To find a specific monologue press ctrl f and type in the title

Charles Johnson- ALL KIDDING ASIDE // Adams, Johanna - Lickspittles, Buttonholers and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens // Aguirre-Sacasa, Roberto - Rough Magic // Albom, Mitch - Duck Hunter Shoots Angel // Ayckbourn, Alan - The Norman Conquests: Living Together // Ayckbourn, Alan - The Norman Conquests: Table Manners // Ayckbourn, Alan - Woman in Mind (1) // Ball, Alan - Power Lunch // Beane, Douglas Carter - The Little Dog Laughed // Bosakowski, Phil - Crossin' the Line // Cariani, John - Last Gas // Dee, Peter - ... and stuff ... // Dee, Peter - Voices From the High School // Diamond, Lydia R. - Smart People // Durang, Christopher - The Marriage of Bette and Boo // Durang, Christopher- Naomi in the Living Room // Ensler, Eve - Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World // Ensler, Eve - The Good Body //Gibson, Melissa James - [sic] // Gibson, William - The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut, & The Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols In A Pear Tree // Guirgis, Stephen Adly - The Motherfucker With The Hat // Gurney, A.R. - The Cocktail Hour // Ives, David - Sure Thing // Jacobs-Jenkins, Branden - Gloria // Lonergan, Kenneth - Lobby Hero // Moulds, Steve - Oh, Gastronomy! // Nguyen, Qui - She Kills Monster // Norris, Bruce - Clybourne Park // Nowra, Louis - Summer of the Aliens // Read, David West - The Dream of the Burning Boy // Sherman, Jonathan Marc - Sophistry // Silver, Nicky - The Altruists // Simon, Neil - The Dinner Party // Smith, Alena - Plucker // Swanson, C. Denby - The Norwegians // Taylor, Renee- It Had to Be You // Wilson Lanford - The Hot L Baltimore // Ziegler, Anna - BFF "Best Friends Forever"

ALL KIDDING ASIDE by Charles Johnson

 Scotty

 Welcome to the show. My name is Scotty Devlin. I know what you're all thinking... How come she has a boy's name? Actually my real name is Heidi. But I had to change it when I lost my virginity. Everyone named Heidi must change their name when they lose their virginity. That's the rule. Look at these girls over here all rustling through their programs. You're all Heidis, right? Sorry. Am I embarrassed or what? Actually, I lied to you. Scotty is my real name. You see, when I was born the doctor was either far-sighted or a prankster because as I popped out, I remember it vividly, he declared "it's a boy." In fact, I was a boy until my mother changed my diapers for the first time. Can you imagine their surprise? My mother fainted. My father just stared, "he can't be my boy." I was in stitches. They tried calling me Judy for a while but I just wouldn't respond. Would you have? There's a Heidi nodding her head. Oh, by the way, the part about all Heidis having to change their names when they lose their virginity, I didn't lie about that. That is a known fact. Yes, it's true. Think about it. How many grown women do you know named Heidi? All the Heidis I know are about 8 years old with long blond braids down their backs. They all wear pink dirndls with little white aprons. And are surrounded by goats. They skip their way into high school, getting A's in Home Ec. Then one day, probably on their 21st birthday- wham- Veronica, Yvonne, Desiree. This is absolutely true, I promise you. You've never heard of a child being called Yvonne, have you? If I had been called Judy, I'd have to change my name when I stopped wearing bangs. Have you ever met a seventy-year-old woman named Judy? It sounds like she should be chewing gum and skipping rope. I'm not making this up. Right before middle age sets in, Cindys become Harriet, or Beatrice, they have that option. All Wendy's die at puberty. Regrettable, but necessary. I sort of like being called Scotty, besides it's better than my middle name- Doug. Look, I gotta run. But before I go, I just want to say that I hope all the guys who are sitting here tonight with a girl named Heidi, wake up tomorrow morning with a Desiree.

Naomi in the Living Room by Christopher Durang

NAOMI

NAOMI: And this is the living room. The dining room is where we dine. The bedroom is
where we go to bed. The laundry room is where we do laundry. And the living room is
where Hubert and I do all of our living. Our major living. So that's the living room.Please, sit down, don't let my manner make you uncomfortable. Sit on one of the sitting devices, we use them for sitting in the living room. DON'T SIT THERE. I WANT TO SIT THERE!!! Jerks! Ingrates! It's my house, it's my living room. I can ask you to leave! (calling off) Leonard! Oh Leonard. Come on in here in the living room and have some conversation with us. You don't want me to soak up everything our son says all by myself, do you? (To her daughter-in-law) You probably didn't know John was Leonard's and my son, did you? SHUT UP!! Goodness, my mood switch quickly. Tell me all about yourselves, do you have children? Uh huh, uh huh. Isn't that interesting? Excuse me if I fall asleep. I'm not tired yet, but I just want to apologize in advance in case your boring talk puts me to sleep. I don't want to offend you. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm just so bored I couldscream. Did you ever hear that expression? AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Really, children these days have no sense. In my day we killed them. Stop talking about your children/ I heard you the first time. God, some people can't get over their own little personal tragedies, what a great big crashing boor. Lots of people have it worse girlie! Boy, you can't take criticism, can you? Insane? I'll give you insane! What's the capital of Madagascar? You don't know, do you? Now who's insane? What's the square root of 347? You don't know, do you? Well, get out of here, if you think I'm so crazy. I don't want you here. I can have Christmas by myself. I can burn the Yule log by myself, I can wait for Santa by myself. I can pot geraniums I can buy a gun in a store and shoot you. By myself! Leave here. I don't need you, and you're dead!! (They leave, Naomi cries enormous heartfelt sobs, when they subside, she is like an infant with a new thought and she seems to be fairly contented.) Well, that was a nice visit.

Lickspittles, Buttonholers and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens by Johanna Adams

EGLANTINE.

The art of buttonholing is in the detail. If you begin to talk and want to talk again, you must have better intellect than common men. You have to have taste. Good lord! You have to be right, you can't blather on senselessly into the night. A buttonholer's charge is like a doctor's or priest's, she must do no harm with her tongue's wild caprice. Slandering Mozart! Vile, merciless folly and conceit! This blatherer has gall and a mind like puffed wheat. To capture imaginations with a web of words, plan carefully like the spider whose spun silk girds the hapless flies stuck in her portentous breath, but delight the insects before dissection and death. Entertain them, be civil, garrulous, and chatty. Don't make the amateur's mistake of being catty. That's not buttonholing, that's just being an ass, who'll listen to you for hours if you've no class? It's my pet peeve, I'll have this carved over my grave - "If you can't master your words, then you'll be their slave." That's the problem with recreational ranters, they get carried away and lose all sense of their banters. Seduced by the eloquence that rolls off their lips, more than they would be by a lover's oiled hips. Oh, no, please, don't ever just open your spout, and inflict on the world whatever falls out. It does you no credit. It's a path to despair. To keep whirling that tongue around empty air. Emperor, what was I saying when you drew near? Oh, I was announcing you. Look, the emperor's here!

The Country Club by Douglas Carter Beane

FROGGY.

Well, Soos said she was going to be here two weeks and we were looking at week three here, (are we not?), I mean she said she was coming back home to screw her head back on (could she be more California, I ask you? - Cuckoo Cuckoo). Soos and Zip? Back together. Better believe it. - Both hands Brian, more strength - Zip needs her. All great men need greater women behind them. Look at Brian. That's why lesbians seem to do so well for themselves. Two women. Speaking of which you might not want to sit that way, Pooker. Now, I love Zip, despite what you may hear, but he has been just so unbearable since he got out of college, I mean he just decides after four years of college that he doesn't want to work in his major? "Oh Louise, I can't go into politics, I don't believe in anything." I told him, I said, "Zip, get elected and you'll find something to believe in." It was about this time that he started throwing things at me. - Brian lower! Salted peanuts, napkins, bottle tops, swizzle sticks, tampons - Brian, do it like a man. Make pretend. - Zip and Soos are back TO-GE-THER and everything is returning to its' perfect cosmic place. - Brian, what are you possibly reading?

It Had to be You by Renee Taylor

THEDA

Gee, thanks for letting me start again. I need to support myself while I finish my play. I owe Maria Birnhaum, my psychiatrist, three thousand dollars.... I shouldn't have told you that. Alright, I'm going to tell you why I need therapy so badly. I have been rejected so much. In this business. I have a list of people who almost killed me... NBC, CBS, Paramount.... I try to have humor about it...look let's face it. I know I'm not conventionally uptight like the women you normally see doing these commercials. But I can be that way too... " Oh Sue, your bathroom is so much fresher than mine. I can see my face in your toilet bowl". Uh... maybe I should talk about the movies I've been in... See I went to Hollywood about eight years ago. Nobody sent for me. I just went. I can do it all. I've done it all. I've been a hit. I've bombed out. I would dare to be me on your commercial. If I were selling your product I would stand in front of the camera and say, "Look, it's a cocktail mix, it's not going to kill you." You people are lucky, you got me at the right time. I'm on the cusp now. (She pantomimes shooting dice) Success is a series of small steps... Well, this commercial is the first one. I'm getting good vibes from you people. "Ask an ye shall receive" So I'm asking...no, I'd better demand it! (Sensing she's not getting any response she starts falling apart again..) I insist you hire me.

It Had to be You by Renee Taylor

THEDA

Oh I'm not going to tell you the whole play, I'm just going to act out my favorite parts. The name of the play is the Diaries of Sasha T Ivanovic. A one character comedy with five acts and one set. Act 5, scene 5. The scene begins with Sasha being thrown back into tower laughing hysterically at her torturers HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. To take her mind off the physical pain she consciously hallucinates about playing hide and go seek with her father, Vladimir, Miskofski Ivanovic. Daddy? Daddy? She becomes gay. Daddy! She becomes angry. Daddy!! Oh daddy I know that's you lurking behind my harpsichord. Oh I forgot to mention, her father was very, short. Oh daddy the Czar has asked me to do another one of my comedies for the court. But not to worry I know that Russia will always be my home.

The Country Club by Douglas Carter Beane

SOOS.

