sliver of space. Danny was on my lap. And as I held him I could feel his life slowly slipping from his body. And there was nothing I could do. But scream. THIS SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED, GODD*MIT! He was a brilliant, innocent boy with his whole life in front of him. What heavenly purpose was served by crushing his beautiful, young body and leaving it on my lap to die? All I want is an answer, Grace! One lousy reason! (A beat) except there is no answer, is there?

(the Angel is a young, black woman in ripped jeans, sneakers and black T-shirt. Crude silver wings hang limply from the back of the Angel’s diamond-studded black leather jacket. Though she radiates tremendous heat and light, there’s something tired and lonely about the Angel: she looks like an urban warrior, a suffering, burnt-out soldier of some lost cause. She speaks directly to Marisol, who sleeps.)

ANGEL: A man is worshipping a fire hydrant on Taylor Avenue, Marisol. He’s draping rosaries on it. An old woman’s selling charmed chicken blood in see-through Ziplock bags for a buck. They’re setting another homeless man on fire in Van Corlandt Park. (The Angel rattles the metal gate.) Cut that out you Nazis! (The Angel goes to Marisol’s’ door and checks the lock. She stomps cockroaches. She straightens up a little.) I swear, best thing that could happen to this city is immediate evacuation followed by fire on a massive scale. Melt it all down. Consume the ruins. Then put the ashes of those evaporated dreams into a big urn and sit the urn on the desks of a few thousand oily politicians. Let them smell the disaster like we do. (The Angel goes to Marisol’s bed and looks at her. Marisol’s heart beats faster and she starts to hyperventilate.) So what do you believe in, Marisol? You believe in me? Or do you believe your senses? If so, what’s that taste in your mouth? (The Angel clicks her fingers.) What’s your favorite smell, Marisol? (click!) Here’s your big chance, baby. What would you like to ask the Angel of the Lord? God, you’re so cute, I could eat you up. (The Angel strokes her hair.) I kick started your heart, Marisol. I wired your nervous system. I pushed your fetal blood in the right direction and turned the foam in your infant lungs to oxygen. When you were six and your parents were fighting, I helped you pretend you were underwater: that you were a cold-blooded fish, in the bottom of the black ocean, far away and safe. When racists ran you out of school at ten, scream…I turned the monsters into little columns of salt! At last count, one plane crash, one collapsed elevator, one massacre at the hands of a right-wing fanatic with an Uzi, and sixty-six-thousand-six-hundred-and-three separate sexual assaults never happened because of me. Now the bad news. (The Angel goes to the wind. She’s silent a moment as she contemplates the devastated Bronx landscape.) I can’t expect you to understand the political ins and outs of what’s going on. But you have eyes. You asked me questions about children and water and war and the moon: the same questions I’ve been asking myself for a thousand years. The universal body is sick, Marisol. Constellations are wasting away, the nauseous stars are full of blisters and sores, the infected earth is running a temperature, and everywhere the universal mind is wracked with amnesia, boredom and neurotic obsessions…Because God is old and dying and talking the rest of us with Him. And for too long, much too long, I’ve been looking the other way. Trying to stop the massive hemorrhage with my little hands. With my prayers. But it didn’t work and I knew if I didn’t do something soon, it would be too late. I called a meeting. And I urged the Heavenly Hierarchies—the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Archangels and Angels—to vote to stop the universal ruin… by slaughtering our senile God. An they did. Listen well, Marisol: Angels are going to kill the King of Heaven and restore the vitality of the universe with His blood. And I’m going to lead them. There’s going to be war. A revolution of angels. Soon we’re going to send out spies, draft able-bodied celestial beings, raise taxes… Soon we’re going to take off our wings of peace, Marisol, and put on our wings of war. Then we’re going to spread blood and vigor across the sky and reawaken the dwindling stars! It could be suicide. A massacre. He’s better armed. Better organized. And, well, a little omniscient. But we have to win. (Beat.) And when we do win… when we crown the new God, and begin the new millennium… the earth will be restored. The moon will return. The degradation of the animal kingdom will end. Men and women will be elevated to a higher order. All children will speak Latin. And Creation will finally be perfect. It also means I have to leave you. I can’t stay. I can’t protect you anymore. I don’t want to. I love you. I thought you had to know. But now I have to go and fight—And that’s what you have to do, Marisol. You have to fight. You can’t endure anymore. You can’t trust luck or prayer or mercy or other people. When I drop my wings, all hell’s going to break loose and soon you’re not going to recognize the world—so get yourself some power, Marisol, whatever you do.