Don't say another word. Just cannot handle another word. I'm just like - Why do you have to choose a party to tell me - I'm like confused enough already. I don't even know what I'm celebrating anymore. I just keep coming to these parties. It's like this bell goes off and I stagger back to where I was before like a punch drink fighter. I mean, what is this? April Fools'? I mean, shit. Any excuse to have a party. And this has to be the lamest of holidays. April Fools' Day? I am so sure. I wake up this morning. My mother informs me that she needs my room to convert back into a sewing room. I inform her that she still has Chipper's room and Cuffy's room and has had them for quite some time. She tells me that she has some big women's auxiliary THANG and needs all three rooms and I'm furious. Well, just as I'm about to launch, she jumps up and shouts, "April fools!" And I'm like, "Gee, Mom, today at the hospital are you going to tell crippled people that they can walk?" I mean, let's be brutal, why don't we? What is the purpose of this day? Practical jokes? Humiliation? They should call this humiliation day and let it go at that.

[sic] by Melissa James Gibson

BABETTE.

It was on a subway train I was headed uptown and I sat down next to a Strange Old Lady who was reading a book the title of which I couldn't see I happened to sit down right at the beginning of a chapter She was roughly a third of the way through the book Anyway I of course having forgotten to bring reading material of my own started reading the book over her Strange Old Lady Shoulder and became immediately absorbed in the story Each time we reached a station I tensed in fear that the Strange Old Lady would get off the train and leave me hanging but she didn't get off the train She didn't leave me We seemed to read at exactly the same speed She turned pages with an uncanny timing that seemed based purely on the speed with which I was reading until at some point I'd reached the end of the page and the page didn't turn I waited for Several Seconds Then a minute Then two full minutes Then finally I looked over at the Strange Old Lady and saw that she'd fallen asleep This was very distressing because I was very absorbed and I really wanted to know what happened next so I turned the page I turned the page and read the next two pages and then turned the page again and again until I'd read another oh ten pages and then the Strange Old Lady woke up and she started to read again and she paused and she turned back to the page before and then she turned back to the page before that and so on until without looking up she said Can you hang on a second

The Hot L Baltimore by Lanford Wilson

JACKIE.

Could I have just three minutes of your time? That's all I'm asking, just three minutes of your time. See, the title's clear; it's clear and paid for in cash. I got the inspection sticker - never mind what I had to go through - but I can't put it on the road without the plates and the thing is you got to get your insurance to get your plates. I didn't know anything about that 'cause I ain't had wheels in my name before. I just kept it out of the yard 'cause I told them I was getting the plates. And I went around - never mind where I had to go - what I have to have is Ten, Twenty, and Five. That's what they call it. Ten thousand for a single injury; twenty thousand for a multiple, and five for damages. Collision you don't have to have. 'Course every place has a different price: right there you know what kind of a racket they're running. Like the ones you've heard of are way-out-of-sight, off-the-wall clip joints. But the minimum I need for Ten, Twenty, and Five is $165; that's all it'd take to - What with? With what? I'm not asking you for money. I'm not a borrower. I don't take a penny from nobody I don't know. I wouldn't have to pay the hundred, I'd just need sixty-five down and quarterly, if I hadn't got canned from the pet shop - Only I wasn't canned. I saw what was coming and walked out on them. The pansy manager was trying to get me fired so his little friend could have my job. I hit him with a birdcage and walked out on the bastard. He kept live snakes as pets, if you want to know the sort of person he was. Let them run loose in the shop at night. He was mincing down the aisle with this stack of birdcages, he made a crack I won't repeat; and I took one of 'em and slapped it alongside his head. He called me up, tried to tell me I owed him for a myna bird. There wasn't no goddamned myna bird in that cage. Where you going? - I'm trying to tell you something.

Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan

DAWN.

Oh, they think I'm nuts. Well, not exactly, I mean, my mother thinks I'm a little bit nuts, but I happen to think that she's nuts too, so there's no harm done there, right? But I guess generally they're proud... I was near the top of my class at the Academy... I just... I just fucked up with this prick, that's all. And now I'm screwed. Because I obviously really misjudged him, you know? And for all I know he's been shootin' his mouth off all over the Department. And it wouldn't have been so hard to avoid the whole thing in the first place. But these guys... I mean, they seen so much horrible shit, it's like they don't give a damn about anything either. But they know you still do. And they wanna like, stamp it out of you or something. And like, test you, all the time. And it's always like: "Hey - you're not men, you're not women: You're cops. Act like cops and you'll be treated like cops." Only then it turns out they got a pool going as to who's gonna fuck you first, OK? And that's fine. I can handle it. You make them respect you. But then somebody decent comes along, and goes out of his way to make life easier for you - and I didn't even ask him, because I didn't expect anything different - I didn't want anything different. And then, Oh my God, it's true love - except when he comes down in that elevator, just watch: because I'm gonna be the one who's gonna be supposed to act like I'm a cop! I mean... And then I got you.

The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut, & The Slaughter Of 12 Hit Carols In A Pear Tree by William Gibson

MARY.

Joseph, I don't care if I tell lies! If you can't hear the truth with your own ears, fine, I can do without it, because there's something more important, and that is I'm going to have a baby, can you hear that, I'm going to have a baby and I need help and it needs help, and I'm going to get what it needs with or without truth! Now I'm not worried what people say, I'm trying to like them better but they're such dumbbells who cares, I do care what he hears them say. I don't want him to hear that word. Bastard, and that's one reason I'm going to marry you, the others are you're a strong and good man, I like a lot better since we talked, and yes, a good provider, so he'll be healthy, and another is you're smarter than me, he'll learn everything you know about what poetry is and the prophets and love you too, because the most important is - you love me. Now. What do you get. I'm young and I work like a horse, I cook for you and wash your clothes and keep this house spotless, I don't turn a thing upside down till you say go ahead turn it upside down, and I sleep wherever you say, and with you if you still want me, but not till this baby is born, and you come home to me and him instead of this empty house and we will both love you, it'll be full of the noises of - all of us growing, and I have never been with another man and I will never be with another man until I die, if you will have us. And that's final. You think it's over. I am here tonight, and thank you, I'll come back tomorrow.

The Dinner Party by Neil Simon

YVONNE.

... So, you're looking well, Albert... At least your back is looking well... Except your shoulders are sagging. That's always a sign that you're unhappy. When I first left, you swore that you would never speak to me as long as you lived. I thought it was just a figure of speech. But you haven't spoken in a year so I guess it's a figure of dead silence. I know it hurts when someone leaves and breaks up a marriage. Two marriages... but I never meant to leave you twice. I was satisfied with just leaving you once... But you insisted we try it again and we did and it didn't work again... So why am I being punished for being right? I know what shaking your head means. It means that "I just don't get it. That I never got it" ... Well, if you've never said it in words, Albert, what is there to get? When you've never given what you claim I haven't gotten? ... And when you look up at the ceiling, it means, "What's the point of talking to her? She lives in her own world" ... Perhaps that's because you think there's only one world. Your world... And because your world is very angry with me, I decided to stay in my world, hoping one day we could step out of our worlds and enter the real world... Don't look at me like that, Albert. I hate that look... If I called the police, they could arrest you for looking at me like that. I admit we did talk during the first and second marriage... Some... You were so hesitant about expressing yourself or revealing yourself... I know you got very angry when I suggested you find a doctor who specializes in "communicatively challenged" people... You were always sweet and gentle, Albert, but we had a vague marriage... It was like a window that needed washing Something was out there but I could never see what... The only thing you were clear about was your silence and your silence was deafening... Why such a cruel punishment to me, Albert? Why? Because I walked out of the door twice, yes, I understand... But you know what I would have preferred, Albert? ...That when you rang my doorbell, I would open it and you would call me the vilest names in the world... and then you would throw foul things at my feet... Things that even animals would walk around... and having said and done that, you'd be finished with me... and the past would be over with... is it possible for you to do that for me, Albert? Please? All right, then don't speak to me. But do you have to seek me out and confront me everywhere? On the street, in shops, at the movies... If you'll release me from this torture, Albert, I'll give you anything you want... Not that I have much because I never took a penny from you for the divorce... Each divorce... But I'll beg, borrow or steal just to hear your voice again. Say something, Albert. Move your lips, carve it in stone, drop leaflets from a plane, write graffiti on my face with chalk. But say something, damn it!! You're spelling something... Never!... I see. Never, never, never, never, yes I got it, Albert... Well, there's nothing left to say, is there? You're leaving, yes, I understand... It was wonderful speaking to your finger, Albert.

The Dinner Party by Neil Simon

MARIETTE.

Why should I write what the public doesn't want? And I'm glad the public does because I can't write any better than I do... when you read pieces to me from Voltaire and Camus and Proust and Sartre, I absorbed it without even knowing I was listening. Who today can write like they did? But in my own small way, I learned how to write a story, compose a sentence, how to keep a reader's interest before they fall asleep... You taught it all to me, Claude. By osmosis. I think your anger comes from thinking I stole from you... If I stole anything, it was your passion for the written world. Maybe it's the only thing in the world we still share.

The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang

MARGARET.

All my children live home, it's so nice. Emily's here, back from the rest home. And Joanie's here because her marriage hasn't worked out and somebody has to watch all those children for her while she's working, poor thing. And Tom's here sometimes, when he gets fired or when his spastic colon is acting up really badly. Then he always goes off again, but I bet he ends up here for good eventually! The only one who hasn't moved back home is Betsy, because she's so stubborn, but maybe she'll end up here too someday. I just love having the children home, otherwise there'd be on one to talk to - unless I wanted to learn sign language with Paul. Sometimes I'm afraid if I had to choose between having my children succeed in the world and live away from home, or having them fail and live home, that I'd choose the latter. But luckily, I haven't had to choose!

The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang

BETTE.

First I was a tomboy. I used to climb trees and beat up my brother, Tom. Then I used to try to break my sister Joanie's voice box because she liked to sing. She always scratched my though, so instead I tried to play Emily's cello. Except I don't have a lot of musical talent, but I'm very popular. And I know more about the cello than people who don't know anything. I don't like the cello, it's too much work and besides, keeping my legs open that way made me feel funny. I asked Emily if it made her feel funny and she didn't know what I meant; and then when I told her she cried for two whole hours and then went to confession twice, just in case the priest didn't understand her the first time. Dopey Emily. She means well. Booey! I'm pregnant! Actually I couldn't be, because I'm a virgin. A married man tried to have an affair with me, but he was married and so it would have been pointless. I didn't know he was married until two months ago. Then I met Booey, sort of on the rebound. He seems fine though. Booey! I went to confession about the cello practicing, but I don't think the priest heard me. He didn't say anything. He didn't even give me a penance. I wonder if nobody was in there. But as long as your conscience is all right, then so is your soul. Booey, come on!