(LIGHTS UP on the subway car: a filth-covered bench. The Man With Golf Club enters the subway car. He’s a young white man, 20’s in a filthy black T-shirt and ripped jeans; his long matted hair hangs over blazing eyes. His shoes are rags and his mind is shot. The Man looks at Marisol and “shoots” the club like an Uzi. The Man talks to Marisol.)

GOLF CLUB: It was the shock that got me. I was so shocked all I could see was pain all around me: little spinning starlights of pain ‘cause of the shocking thing the angel just told me. (He waits for a reaction. Marisol refuses to look at him.) You see, she was always there for me. I could count on her. She was my very own God-blessed little angel! My own gift from God! (No response. He makes a move toward Marisol. ) But last night she crawled into the box I occupy on 180^th street in the Bronx. I was sleeping: nothing special walking through my thoughts ‘cept the usual panic over my empty stomach, and the wind-chill factor, and how, oh how, was I ever gonna replace my lost Citibank MasterCard? (He follows Marisol) She folded her hot silver angel wings under her leather jacket and creeped into my box last night, reordering the air, waking me up with the shock, the bad news that she was gonna leave me forever… Don’t you see? She once stopped Nazi skinheads from setting me on fire in Van Corlandt Park! Do you get it now, lady?! I live on the street! I am dead meat without my guardian angel! I’m gonna be food.. for all the Hitler youth and their cans of gasoline… (The Man lunges at Marisol. Truly worried.) That means you don’t have any protection either. Your guardian angel is gonna leave you too. That means, in the next four or five seconds, I could change the entire course of your life… (Calm, almost pitying.) I could turn you into one of me. I could fix it so every time you look in the mirror… every time you dream… or close your eyes in some hopeless logic that closed eyes are a shield against nightmares… you’re gonna think you turned into me…

(The Man With Ice Cream enters the office. He wears a business suit and licks an ice cream cone. He smiles at Marisol, who looks at him, instantly sensing trouble.)

ICE CREAM: I was in the movie Taxi Driver with Robert DeNiro and the song-of-a-gun never paid me. The Second A.D. said this is where I go to collect my pay for my work in Taxi Driver. I worked real hard on that picture. It was my big break. And of course, working with a genius like De Niro is like Actor Heaven, but, c’mon, I still need the money. I mean, I don’t want to get temperamental, but Taxi Driver came out a long time ago and I still haven’t been paid! (In despair.) I have bills! I have rent! I have a toddler in a Catholic preschool! I have an agent screaming for his ten percent! And how am I supposed to pay for this ice cream cone? Do you think ice cream is free? Do you think Carvel gives this out for nothing? Don’t mess with me, lady. I once played a Nazi skinhead in a TV movie-of-the-week. I once set a man on fire in Van Cortland Park for CBS! And I really liked that role! (The Man throws the ice cream into Marisol’s face)

(June enters the office. She’s an Irish-American, 36: bright, edgy, hyper, dressed in cool east Village clothes. She has wild red hair and freckles.)

JUNE: (June sees Marisol and lets out a yell of joy.) Marisol! Thank God! I couldn’t sleep all night because of you! You died! You died! It was all over the networks last night You’re on the front page of the Post. (June shows Marisol the paper. On the cover is a close-up of a young woman’s battered corpse. June reads: “Twenty-six-year-old Marisol Perez of 180^th Street in the Bronx was bludgeoned to death on the IRT Number Two last night. The attack occurred 11:00 PM.” And I tried to call you last night but do you have any idea how many Marisol Perezes there are in the Bronx phone book? Only seven pages. I couldn’t sleep. Barbarian beat her with a golf club, can you believe that? Like a caveman kills its dinner, freak. I’m still upset. It could have been you, living alone in that marginal neighborhood, all the chances you take. Like doesn’t this scare you? Isn’t it past time to leave the Bronx behind? Vultures are having a field day with this, vast close-ups of Marisol Perez’s pummeld face on TV, I mean what’s the point? There’s a prevailing sickness out there, I’m telling you, the Dark Ages are here, Visigoths are climbing the city walls, and I’ve never felt more like raw food in my life. Am I upsetting you with this? Something wrong with you today? You look like chit. You, Miss Puerto Rican Yuppy Princess of the Universe, you never look like shit.

(LENNY has just given birth. It is dead.)

LENNY: (Grim.) C’mon. There’s something we have to do now. (Holding the baby, Lenny starts to walk around the stage. They come to the D. corner where the rose-covered fire hydrant is. Special lighting on this area.) Do you know where you are, Marisol? You’re in Brooklyn. Everybody comes to this street eventually. People are buried here. It looks like a sidewalk. But it’s not. It’s a tomb. For babies. Angelitos. (Lenny removes a slab of sidewalk concrete and starts digging up the dirt beneath it. There’s a tiny wooden box there.) The city provides these coffins. There are numbers on them. The city knows how we live. (Lenny gently places the baby’s body in the box.) These are babies born on the street. Little girls of the twilight hours who never felt warm blankets around their bodies. Never drank their mother’s holy mild. Little boys born with coke in their blood. There is where babies who die on the street are taken to rest. You never heard of it? Everyone who sleeps and begs in the open air knows this address. We come with flowers, with crucifixes, with offerings. The wind plays organ music. Hard concrete turns into gentle moss so the babies can decompose in grace. We all come here sooner or later to pay respects to the most fragile of the street people. (Lenny replaces the concrete slab and scratches the name of the child into the concrete. He says a prayer. ) Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. Bless the bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed. Four angels ‘round my head. One to watch and one to pray. And two to bear your soul away. (Lenny kisses the ground) ‘Night, little Marisol. (Lenny lies on the ground and falls asleep.)

(Lights up on Marisol’s apartment. Marisol checks the crucifix, horseshoe, rabbit’s foot, prayer cards, Milagros, medicine bundles, statuettes of Buddha and other good-luck charms kept under the bed. She crosses herself and closes her eyes.)

MARISOL: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bless the bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed. Four angels ‘round my head. One to watch and one to pray. And two to bear my soul away. (Marisol crosses herself and opens her eyes. The noises begin. They come at Marisol from apartments all around her. There’s a suddenly furious knocking at Marisol’s door.)

Matthew doesn’t live here! You have the wrong apartment! Matthew lives next door!!

(Marisol cautiously opens the door. There’s a small pile of salt on the floor. At first Marisol just looks at it, too amazed to move. Then she bends down to touch the salt, letting it run through her fingers.)

Salt? (Frightened, not sure she knows what this means.)

Every person on the subway this morning gave me the shivers. They all looked so hungry. I keep hearing children crying. I keep smelling burnt flesh. And now there’s a woman with my exact name killed on my exact street last night. (Beat.) And I had this dream. A winged woman. A black angel with beautiful wings. She came to my bed and she said she loved me. She seemed do real. So absolute. Virtuous and powerful, incapable of lying, exalted, sublime, radiant, pure, perfect, fulgent….now I feel sorry. I just feel so sorry for everything… (Marisol goes D. and looks up at the sky, expecting to see something, but now knowing what. She’s fighting tears. Marisol’s definitely not herself today. ) I don’t think the moon’s disappearance is psychological. It’s like the universe is senile. Like we’re at the part of history where everything breaks down. Do you smell smoke? (Marisol quickly starts reading from her manuscript. With growing surprise.) “Salt is in the food and mythology of cultures old and new. Ancient writers believed that angels in heaven turned into salt when they died. Popular mythology holds that during the Fall of Satan, angels who were killed in battle fell into the primordial ocean, which was then fresh water. Today, the oceans are salted by the decomposed bodies of fallen angels…” (Marisol crosses back to the door to the salt.)