Crossin' the Line by Phil Bosakowski

ELLIE.

Let's go back in time, to England eight hundred years ago, when there were two ways you could get a conviction. One was Henry II's way: law's broken, the community prosecutes. This is called The Accusational. The other way was a church favorite: law's broken, an official's appointed, and he has the power to make you confess. To anything. This is called The Inquisitional. But who controls the Inquisitor? What if he doesn't like you, what if you didn't do it? A crime's been committed, and he wants you to confess. What if he makes life uncomfortable for you until you do? I'm no fan of physical pain. If some official said "we know you're guilty, and we'll put our cigarettes out on your neck, your face, your genitals until you own up," I'll admit anything. Talk to people from POW camps, of Chile, or even here. It's happened. That's why we have laws. Because we're not perfect. So we have this clause in the Fifth Amendment, thanks to Henry II and James Madison: nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. This preserves two particulars we hold sacred: first, your personal privacy from government intrusion; and second, the Accusational process. They prosecute you. You don't prosecute yourself!

Summer of the Aliens by Louis Nowra

GRANDMA.

You must kill me when I get old. Your grandfather was older than me and I had to clean him. Dribbles down his mouth. Earwax. Sleepdust. Urine. Shit. His body was out of control. Vomit. Lots of vomit. Diarrhoea. That's old age. Put a pillow over my face; I won't struggle. No one will know you've done it. Not those new fangled sponge ones. Make sure the pillow's filled with feathers. I'll plug up all my holes so you won't have to clean up the shit and blood. Excuse my French. I wish I could sleep. I lay awake on my couch listening, not to the voices, which have thankfully gone, but to the house cracking. Don't ever, ever believe any person when they say they're enjoying their old age.

Summer of the Aliens by Louis Nowra

DULCIE.

You landed wrongly. Come up, see the UFOs from here. A caterpillar pod. That's what we are: caterpillars waiting to turn into angels. Shhhh.... An angel is passing. He's stopping and he's listening to us and we explain the beauty and suffering of our world but we can't explain it properly. We only mumble, stumble, not make sense. The angel understands though and he presses his lips against my hand. He says a word into my hand. What is that word, Lewis? The angel is hurt, you aren't listening? Allah, be praised! I've decided to become a Moslem so I don't have to go to Church with mum. She doesn't know how to deal with it. I said that if she forces me to go to mass, I'm going to bend down in the aisle and shout out 'Allah, be praised!' Embarrassing, eh? You're taking me to the fancy dress party.

BFF "Best Friends Forever" by Anna Ziegler

LAUREN.

I mean, it's not like he could expect me to buy a new dress, right? My mom was like if you really need one Lauren but it'll be an early birthday present and do you really want that? And I don't want that. I don't want to cut into my birthday present. It's just that, well, Julie thinks I look fat in pink and I should really have a cute little black dress. She says everyone should have a little black cocktail dress. It says so in Mademoiselle, so it must be true. On the other hand, why not be a little different, right? I'm torn. I mean, I don't want to just blend in. I mean, do you think my lashes are too long? I want it to look like I'm wearing makeup but not nearly as much as I'm actually wearing. On the other hand, should it look like I'm wearing it at all? Jason went out with Maggie before me and she never wore any makeup because she has like perfect skin. What a whore. Aren't you going to say anything?

Plucker by Alena Smith

ALEXIS.

Look - I know you're in love with her. But I need to say this. I need to say it to you now so I don't have to stand up at your wedding and say it in front of everyone. I think you gave up on yourself when you met Thomasina. And I think she let you give up. There are things about you - important things - that Thomasina is never going to accept. And you've let her pick and choose. It's like she got to pluck out the parts of Julian she likes, and throw away the parts of Julian she doesn't like. You used to be made up of all these parts - and now you're - simpler. You let her simplify you. But I miss the old Julian. I miss the complicated Julian - the one who wasn't toned down, airbrushed, streamlined - the one who wasn't so fucking happy all the time!

Plucker by Alena Smith

THOMASINA.

Alexis, you don't understand. She's so fucking involved! She wants to butt in on everything. I'm like, Francine, it's not your job to plan this wedding. I already have a mother, thanks, and my mother will plan this wedding! It's supposed to be the bride's family who's in charge - and no offense, but in this case, we're the ones with the money! So why not just let us do it? But she's like, oh, I don't have a daughter, and this is my only change, and please let me help, blah blah. And I'm like oh my god if this woman has any say in this event the whole thing will go down in flames! She has such bad taste, Alexis. It's like a sick joke how bad her taste is, honestly. And my mother has perfect taste! And so does Julian, actually, which is one reason why I'm in love with him, but how somebody with perfect taste could have emerged from Francine's tacky womb is a total mystery. My sister says that all of Julian's taste has been formed in direct opposition to his mother and that's how it happened. But now it's like there's no escaping from her. She's like Ursula the fucking sea witch, and she keeps popping up out of the ocean and trying to drown me. Every word that comes out of her mouth is completely insane. Like - she keeps talking about a pot luck. I'm sorry, a POT LUCK WEDDING?! Can you imagine?! Like I'm going to send out invitations that say, hey, come to our wedding, and bring along a bucket of mac and cheese! Like hey, you know, why bother having a wedding at all! Why don't we just have a fucking tag sale? But she just keeps going on and on about how a friend of hers gave her kid a pot luck wedding, and it was so inclusive, and the whole neighborhood came, and you know, of course they saved lots of money. I'm like, Francine, we aren't concerned about money. But she won't drop it! She's such a fucking Jew!

Sophistry by Jonathan Marc Sherman

QUINTANA.

I know I must seem like this reactionary authority figure, nothing more nor less. I know that's how I'm perceived. I sometimes wish each student could step into my shoes and run this institution for eve fifteen minutes, see what it means... to try running something valid - something valuable - in today's world, in this climate. It is not ideal or simple as you - or I - would have it be. You brought up the weather. Okay, let's talk about the weather. Let's imagine what it would be like if constantly, throughout the year - not just four times, not just Winter-Spring-Summer-Fall but all the time, everything around you changed and kept on changing. It's your responsibility to deal authoritatively with each change, while not taking so much time that you're unable to deal with the next change when it arises... You try to be as fair as possible, but - inevitably - somebody feels slighted, not everybody is satisfied, not everybody accepts your judgements, you simply have to. Or nothing gets done. You do the best you can, based on what you believe to be true, based on what your experience, your knowledge, your life tells you is true, and you hope beyond hope that the failures you do have - and you will have failures - well, you hope beyond hope that your failures will enlighten you, rather than destroy you. My husband wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life in one place - in one chair, or so sometimes it seems - but as for me, I cannot travel enough. I love going to new places, exploring... And yet, I'll tell you: There is nothing like springtime in New England.

The Dream of the Burning Boy by David West Read

RACHEL.

I was in Art today, and we were supposed to paint a perspective landscape or something, but I drew a picture of like a bloody heart and flames and like angry letters that spelling out "brother," and Miss Craig thought I was like really unstable, so I got an A. Yeah, and in Drama we're doing this like improv role-playing thing, which is supposed to be really funny, but I was in this one scene, and I was like a farmer's wife or something, and Gary Luk was trying to sell out robot goat, and we were arguing about it and people were laughing, and then I just got really into is, and I was like, "No! We need this robot goat! The whole fucking robot farm depends on it!" And I started crying, like... not real tears, but I kind of collapsed and hid my face so it looked like I was crying, so everyone got really quiet. I was all curled up in a ball, and I was just thinking, like... how long can I stay like this before someone actually makes me get up? Two and a half minutes. Dead silence. Totally awkward. Finally, Mr. Salvatti comes over and starts like... rubbing my back, and I look up and he's got tears in his eyes. Real tears. So yeah, all of a sudden I'm like a straight-A student. You're not laughing.

Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World by Eve Ensler

GIRL 5.

So we're lying there kissing and feeling each other up and it's getting hotter and hotter and I'm pretending I'm into it but all I'm thinking about is how I'm going to ask him, how I am going to say it. I'll make him uptight. He'll think I'm a nerd. I know all boys hate them. It breaks up the motion, the momentum. He's nervous already. He'll lose it. Seriously. He couldn't have AIDS. He's too young. He's too handsome. He's too athletic. He dresses too well. He's too smart I mean he really knows computers. I've known him my whole life. Maybe I'll ask him the next time. Then I remember this girl in my class. She was really cute. She was going to marry this guy. He didn't tell her he slept with someone else. He didn't tell her 'cause he didn't want her to break up with him. He didn't tell her, and she trusted him, and he gave her HIV. So I say, just like that, "Would you mind using a condom, please?" (I sound just like my mother." And he says, without even missing a beat, "Sure, I have one right here." And I think, OMG!! That wasn't so bad. Kind of easy. And he's clearly done this before. And he says, just like that, "This is my first time. I'm kind of awkward." And I start laughing, and he says, "Are you laughing at me?" And I say. "No, I'm laughing 'cause I'm awkward too and I'm happy you're like me." And we kiss some more, and then later he takes out the condom, and we laugh 'cause condoms are really funny-looking. He's very thoughtful - he got a tropical-flavored one, 'cause he knows I like that kind of gum.

Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World by Eve Ensler

GIRL 3.

There's Julie. "Hi. Hi" Kiss kiss. She hates my guts. She does. Uh huh. Look at her cruising my tragic boots. I wish my feet were bombs. Blow up now. Boom! I bought the brown leather riding boots like you said. Even though I'm allergic to horses. But then they changed rights after that. Julie says riding boots are so pre-Gaga. Now, they all have Louis Vuitton flip-flops. My mother will not even consider it. She doesn't get it. She constantly jeopardizes my position. I mean. She's the reason I can't keep up. I hate my mother and I hate these painful riding boots even more. It happened yesterday. I completely blew it. I was accidentally nice to Wendy Apple in front of them. I forgot and hugged her right there. I lost myself. Wendy is so out. She wears these really wrong clothes and is so loud and has a crazy person's laugh. So embarrassing, and you can't believe how she dances. It's so... She says, I am touching the music. Julie saw me hug Wendy and did the big eyeball-roll in front of all of the posse, like I was demented or pathetic, and then she turned her back on me, So did they. Like her back-up dancers. So I got mad at Wendy. I shoved her a little and turned my head and told Wendy to stay away from me She just looked at me, stared in shock like I was an alien. Then she started crying. That made me feel pretty shitty because I kind of like her a lot. She is super smart and draws these amazing pictures of slutty angels. But it made Julie like me again. Later Julie gave me the same kind of glitter lipstick that Beyoncé wore at the MTV Music Awards. I mean, it was a little grungy, but Julie had only used it for two weeks. But she is suspicious. So are the others. The word is out. I am so not charismatic, like Julie. She is amazing. She just walks into a room and it's like magnet-Julie. She and Bree rule the posse. Julie's stomach is totally wholly abbed and flat like Gwen Stefani and she's got that "I can't help it but I'm perfect" smile. Bree's hair is actually a little frizzy but she's got the coolest voice, all deep like Miley. Bree brought me into the posse 'cause I helped her with her history exam. She definitely regrets it now I am the contaminator. Loser girl virus. The reason they hate Wendy Apple so much is 'cause she was one of them once. Higher up than Bree. I mean she could have been a Julie. What Wendy did was like revolutionary. She just gave it up. I mean she walked away. She said it was stupid. And she told everyone their secrets. Now even the ugliest and fattest girls know about their padded bras. You know, Wendy wrote me a note in third period and said she wasn't crying for herself. She said she was crying for me, 'cause I started out so nice and now I am so desperate. But I'm not free like Wendy or talented. I am so tragically in the middle. Not one outstanding characteristic. I have nothing going for me... but them. Wait a minute. There's no more room at the table. Tiffany was supposed to get there first and save me a seat. But Tiffany is sitting in between Julie and Bree. Tiffany, what about my seat? Don't squeeze me out. Tiffany, stop pretending I'm not here. Oh look, look. Julie is braiding your hair. So now you're Julie's friend. Tiffany! Tiffany, turn around! I am here. I'm not dead What? Bree, don't cut me off. Don't give me the posse slam. Don't do that. Bree, remember I helped you pass the exam? I gave you the answers 'cause you're not that smart. I know you were really generous to let me in because I am so utterly insignificant. I know I don't have good hair. I'll get it. I'll iron it. I promise I'll do whatever you want. Please. Please just let me sit down. Make room on the bench. Let me in. Don't push me out, please I've done everything. What's wrong with me? Why won't you like me? I know I'm ugly, I know that I'm fat, I know I'm shit shit shit. Please, please, please let me in. Let me in. Oh my God, what just happened. What did I do? I'm done. Destroyed. Look how they're all looking at me. This would be the moment for instant girl death. I'm dead anyway. Maybe a raging comet will burn me to smithereens, or the earth will open and red-hot lava will swallow my whole, or maybe I will just have an acute heart attack. Life over. Died so young. Died so pathetic. Died before I kissed a boy or drove a stick-shift or waxed my legs or developed a taste for sushi or discovered I was a genius writer. Died in a smelly, boring cafeteria. Suddenly Wendy Apple appears, like my very own loud, badly dressed guardian angel. She laughs her wild crazy laugh and says FUCK 'EM, and right there in the cafeteria we are touching the music.

Duck Hunter Shoots Angel by Mitch Albom

KANSAS.

Well, one day, these two guys pull up and ask Maynard for all the dry ice in the store. Maynard gets a little curious, so he offers to pump the gas for them, but while they're inside, he pops open their trunk and discovers a blindfolded man with a gag in his mouth, and his wrists and ankles all tied up like in them gangster movies? And he figures they're gonna kill him and use the dry ice to keep the body from stinkin'? So he lets the air outa their rear tires, and he ties a big old clove of garlic under the bumper! Then as the guys drive off, he sics his dog Cletus to follow the scent, and he calls the cops 'cause he knows the tires are gonna give out and Cletus gotta real good nose for garlic and you can hear him barking from a mile away. Well! The cops come in, guns a blazin'! Only they find out it was a fraternity prank from the college up in Elmont, and the dry ice was for a keg party, and when they open the trunk, Cletus bites the blindfolded kid in the leg. Oh. He was so embarrassed, he went to Rockville and got hit by a bus. Yep. And that's when my mama took over Gasmart. She's behind in her payments a whole bunch now, but I'm not supposed to say anything.

She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen

FARRAH.

Look, you overgrown sack of stupid, just cause I'm pretty don't mean I won't fuck you the fuck up! Seriously, did you see a sign on the way in here that said "Petting Zoo". Then please do not try to fucking touch me! Not get out of my magically enchanted forest, freakazoids, before I decide to go all Faerie berzerker all over your ugly asses. You think I'm supposed to sound nice? Nice? Yo, do I sound Canadian to you? Ain't no one here gonna be nice all the damn 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? Kicking the crap out of any lame-ass adventurers who decide to trespass on my magically enchanted forest!

Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

KENDRA.

Yes! Because, after Austin told me he wasn't editing the print piece and I realized you were a fucking liar, he was just like, "Why don't we just call Kara in here and you can give her your notes yourself," and so, like, in stalks Kara, who I guess had been eavesdropping and she's like, "What notes?" And I just point out all of the liberties she took with Sarah Tweed's sexuality and, I guess, this strikes a nerve because Kara is insecure and knows she's not supposed to be writing this, so she starts screaming at me, accusing me of being homophobic, which is not fair because I totally have a gay brother, and then Michael comes over from next door and he's like, "What's going on?" And Austin's all, "Kendra is just giving Kara some notes on the Sarah Tweed piece," then Michael's like, "Are these coming from Eleanor?" And I'm just like, "No, they're coming from me, why would they be coming from Eleanor?" And then the room gets really quiet and Michael's like, "Because Eleanor's editing the piece." And I have to make up some excuse about how Eleanor's been in meetings all morning and I look like a fucking asshole when you and Kara are the fucking assholes!

Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

KENDRA.

If you had half a brain, you'd look around and see everyone in charge is pushing sixty, or just past it, and they aren't going anywhere and they are certainly not thinking about you. This bunch of postwar glutton-babies all got spoiled on the riches of being an American when being an American was basically the Best and, by freak chance, just happened to discover New York when it was also the Best and apartments were like a dollar. And now, all these decades later, here we are. Not that the publishing world's collapsed and contracting all around us, mostly because these morons were too bust bluffing and boozing their way through the eighties/nineties, as opposed to, I don't know, anticipating the internet - Now that all these martini lunches have all dried up, suddenly these boomers in charge are like, "Wait, being a good editor and maintaining a sustainable media industry is actually a skill that requires work? What is this work? How do you do it? Can I do it now?" And, in the meantime, who has historically been doing all the work? The poor suckers born a generation later. Their assistants who are not stuck as their middle-management with assistants of their own - i.e., us - some of whom think they're going to rise through the rank like their bosses did without realizing that these editors were all assistants, again, by freak chance, in the exact historical window when this city actually accidentally had opportunity in it and not just the illusion of it. And now everything's all constipated. And do you know why? Because people actually died back then. There was something called turnover. Now these boomers aren't dying and neither is the middle management. And they all know it. And, if we're not careful, they're going to starve us out.

Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

KENDRA.

Ani, do you know how long has Gloria been here? Life fifteen years. Which means that not only has she sat around in copy for over a decade losing her mind because no one here has the balls here to tell people they'll never be promoted or to just fire them and put them out of their misery - but Gloria's also had the good fortune of getting to know and watch who knows however many generations of assistants come through here and go on to become some hotshot editor or reporter somewhere else. I'm willing to put money on the fact that Dean thought some of those people would be there and he would get to starfuck until the sun came up. Why do you think he actually stayed the whole time? But he obviously miscalculated. And why? Because Gloria is the office freak and no one wants to hang with the office freak outside of the office, which Dean would have noticed if he wasn't so desperate and drunk, and we all know heavy drinking impairs your judgement, which brings me back to my original point: "schmoozers become boozers." I just made that up. If Nan had half a brain, she would take away his expense account and put that money towards rehab. And, honestly, for the both of them That woman's about as big of a lush as he is. The only difference is, somehow, she manages to work through the hangovers. I think I've had a lot of caffeine.

The Motherfucker With The Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis

VERONICA.

I can't do this no more, okay?! It's over for real! So please don't gimme no static about it, 'cuz I'll wrap a fuckin' bedsheet 'round my head and go straight up Bin Laden on you - I'll fuckin' destroy you! And I don't wanna do that, but if you ever fuckin' come back here again, that's how it's gonna be! And I'm being nice about this 'cuz it ain't like we had nothin', it was something. It was messed up, and messed me up, and basically I'm ready to hurl myself off a building any fuckin' minute now, but I'm not saying what we had was nothin' because it wasn't nothin', but now it's over, so leggo my Eggo and have a nice life nowhere the fuck hear me, okay?! Don't say goodbye. Just go.

The Motherfucker With The Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis

VERONICA.

Who was who?! There wasn't no "who," 'cuz no one did nothin' over here, and you're out of your mind playin' fuckin' Sherlock Holmes 'cuz I don't know why! Whaddya doing? Jackie, whaddya doing? Whaddya doing? Whaddya - gonna drink? A little misunderstanding happens because you're fuckin' stupid, and now you're gonna pick up a drink and get your ass violated back upstate and ruin everything 'cuz you're a jealous maniac with no leg to stand on? Callate! Look, let's just go there, to the pie place, and we'll have, like, some pie, and we'll just, like, talk, or not even talk, we'll just eat pie first and be. And after that, we'll talk. You have got this wrong, Jackie. You're so far out of line you're in Zimbabwe or some shit, but I think maybe cooler heads could prevail on both our parts at the pie place, so let's just go there. I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to put the ghetto on hold and eat some fuckin' pie with you, if you're willing to entertain the notion that you're a fuckin' retard ex-con who almost blew it 'cuz you got an imagination like - I dunno - Dr. fuckin' Seuss an' shit. Okay?

Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris

LINDSEY.