(Marisol joyfully embraces June and kisses her. That pushes June over the edge, and she collapses. Marisol catches her and lays her gently on the ground. Marisol sits with June’s head on her lap. This time June does not resist)

MARISOL: (To June.) We survived. We survived, June. (Marisol looks around her—at her two crippled, sobbing friends—at the distorted world—all too aware of the graveyard which has become the site of their reunion.) For what? To do what? (Marisol looks up at the crown—a long, still moment. She swears to the crown. Loud machine-gun rips the air. Marisol hits the ground and covers June and Lenny.) Listen to me. We’re going to find the angels. And I’m going to ask them to touch your foreheads. To press their angelic fingers into your temples. Fire your minds with instant light. Blow up your bad dreams. And resurrect you. (Marisol looks up at the crown.) And then we’re going to join them. Then we are going to fight with the angels. What a time to be alive, huh? On one hand, we’re nothing. We’re dirt. On the other hand, we’re the reason the universe was made. Right now, thousands upon millions of angels are dying on our behalf. Isn’t that amazing? The silver cities of heaven are burning for us. Attacks and counterattacks are ruining galaxies. The ripped-up planets are making travel impossible. And triumphant angels are taking over the television stations. All for us. All for me. (The Woman With Furs blasts Marisol with an Uzi, pumping hundreds of rounds into her. She dies instantly and falls to the ground. Blackout.)

(Marisol is standing apart alone, in her own light. Her voice is slightly amplified.) I’m killed instantly. Little blazing lead meteors enter my body. My blood cells ride those bullets into outer space. My soul surges up the oceans of the Milky Way at the speed of light. At the moment of death, I see the invisible war. Thousands of years of fighting pass in an instant. New and terrible forms of warfare, monstrous weapons and unimagined strains of terror are created and destroyed in billionths of a second. Galaxies spring from a single drop of angel’s sweat while hundreds of armies fight and die on the fingertips of children in the Bronx. Three hundred million million beautiful angels die in the first charge of the Final Battle. The oceans are salty with rebel blood. Angels drop like lightning from the dying sky. The rebels are in full retreat. There’s chaos. There’s blood and fire and ambulances, and Heaven’s soldiers scream and fight and die in beautiful, beautiful light. It looks like the revolution is doomed… Then, as if one body, one mind, the innocent of the earth take the streets with anything they can find—rocks, sticks, screams—and aim their displeasure at the senile sky as fire into the tattered wind on the side of the angels… billions of poor, of homeless, of peaceful, of silent, of angry… fighting and fighting as no species has ever fought before. Inspired by the earthy noises, the rebels advance! New ideas rip the Heavens. New powers are created. New miracles are signed into law. It’s the first day of the new history… Oh God. What light. What possibilities. What hope.

(The Man With Scar Tissue enters in a wheelchair. He’s a homeless man in shredded, burnt rags. He wears a hood which covers his head and obscures his face. He wears sunglasses and gloves. His wheelchair is full of plastic garbage bags, clothes, books, newspapers, bottles, junk.)

SCAR TISSUE: It’s get so bad, a guy can’t sleep under the stars anymore. I was sleeping under the constellations one night and my whole life changed, took seconds: I had a life—then bingo—I didn’t have a life… Used to be able to sleep under the moon unmolested. Moon was a shield. Catching all the bad karma before it fell to earth. All those crater holes in the moon? Those ain’t rocks! That’s bad karma crashing to the moon’s surface! Now the moon’s gone. The shield’s been lifted. Shit falls on you randomly. Sleep outside, you’re screwed. That’s why I got this! Gonna yank the moon back! (From inside his wheelchair, Scar Tissue pulls out a magnet. He aims his magnet to the sky and waits for the moon to appear.) Good thing I’m not planning to get married. What would a honeymoon be like now? Some stupid cardboard cut-out dangling out your hotel window? What kind of inspiration is that? And did you know the moon carries the souls of dead people up to Heaven? Uh-huh. The new moon is dark and empty and gets filled with new glowing souls—until it’s a bright full moon—then it carries its silent burden to God… My name is Elvis Presley, beautiful, what’s yours? I hope you don’t let those Nazis come near me! They’re all over the place. You got your faith still intact. You still believe God is good. You still think you can guide though the world and not be part of it. Ever since the angels went into open revolt, you can’t trust your own mother. (Crying) I was an air-traffic controller, Marisol Perez. I had a life. Then I saw angels in the radar screen and I started to drink. I was just sleeping under the stars. It was another night when I couldn’t find shelter. The places I went to, I got beat up. They took my clothes. Urinated in my mouth. I took my crap outside and went up to some park in the Bronx… just to be near some shriveled trees and alone and away from the massive noise, just for a little nap… my eyes closed… I vaguely remember the sound of goose-stepping teenagers from Staten Island with a can of gasoline, shouting orders in German. A flash of light. I exploded outward. My bubbling skin divorced my suffering nerves and ran away, looking for some coolness, some paradise, some other body to embrace! (laughs bitterly.) I gotta get outta here. Look—if you see some extra skin laying around somewhere… pick it up for me, okay? I’ll be exceedingly grateful. Bye.