Well you're being an idiot. And in case you hadn't noticed, the rest of the world has begun a more sophisticated conversation about this topic than you apparently are qualified to participate in at this incredible moment in history. I mean, I used to date a black guy. So what? I mean, seriously. Steve. Wake up. I want to say this: I want to say I feel angry. And I'm basically kind of hurt by the implication that's been made that, just because we want to live as your neighbors and raise a child alongside yours, that somehow, in the process of doing that, we've had our ethics called into question. Because that is hurtful.

Last Gas by John Cariani

CHERRY-TRACY.

Those jeezless people aren't qualified to be here, in my book. Moose are comin' out from a long winter, and they don't know to look for 'em. Next thing they know, their spiffy little car's goin' right under a moose. Take the top of their vehicle off, and their head right with it. And they never see it comin'. 'Cause it gets dark up here. People from away don't understand that. One of the last places in the country where it gets dark like this. Did you know that? Oh, yeah. Read it in my National Geographic. If the Pilgrims landed, say, just a few miles west of here right now, it'd be as dark here at night as it was in 16-whenever-they-landed-20. True Dark, they call it. Funny thing, darkness: It's not there, but you can't see through it. You ever think about that? Only way you can see what's goin' on in it is if you shine a light. But... by the time you shine a light... well, you only see the leftovers of what was goin' on in it. 'Cause it's not dark anymore. Makes you wonder what you're missin' out on. In all the True Dark we got up here. Somethin'. It's somethin'. I'm missin' somethin'. So: You sure nothin' illicit's goin' on in here, you two?

Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond

VALERIE.

I've been thinking about something you said the other night... about helping our people, or something... and first I was like, "Who the fuck does he think he is?"... And then, I was like, "Who the fuck does he think he is?"... But, what do I do... to further whatever? ...And then I was like, "Fuck you," ...to ask me to justify myself. For being an artist. I really kind of liked you. I did. It's not very often you meet someone, anyone, who's smart and funny and quick. I like quick... and you push back a little... and that's nice... to a point. I really liked that you're Black and handsome and "articulate." There were quotes around "articulate." I'm a "good girl." I'm the girl who went to church, and kept my virginity until junior year of college, and felt guilty about it after. I'm the girl that pretty much anything I do or say is just because I'm earnest and honest, and I was never the girl who knows what not to say and how to be disinterested enough to get the guys like you. I'm not slick... and I say the wrong things.

Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond

VALERIE.

Hi. I'm Valerie Johnston and I'll be reading for Shalonda. I left my headshot with the monitor... but if you need one I... OK then. "...I was lovin' you Lenny. All that time you was lookin' at me, an' I thought you was lookin' into my soul. An' you wasn't seein' me at all. An' I was lookin' at you, an' I knowed you seed somethin'. I knowed there's a man in there, an' I could see him, even if you couldn't. And Mama said, she said, 'Naw girl, he don' love you... he only love you long as you give him what he need, stay scaret, an' stay under 'is foot.' An' I toll." I toll... I toll? I toll her... I toll... OOOHhh... OK. I told her, OK. "An' I toll her she was wrong an' I toll her." I got it, sorry, where should I begin? No, I can just start over. I'm so sorry, my agent didn't send the right sides, so I'm reading this cold. I was toll to prepare for Mary, the social worker. Oh... I seemed a better fit for this role... So my agent did tell you that I have a call at two. I'm doing Enemy of the People at the... Sure thing... From the top then. "I was lovin' you Lenny. All that time you was lookin' at me, an' I thought you was lookin' into my soul. An' I-" ...Oh, OK. Sure. Thank you...

Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond

GINNY.

No. No. She gave me the coupon last week. I spent three hundred seventy-five dollars, and the sales girl gave me... hold on. Here. Look, here's the receipt. Who? I don't know her name? I come in here regularly and spend enough money, that on the rare occasion I'm given a coupon, and am told that I will be able to redeem said coupon, I expect the common courtesy of... Yes... it does say that it's expired, but I didn't look at it. I was told that it would be honored. I could have used it then, but I ordered the skirt, the skirt that you didn't have in my size and I was told that you would honor this... Can you back up please. Thank you. ...So... I can just leave this here, but wouldn't you really rather have the commission that quibble with me over, let's see, what would that be... ten percent to two-fifty... What is that, like twenty-five dollars? See the big picture. You'd lose a regular customer and commission over the twenty-five dollars you think you're saving a company that doesn't give you benefits. Thank you. Visa.

Voice From the High School by Peter Dee

MARY.

Remember in grammar school, when we all gave out valentines? When you'd give out twenty and you'd get one? Happened to you too, huh? Good. Anyway I'm really glad we don't do that in high school. There's some advantages to being sophisticated. Fourth grade. That was the year I gave out twenty and only got one. From Ursula Pitt who misspelled her own name. And mine. Mary Jones. That was a horrible day. I went up on the roof when I got home and screamed at the pigeons so I wouldn't cry. I really hate Valentine's Day. Thank God in high school we don't have to go through that dumb cardboard box covered with cheap crepe paper and phony lace routine. You know, where you put your valentines in and then later they give them out and the pretty girls get fifty and keep walking back and forth to their seats like grinning idiots. That time that I accidentally tripped Celeste Jordan with her nose in her fifteenth one and not even looking where was going, the entire class turned on me. Said I did it on purpose. That was a lie. I know who I did it to on purpose! Cassy McGuire in sixth grade when she hollered; "Oh it's from Richie Forbes." Like it was a big surprise to her. A big huge, overblown, tasteless valentine that anybody with class would be ashamed to get. She cut her knee when she went down. So as you can see it's not a day that brings out the best in me. Christmas I can handle and New Years Eve is no big problem but whoever invented Valentine's Day I'd like to smash in the mouth for the grief it gives me. Used to give me. I'm past all that now. Course we won't go into Prom night and all that stupid nonsense that puts me up on the roof with the pigeons on Spring nights. I'd rather be doing something more constructive with my life. But at least in high school Valentine's Day is no big deal. Oh sure I see the private exchanges and hugs around the lockers but that doesn't bother me. It just reminded me of the bad days. In high school I'm happy to be independent, beyond all that garbage that they no longer openly foist on us. If I ever have any power I'm going to banish Valentine's Day parties in grammar schools because it's very damaging to kids. Really. If I wasn't so intelligent I could be a very bitter person about those formative years I was on display as a loser. It's barbaric. Think about it.

Oh, Gastronomy! by Steve Moulds

SALLY.

A few years ago, my mother began her owl ritual. Just up and declared it one day, like she was the Master of the Revels. "We're starting a new tradition," she told the four of us. "I'm calling it The Whitley Family Feast. And it's going to kick Thanksgiving's ass." Janet's always been a competitive person - not so much to keep up with the Joneses of the world but as a way of silence the gears grinding constantly in her head. So it's not like the idea itself was unusual. But something about the way she announced it felt a little tense, even for her. When I saw that look in her eyes, I realized Thanksgiving was going to have trouble sitting down that year. You should have seen the food at this thing. Sweet corn from my cousin Tom's farm, slathered in homemade honey butter. My aunt Judy's raspberry walnut salad. Our neighbor Paul's pesto risotto. And the desserts. Bourbon pecan pie - a family recipe. Red velvet cupcakes from the neighborhood bakery, brought personally by the neighborhood baker. My grandma's banana pudding. I mean, this was an embarrassing about of first-world excess, all topped off with the most indulgent touch of all - an entire pig, splayed across the grill, lacking only an apple in its mouth to make the picture complete. This must have been what the harvest was like in the olden days - serfs taking the smallest of breaks from their unsatisfying lives to congratulate themselves with more food than they could ever consume. If only they had barbecue sauce in the middle ages. But as disgusting as I wanted to find it, there was something about all those people being in one place that sounded... lovely. If you couldn't tell by now, my mother had invited anyone she had ever met to partake. Distant cousins, old grade school teachers, acquaintances she hadn't seen in years and didn't like even when she knew them. Janet must have wracked her brain trying to get every last person there. And the thing is, it worked. Everybody came. Everybody but me. I was in a studio apartment in Anchorage, Alaska, eating my third straight day of reheated spaghetti. I did see the pictures. Janet was helpful enough to email them, six at a time. No text in the message. Just attachments. The subject line? "Whitley Family Feast (Minus One)." Subtle, Mom. And I knew why she planned the stupid thing in the first place. I mean, I told her I was going to give Alaska six months before I would even think about moving back, and she schedules it for seven months after I go? She wants it her way, and I... don't. Maybe I was trying to punish her. And when the second Family Feast happened and Janet didn't send any pictures, I thought, "Okay. She got the message." But I haven't been home in almost three years. And I guess after this one, we can only have the Feast every other year, because of the economy. And because Dad is sick. So I decided to travel the 3,110 miles home. Which isn't really an accurate number, because that's if you go in a straight line, which I've never been good at. And I haven't told anyone I'm coming, though I think my sister Mary has guessed. But the flights are all delayed. And I just wanna get home for dinner.

Power Lunch by Alan Ball

WAITER.

How dare you make such an assumption about me! I am not a homosexual! I am a normal, red-blooded young woman with traditional values and faith in God and country! And just because I'm slightly androgynous, you immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm a lesbian and make a pass at me? You are way out of line, sister. First you confuse me with propaganda about how centuries of male oppression is really a smokescreen for men's monumental fear of women and then you promise me intimacy that men are incapable of, drawing me into your loathsome, unnatural world until I surrender to unspeakable, base desires. I am not interested in wallowing in filth and degradation! I am only interested in using sex to snag a rich husband!

Power Lunch by Alan Ball

WOMAN.

Excuse me. I need to express some of the anger, frustration, humiliation and resentment you have made me feel, in the short time that we haven't known each other - And if I don't express them, they will remain bottled up until they erupt in some completely inappropriate action which, if I were a man, would probably result in violence towards other weaker than myself, but since I am a woman, will more than likely be self-destructive. Frankly, I would prefer to avoid such an unpleasant scenario, having spent a large portion of my adult life - not to mention my adult income - attempting to overcome various self-destructive tendencies that were programmed into my nature by an extremely neurotic mother that I live in the hellish fear of becoming. So I am choosing, for my own sake, to express these feelings to you. Good. Now. You are a despicable little man and you do deserve to rot in hell. What's more, that haircut is unfortunate, it really accentuates the cheapness of your suit, and I know you think that tie says I'm-so-hip-underneath-this-corporate-exterior, but what it really says is, I-have-the-taste-of-a-cantaloupe-and-what's-more-I-need-therapy. In short, your presentation skills are laughably amateurish. I am in no way attracted to you.

The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson

BETTY.

The Norwegians. And their Lutheran Church. Home of orphan and refugee relocation services all over the world. Their revered social services. Fuck me. Fuck them. The Norwegians and their gravlaks. Does anyone even know what that is? An alien word for, I don't know, something fish-like. And fermented trout. Fermented. Trout. And lutefisk - fish steeped in lye and then covered in ashes. I mean, my god, fish, lye and ashes. Fish, Lye and Ashes. It sounds like a band name from the 1970s. Like, a white R&B band. And their perpetually cheerful snow suits and their stupid local customs. They will stop in any weather and help a stranger change their tire. I just want to scream at them, I know you don't really mean that. You cannot love people who make gravlaks. You cannot love people who make lutefisk. You cannot FUCK people who make elderberry wine, not an actually fuck, not a true heartfelt beautiful intimate fuck, as I discovered. Late. Or lingonberries, Lingonberries. If that doesn't bring up dirty images in your head, I don't know what would. What lover would let you serve them lingonberries? And my god, hotdish: meat and Stovetop drenched in mushroom soup and covered in tater tots. That's not even - that's like casserole death. But Norwegians hand this "food" out in the neighborhood when new people move in. When there are potlucks. They think hordish is welcoming. They think lingonberries are - Well. These are fearful, terrifying, terrible, very frightening things to serve people. If I could have hired him to kill himself, it would be over by now.

The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson

BETTY.

The Norwegians. They are insidious. Dangerous. Clever. Strong. They are weather proofed, as children, to not mind extreme cold or large flying bugs. Or Canada. They don't mind being close to Canada. They are insulated, somehow. Well trained for outdoor survival. Even babies. They kayak. Babies! Yes. They ski. It is like they are all little baby Navy SEALs. They learn to drive on frozen rivers, they learn how to slam on the brakes and spin wildly into the snow. Not babies. But teenagers. And on purpose, not like the rest of us, as an act of rebellion, or inadvertently because we don't know how to brake, but sanctioned, organized, they are trained to do it the right way. All their driver education classes take place outside in the winter on frozen rivers. All of them. On purpose. Training little Norwegian Jason Bournes. They are well fed, despite the limited window for agriculture, but they rarely get fat. In fact, they appear wholesome. And charming. And handsome. And perfect. And pure. But they're not. Don't be fooled. They prioritize social services, like elder care - they even call it elder care - and drug rehab for teenagers and independent living programs for the mentally ill - and they give to the arts with an unshakeable ferocity, even in difficult economic times, even in deficit years, as if they actually believe in those things, in the worth of those things, in the benefits of community. I asked one, I asked why, why these donations, why all this money going to artists and addicts and museums and public gardens? And he said, Because otherwise it would be like living in Omaha, only further north. I swear, it's what he said directly to me. Asshole. Think they're loyal, upstanding citizens? Think again. Norwegians started colonizing this country five centuries before Columbus. Greedy bastards. Never in large numbers. Secretly. Under the radar. Until they dominated the lumber trade and farming and fishing and crafts trades and back home there was a crisis and they decided to take over the flat, fertile land of our precious Midwest. Like they take over our flat, fertile women. There are five million of them now, in this country, committed to their homes and parks and neighborhood watch groups and to their extended families, too. "Family," right? You've seen The Godfather. But note this: In the last hundred years, almost no Norwegians have become Mormon. Okay? Right? You don't find that suspicious? Who can resist the Mormons these days? They knock on the doors of Jehovah's Witnesses and walk away with new converts. I mean, Mormons are freaking everywhere, and they have that pitch about saving the souls of your dead relatives, despite the fact that they're dead, if their souls are anywhere they're in Hell, you can imagine your great aunt suddenly yanked out of the fire, Oh, she says as the flames recede, I knew I could count on that one, my niece, she is such a nice person. But Norwegians, no. They're like, Well, now there's a hot dish, oh sure. I'm telling you, a practical people. Warm. Thoughtful. Destructive. Evil.

The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson

BETTY.

There's a reason the astrology column was always in the section of the newspaper with the comic strips and the weird little narratives about bridge games. Or the back of a magazine. Or the add-on the Facebook, like Farmville, or what, like some stupid little app. But you take is seriously? Seriously? You take it seriously? You're one of those people? You, like, have an actual, like you have a person that you call? Jesus. Did your astrologer tell you that an awful man you loved what going to break your heart? Did she tell you, don't go the the fancy Italian restaurant that he Yelped and got all excited about, because it's a set up? Because you will be ambushed? Did she happen to mention that your boyfriend is a fucking power hungry fucking asshole, by the way, clue number one is that he picked someplace special and expensive so that you won't scream and cry - he thinks you might, by the way, and he thinks he's being nice when he - when he pulls the plug and leaves you there to gasp for air and die. Weren't you wondering, sitting like a dumb ass, not breathing, not moving, as he says what he says, watching the truck come at you, bam! There's a $45 entree and another glass of wine on its way, he says, graciously, Get whatever you want, it's on me, and you don't wonder why you hadn't been warned by your FUCKING ASTROLOGER? Instead you quietly sob with your head in your hands and people stare but you don't make a sound. Do you think your ex just had a better planet in his house that day than you? I had a horse. Is why I asked. Growing up. But she was - it was not like horse racing Kentucky, it was like white trash Kentucky and I had old coffee cans stuck into the dirt for markers, and she was not a very good horse. She probably was at one time, but by the time I got her, she was a broken down, very mean little bitch.

The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson

BETTY.

Here in Minnesota, you gotta find a lover before the first freeze or else it's just too late, you're iced in for a very long time, all alone. They don't tell you that when you move here but it's true. You are iced in for all the short days, there are so many short days before the sun comes back and it begins to thaw. Short days and long nights. Long cold nights all alone, just the sound of the radiator in your apartment turning on, the knocking and whispering of steam. Just leftover soup heated up mid-afternoon before the light fades. In fact, you make so much borscht that your poop turns red and you think it's blood and you have to have a tube with a camera on it shoved up your ass. On camera. In February. And the doctor aims the tube at you and says, "Here we go!" and then you watch your looming buttcheeks docked like the international space station by a tiny camera on a tube, like the space shuttle, right there on TV. It's that kind of cold, Olive. It's the cold of those bulky purple and yellow sweaters that you have to put on to take out the garbage, so that you're shapeless, like a big purple and yellow potato. That's you: a big plate of starch. You're just purple and yellow and shapeless and starchy, and you've just had a camera up your ass. On TV. Unless of course you find a lover, and hold on to him, and you make your own steam, and knocking, and whispering, and you feed each other food from your hands, not soup but solid food, and you draw lines with ice cubes down each other's body, no one's cold then. No one's cold. No one's alone. So did you do that, Olive? Did you find someone before it froze? No. Oh, you tried, now, didn't you. But you failed. You didn't get a lover. No. No, you didn't. Because he left you. He froze you out. He left you to die. That is Minnesota nice, my new little friend. What I just did to you. That's what Minnesota nice feels like in your heart after five years. Five winters. That's all it takes. Unless of course you were raised here. Which I wasn't. I am from Kentucky.

... and stuff ... by Peter Dee

JENNY.

I have this problem. My mouth. It can't stop. I see what's going on and I blow the whistle. My mother tells me to calm down and I tell her to sober up. Not that I blame her for boozing; my stepfather would put a teetotaler on acid. He says the kids today are bandits and whores. I tell him I may rob him but he can forget about anything else. When I stay with my father he smiles a lot, pats my head and wants to know if I'm happy. Happy; first time I needed to know how to put in a tampon I have to go to him cause that's where I am. First he looks like he's going to throw up and then he grabs the phone and I can hear one of his girlfriends screaming at him about his weird sex life before he can break through and explain that he's trying to help his daughter. "Daughter!" She hollers and smashes the phone down in his ear. "Jenny," he yells at me, "Don't ever do this to me again." So I ask him if he's willing to fund an operation like we gave Dulcinea, our cat, to keep her from spewing kittens around the house and he breaks down and cries. He cries and I stand there with a tampon I'd like to stick up his nose. I call up my girlfriend, Linda, to dispel this trauma a bit and right off I can tell she's stoned. She's hanging on to her vowels like the words will never end. Took her half and hour to say hello. Then she wants me to go to this James Dean festival with her and we're both supposed to wear red jackets and she's got three pounds of juicy fruit gum and stuff. I tell her James Dean is dead and so is her mind and she smashes down the phone like my father's girlfriend only not as fast cause it took her a couple of tries due to her marijuana myopia. She hit her face and the table top before she finally connected. I felt so guilty about her black eye and puffed lips I paid her way to the festival and sat through it twice. I keep thinking if I didn't spit out these words I wouldn't be making people cry and disfiguring them but sometimes I just can't help it. You know what I mean? I mean like nature says I'm supposed to be attracted to boys and stuff but, God... I mean I had this terrific crush on a boy who wanted to put handcuffs on me before we could kiss. I said, "Marco, I'm in love not under arrest." He called me a bitch and kicked me out of his car into a thunder and lightning storm. Rain was pouring down so hard my mascara went crazy and I scared the shit out of everybody who stopped to give me a lift. Next boy I fall for in into computers. He has a calculator for everything. He told me has had tabulated that if all the energy that went into kissing was transferred to agriculture we could feed everyone in the entire world three huge meals a day for the next ten thousand years. So I said, "Who wants to live in a universe full of horny, fat people?" And that was the last I saw of him. Then I fell for this guy who loved to dance plus he could kiss like a hot jacuzzi. We were really having a wonderful romance. Two weeks before prom he fractures his back break dancing. I go to the hospital with flowers and he won't see me. I charge into his room with my tulips and he screams at me to get out; he doesn't want anyone to see him like that. I say, "Fred Astaire should look so good" and he has a seizure. Three nurses call me heartless and throw me out on the street. Of course it's raining again plus I'm crying. Only thing I can wipe my nose on is the tulips cause I don't believe in handkerchiefs. Think I got a ride home that day either? Forget it. So I decide to be a loner. You know spare people my mouth. I start going to this place where you record books for the blond. So I'm anonymous, you know, giving myself to people who can't see me. What I forget is they can hear me. Seems I made some editorial comments during my recording of Barbara Cartland romance novels that sent three people back to braille and I was told my services were no longer required. So at this stage of my life what I conclude is that I must accept a comment made by the same James Dean who I was flip about earlier in my tormented life. He is reputed to have said, "Suffering is good. Suffering is the only way to understand what you're all about." I guess what I'm all about is this; in a world full of alcoholics, crybabies, druggies, frightened pompous jerks, timid daydreamers and stuff, I have to learn to throw my hands up past this Earth into the beautiful, infinite heavens of God's creation and tickle all the other planets up there that I can reach and say, "Hey, guys, teach me please how to be wise and not a wiseass." Maybe that way I can survive and you all can put up with me. Because I'll tell you in all honesty, I am looking for some warm companionship and hot smooching but I am never, ever going to give up my deep, deep feeling that life is so much richer than most people let it be. And any of you turkeys that don't agree with me can eat bricks for breakfast to keep company with the rocks in your head. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go to my father's wedding. You should see the one he finally picked to marry, looks like she does her hair in a microwave and eats hot fudge sundaes like peanuts plus she thinks Frank Sinatra is the greatest. I'm stopping by the dog shop for a muzzle so I can insure myself a place to live at least until graduation. Wish me luck, cause I know if the dog shop owner gives me grief I'm going to bite off his ears.