(The Skinhead (JUNE) enters and marches toward the sleeping Marisol and Lenny and stops. Only as the light comes up on the Skinhead do we realize its June.)

SKINHEAD: (To herself, indicating Marisol.) Look at this thing, this waste, this parasite. God, I’m so sick of it. Sick of the eyesore. Sick of the diseases. Sick of the drugs. Sick of the homelessness. Sick of the border babies. Sick of the dark skin. Sick of that compassion thing! That’s where it all started! When they put in that compassion thing! (Furious) I mean, why can’t they just go AWAY? I mean, okay, if you people want to kill yourselves, fine, do it: kill yourselves with your crack and your incest and your promiscuity… just leave me to take care of myself and my own. Leave me to my gardens. I’m good in my gardens. I’m good on my acres of green grass. God distributes green grass in just the right way! Take care of your own. Take care of your family. If everybody did that… I swear on my gold Citibank MasterCard… there wouldn’t be any problems, anywhere, in the next millennium… (June looks down at Marisol. She unscrews the can of gasoline and starts pouring gasoline on Marisol and Lenny. Marisol wakes up.) Stay still so I can burn you! What a day I’m having, huh? I started out burning hobos and ended up torching half the city! The entire Upper West side up in ashes! You should see what I did! It’s fire on a massive scale! Buildings melted all down! Consumed! Ashes of those evaporated dreams are all over the place! We could be picked up for real fast by the police… they’ve built great big facilities for us… ‘cause our numbers are swelling… (Marisol tries to hold June June begins to sound a little like her old self.) But they won’t take me! I have a strategy now! I burn bag people! The troop likes that!

(The Woman With Furs is prosperous: long fur coat and high heels—but there are subtle bruises and cuts on her face, and it looks like there’s dried blood on her coat. She stands very still. She holds on open newspaper, but she stares past it, no emotion on her shell-shocked face. The Woman With Furs speaks out to the air, as if in a trance.)

WOMAN WITH FURS: God help you. Don’t you know where you are either? I had tickets to Les Misérables. But I took a wrong turn. Followed bad advice. Ended up on this weird street. I have to go… Oh God, why did I have to buy that hat? I bought a hat on credit and everything disintegrated! I just got out of hell. Last month, I was two hundred dollars over my credit card limit because I bought a hat on sale. And you know they’re cracking down on that kind of thing. I used to do it all the time. It didn’t matter. But now it matters. Midnight. The police came. Grabbed me out of bed, waving my credit statement in my face, my children screaming, they punched my husband in the stomach. I told them I was a lawyer! With a house in Cos Cob! And personal references a mile long! But they hauled me to this … huge windowless brick building in Brooklyn… where they tortured me… they… (The Woman With Furs cries.) Everyone I know’s had terrible luck this year. Losing condos. Careers cut in half. Ending up on the street. I thought I’d be immune. I thought I’d be safe. I’m not going to talk about this! You’re going to think I’m crazy too! You’re going to tell the Citibank MasterCard people where I am so they can pick me up and torture me some more! I know what I’m going to do now. I’m going to turn you in. I’m going to tell the Citibank police you stole my plastic! They’ll like me for that. They’ll like me a lot. They’ll restore my banking privileges! Welcome to the new world order, babe! Homelessness is against the law in this city!