The Good Body by Eve Ensler

WOMAN 2 (BERNICE).

Call it what it is, this ain't no spa. This is fat camp. You're here. You're fucked. You better suck it in. I don't know about you but I'm starving. Where are the Cheetos? They busted a girl in my bunk last night. She has hoarded hundreds of packs of contraband gum, stuffed in the ripped-off head of her little teddy bear. She tried to smush it back together but she had already broken its neck. Fool, she deserves to be starving. The big question is, who let the skinny girls in? Skinny bitches don't belong in this camp. They make the rest of us look fat. Skinny bitches drive me nuts. Skinny bitches don't deserve to be thin. They have no personality. They're just Skinny Bitches. They're always trying to make us feel sorry for them when their entire torso could fit up my sleeve. "Oh look, does this make me look fat? Focus. Focus. Please look, be honest." I wanna choke their skinny necks. They're complaining about their six-pack when I'm carrying a keg. Fat is as low, disgusting, as gross as you can get. Like when I'm shopping in the regular stores they always keep the plus sizes in the back like porn. I feel like a ho trying things on and the PLUS SIZE sign is always so huge. Just 'cause I'm fat doesn't mean I'm blind Skinny bitches never have to work at anything. They're skinny. Fat girls do everything double We have to be funny. Fat girls give the best head. Don't we? We work harder to keep our men. Fat girls always swallow. You know, last night, after the counselors went to sleep, some of us fat girls, we had a wicked night. We stripped off our bathing suits and we went chunky-dunking in the pool. We jumped off the high diving board and made huge waves. Some of the beach chairs just floated away. It felt so good. We did some fat-girl water ballet. Some Swan Ass Lake. We were pointing out chubby toes and kicking our legs. We look so much better naked than in those made-for-skinny-bitches bathing suits. I have to tell you in the moonlight we were all round and moundy. We looked beautiful. Now the skinny bitches are back at lunch huddled around their spoonful of nonfat yogurt and half a nut. I don't know why I'm fat. I just am. I am fat. I like food. The way it tastes. The way it goes down. I eat for happiness. I never missed my mom so much. I don't look fat when I'm with my mom. I am starving. Give me my momma's home cooking and her fluffy duck ass Fat girls are good people. Aren't we? We deserve to be skinny bitches.

The Altruists by Nicky Silver

SYDNEY.

Ethan, I have had it! I can take it no more. Do you hear me? You can pretend to be asleep, I don't care. Pretend you don't hear me. Your whole life is nothing but pretense anyway! All your causes! Your walkathons and demonstrations! Your rallies and protests! Your firebombs and letter-writing! - I AM NOT HAPPY! How could I be? Am I supposed to enjoy your condescension? Should I love your humiliating me in front of your friends? I hate your friends. Cretins. Blowhards and Cretins, all of them. With all of your political babble. You care more about your receding hairline than the plight of the disenfranchised! You're more concerned with your thickening waist than the homeless and the needy! You're nothing but a bunch of phonies! How do you think I feel when I'm introduced as "just" an actress? As if what I did for a living didn't bring joy into the world! As if what I do for a living didn't make this life more bearable for the very disenfranchised you pretend to care about! There is dignity, profound dignity in my life, in my work! But you choose to sneer at it. People LOVE SOAP OPERAS! I get mail by the bushel, letters by the trillion! I have fans! I have followers! All over this country people are worried about Montana Beach! Will she leave Brock for Brick? Will she kick her ugly habit? Will she find her mother, true love of the meaning of life!? People care about me! Who cares about you?! I ask you. Who cares about you! Not I! Not I, Ethan! And yet you refer to me, with your little band of pseudo-left wing hooligans as "just an actress," "just a soap opera actress." And this, this after I let you use my home for your meetings - meetings!? Drunken frat parties! Bacchanalian orgies of cheap wine and non-ideas, in MY home! That's right. My home, this is my home! This bed is mine. These walls are mine. These sheets are mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine! Everything is mine! You are nothing but a crummy little parasite with empty ideas, sponging off my hard work - and then you make me feel small because once, ONCE I owned a fur coat - IT WAS MY MOTHER'S! Well, I could survive that. I turned the other cheek, because I loved you - or I thought I did. I see now that I was just drunk with sex. That's what you do, you inebriate people with sex. So I could overlook your shabby treatment - because you have beautiful eyes and the stamina of a ten-year-old. Fine. Fine. Fine. And I can overlook the theft. The endless theft of my things by your merry band of so-called radicals. This was a lovely home! I had a lovely home! There was an ashtray from Paris. Gone. Stolen by that Gustavo who smells like a South American sheep farm. Vanished! There was my collection of first editions, one by one walked out the door. There was a Louis IVX armoire right here! And a Regency table! And matching nightstands! ALL GONE! I know what you're thinking. Those are just things. She's obsessed with things. Things own her. She loves her things more than she loves herself. Fine they were things... But they were MY THINGS! Besides, maybe you're right, maybe they are "just" things. Maybe I don't need them anymore. But the beauty part is - are you listening to me? - the beauty part is, I can buy more things! I can buy things over and over! I can buy things in duplicate and triplicate and whatever itricate means four, because I work! Because I have a job! So I let the things go. I wave good-bye, quietly, as my things walk out of the house in strange pockets and on rented hand trucks. "Good-bye things." Who needs them? And who needs you, Ethan? I say, not I! I am bigger than that. I let it go. I breathe and let the tragedy fall away from me like a cheap dress. And the drinking! I say, "He's human." The constant drinking, night after night, week after week. The smell of sweat and whiskey on every Ralph Lauren sheet I own - I don't think that's the odor Ralph Lauren had in mind when he went into the home furnishing business!! I DON'T THINK SO! And the waiting, the hours stretched in front of me as I binge and purge and binge and purge and binge and purge waiting for a call, a word, a sign that you're alive, that you're drunk and staggering, but out there, somewhere alive! I learned to cope. I learned to cope when the call came from another woman's bed! "He has failings. I'm not giving. She was groping." Oh, the lies I've told myself. The endless song of lies and consolations, "It's not his fault," I told myself when you called from Monica Jeffrey's house purring apologies in a postcoital dream state. IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO APOLOGIZE FOR INFIDELITY WHILE STILL IN BED WITH THE OTHER WOMAN! Have you learned nothing in your thirty-one years on this planet? But I blamed her. "She was jealous, she was greedy and rapacious. She was wanton and desperate! You were confused and disoriented. She had new breasts! I need new breasts!" Oh, the demented, self-flagellating diatribe I've heard in my head. But I survived! And I survived that call from Cynthia Brodrick's bed and Allison Seaver's. I survived the mocking, the ridicule heaped on every dress, blouse, skirt and suit I own! This is Richard Tyler, Ethan! RICHARD TYLER! This suit costs enough to put one of your homeless children through medical school - but you laugh at it and point your finger because it's not ripped jeans with red wine stains, because it's not a torn T-shirt, shrunk down and stretched out, emblazoned with some idiotic political slogan or symbol! BECAUSE IT'S NOT BLACK! You sneer at Chanel and Gucci and Azadine Alaia because nothing they make reads "Gay Power" or "Black Power" or "Fur Is Killing" across the tits! Fine! Make fun of me! Fine! Torment me! I can take it! Just as I can take the vicious things you said to my mother, granted, a miserable woman, but she never did you any harm! NOT ONE BIT OF HARM! And yet you thought it amusing to tell her on the phone that'd I'd been killed, stabbed to death by my lesbian lover! YOU ARE EVIL ITSELF! EVIL DISGUISED AS ALTRUISM! I see that now! Then, oh then, I chalked it up to a wry sense of humor. You have no sense of humor! YOU ARE NOT FUNNY! Was I hurt when you threw my plants out the window!? I was. I cared for those plants! I loved them! I watered them and loved them since they were seeds! They were like my children! But they were, after all, just plants. And, as you pointed out, you didn't hit anyone, you didn't kill anyone when you hurled the pots, the terra-cotta pots from the fifteenth floor! And you were drunk or high on some substance, purchased, no doubt with money taken from MY purse! So I released. I HAVE BEEN HEROIC! Only a heroine, only a mythic figure, could overcome the scolds and the scandals - when you told everyone we knew, my friends, my family, MY THERAPIST, whom you had no business talking to in the first place - when you told everyone in New York City that I gave you syphilis, when we both know, we know without a doubt that Maria Portnoy gave you syphilis during that demonstration - and you in turn gave it to me! THAT WAS NOT FUNNY! I made allowances because every now and then, once a week, once a month, once in a blue moon, you made love to me and I saw fireworks, I heard orchestras! You made love to me and I remembered the beginning, when we made love nonstop, like Olympians! I put up with everything, I entered your world of East Village, Alphabet City, anti-trend trendies, of sit-ins and marches and protests, because it felt good to have you inside of me! But no more! NO MORE, ETHAN! I'M A PERSON! I HAVE FEELINGS! I HAVE A BREAKING POINT AND I HAVE REACHED IT! Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I do. Maybe I'm looking for perfection. No man's perfect - BUT SOME ARE BETTER! And I have had it! LAST NIGHT WAS IT! When you refused to hold me, when you muttered some other name in your sleep, when you tried to kill me, when you held a pillow over my face , in an ugly, violent attempt to snuff out my life, I REALIZED... THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL! I hope you're not hurt. I hope I haven't wounded you. I mean that. Because you are a light that shines in my life. You're so good. You're a martyr. You're a saint, devoting your life to other people. I'm nothing! I'd be lost without you. I'd be desperate. I'm greedy and empty and foul. I know that. I do. But, still, it's true, as I was regaining consciousness this morning, I knew things had to change. As I traces through the events of our cohabitation, I realized I can't go on any longer, watching everything I own, everything I am walk away from me! It's over! It's all over! I must walk away! - I mean, emotionally, you understand, this is my home - I must free myself!!... Well?... Have you nothing to say to me? Don't you care if I throw away everything we've had? Ethan? Are you really so indifferent to us, the being of us, that you won't lift a finger, say a word to salvage it?... You are just hateful!! You are just a destructive power in a pretty package! That's what you are! I realized that as I gasped for breath under the weight of my pillow, pushed over my face by your beautiful hands. I saw, in a flash, that you're like poison, seeping, seeping into every room of me! I HATE YOUR GUTS!... Stop me, please! I LOVE YOU!... No, no. Strength, strength, I will have strength! I will have my courage! You've made me an addict! I've lost everything. My home is bare but for some old shoes and a jockstrap hanging over the shower! I have to free myself of you! You! You, who fills me with guilt because I eat meat, because I eat grapes, pay a woman to clean, drive a new car, belong to a union, ONCE WORE A FUR, WEAR LIPSTICK AND MAKEUP WITHOUT EVER KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK IT WAS TESTED ON, BECAUSE I LIKE TIMES SQUARE BETTER, BETTER BECAUSE I FEEL SAFER, NOW THAT THE PIMPS AND THE WHORES AND THE HOMELESS ARE HERDED AWAY!! I WILL! ETHAN! I WILL FREE MYSELF FROM YOU!! Stop me. One word. One gesture! The smallest movement and I'll melt into your arms! I'll forgive you! I swear! We can go back to what we hopes our relationship would be, before it turned out to be what it is! TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!!! Shit.

Sure Thing by David Ives

BETTY.

Why would you be interested in whether I come in here a lot? Maybe you're only interested for the sake of making small talk long enough to ask me back to your place to listen to some music, or because you've just rented some great tape for your VCR, or because you've got some terrific unknown Django Reinhardt record, only all you really want to do is fuck - which you won't do very well - after which you'll go into the bathroom and pee very loudly, then pad into the kitchen and get yourself a beer from the refrigerator without asking me whether I'd like anything, and then you'll proceed to like back down beside me and confess that you've got a girlfriend named Stephanie who's away at medical school in Belgium for a year, and that you've been involved with her - off and on - in what you'll call a very "intricate" relationship, for about seven YEARS. None of which interests me, mister!

The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane

ELLEN.

After the club Alex and I both deplored, I went home to Westchester to have a visit with Screecher. Screech is my new none-too-affectionate nickname for my none-to-affectionate mother. And Screecher's all "Ellen" - no, wait - "ELLEN!!! GOD-DAMN IT, YOU NEVER GODDAMN COME GODDAMN HOME FOR A GODDAMN VISIT, GODDAMNIT." So I went home for a visit. Goddamnit. And, you know, she's not pleased. I just so cannot win here. Alright maybe I shouldn't have shown up at three in the morning. Maybe I should have called first, maybe I should have had money for the cab, maybe I should have had a key and not broken a window to get in, you know, we all have some things we'd like to do over. So I'm there - just licking my wounds about Arthur dumping me. And it's whatever o'clock in the morning. In my once room. But it's not my room anymore. After all that fuss Screecher made about me coming home, there's no home left for me now. Just. Wicker baskets and doll heads and - and dried flowers. Screech has gone and transformed my room into a craft room, which I guess is de rigueur among the post-hysterectomy set. And as the doll heads stare at me, I realize. My childhood is so motherfucking over. When did that happen, right? And I am so good to lose it. And. And I find three long strands of thin vinyl string and I'm scared and I'm alone. And the next thing I know, I am getting busy. Making a bracelet. Oh yeah. So I just. Made me a bracelet.

The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane

DIANE.

The Mahayana Buddhist monks of the Namghala Monastery create the sand mandala. This time-consuming expression of faith involves the delicate layering of multi-colored sand into intricate patterns. To see them is to be rendered speechless. They often take weeks to create. They are admired briefly, and then dismantled, blown away like the sand of the beach and washed into the sea. This ritual is performed as a constant reminder, that all of man's toil is ultimately folly. As an exercise of tedious futility, this act pales in comparison to watching show business professionals order a salad. "Yes, I want the Cobb salad and could you make sure that the chicken and the bacon are not touching and I want no egg, but bonus avocado and on the side extra-virgin olive oil and seven lemons. And there can be no red onion because my nutritionist says if I ingest red onion I will die!" I am still in New York seated with not one not two, but three studio executives, old friends, and we are all out-futiling one another with our orders. When this is over, fifteen minutes later, we will discuss liberal causes and scorching bits of sex gossip of friends not at this table. Fifteen minutes later, as our salads, our mandalas, are placed before us, the subject of our work will be discussed. One of the executives will mention that she has heard there is a play in town. We all chew and nod and make mental to see it later. More importantly there is a marvelous role in this play. Sadly the role is that of the homosexual, but. If it. Could be. Portrayed by a star. It could get made. I chew I chew and I think - It would be great for my client I chew I chew and the ultimate springboard for me from agent to manager to... producing partner. I chew I swallow. Five hours later, I will be at the theatre to see that play. And all three studio executives will be there. Three hours after that. Our salads, our Mandalas, will have been digested and turned to manure. And we will sit on our toilets and shit them out. Where they will be flushed and washed into the sea.

The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane

DIANE.

The beginning. Well, beginnings are always beautiful. Beginnings are - OK - do you know Breakfast at Tiffany's? The film, not the novella. I know, there's a novella, who knew? The beginning. Audrey Hepburn, the most beautiful person ever. Gets out of the cab. In Givenchy. Quadruple strand of pearls. And she walks to a window of Tiffany's. Again with the beautiful. And then the melody "Mood River" wafts in. Start with me. The beauty quotient is excessively high. Then beautiful Audrey Hepburn is sneaking into her Upper East Side townhouse away from the not-so-beautiful older man, but the running away part is beautiful. And then. But then. Then the unspeakable happens. Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney in full-on novelty Hirohito glasses and buck teeth and - "Missy Gority!!! I must plotest!!!" And we can never recover. She can gab on and on about the mean reds and the cat not having a name, but. Sorry. It's too late. The beginning has been irrevocably ruined. But I digress. We're in New York, which we of Los Angeles love, accepting awards from critics, which we love even more so. My client, a rising young movie star who suffers from a slight... recurring case of homosexuality, informs me - that at his date, are you possibly seated for this? As his date to this award ceremony, he would like to bring his mother. So that no one will know that he's gay? So I throw a flame retardant blanket on this potential brush fire, and volunteer myself as his date. I'm lesbian, he's a fag, we're in show business, we're a perfect couple. So we walk down the carpet, the flash of cameras. And I see his delight and warmth grow and flourish. The unmistakable moment when the outcast is allowed indoors. And all it takes is a little deception. Later, during one of the inevitable moments of introspection that inevitably happen during an award ceremony, as I wonder just how much of my life has been spent sitting in these same old gold bamboo chairs, I realize that my evening's date is leaving our table and strolling towards the dais. He has won. His acceptance speech is inspired. Yes, there is the slight stumble when he forgets to thank the screenwriter who is credited and has just accepted the award not ten minutes prior and, oops, does thank the writer he brought onto the project. But - who cares, it involves screenwriters. And at the end. The part where the name of a deceased parent, a recent world horror or a terribly popular co-star is evoked - he calls to me, choked with emotion, and extends an open palm. "To Diane," my client states, significant tears finding their lazy way down his derma-braised face. "The woman who taught me... how to love. And how... to dream." And then. The silence. The vacuum of doubt. The utter disbelief that pansy actually went there. But a roomful of show business professionals quickly recovers. Remembering that there are cameras everywhere, surely one of which will be broadcasting this moment because there are movie stars involved, the room obligingly produces a smattering of polite applause. And then, the realization that indeed, a dream must be kept alive, so - Peter Pan to little fairy Tinkberbell's defense - the room bursts, no, explodes into applauding and cheering. And he walks down, presents his award to me, hold me in his masculine arms and kisses me full on the lips. And here's the part that is so luscious. I'm actually touched. I really like him, and he likes me and he's said that to everyone. And that kind of means something. Later when I'm in my hotel and watching one of the inevitable rebroadcasts of the event, my only wish - is that when he announced our love, I didn't have such a look on my face of fucking shock.

Rough Magic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

MELANIE.

Gunshots? That was me, Tisiphone, I just - oh, God! - I just shot the Mad Hatter! No, from the Alice in Wonderland statues in Central Park - that's where I am! It came to life and it - it came at me! And not just his statue, all over the city! The lions in front of the library, those enormous stone lions! Tearing through Grand Central! The entire city's changing, Tisiphone - coming to life - coming apart! That's what I'm trying to tell you: Prospero's here already - he must be. No, first I have to - No, I know where that is, by the water; wait for me, stay hidden. And don't let anything happen to Chet. My magic can't just be about setting characters free from plays. It's the principle - the summoning - that counts. Come on, I can feel you inside there, the real Miranda, buried beneath this play. I can feel the tips of my fingers brushing up against your hair, your.. Let my mind clear. Let the... door. And... Watch... it... swing... open? Oh my God. What's he done to you?

Rough Magic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

LINDA.

The subject is magic: What is it? Does it exist? And, if so, where does it exist? In a handful of sand? In the petals of a flower? In a shard an ancient stone? I apologize for our - accommodations. Columbia University values the Study of Magic enough to offer a course in it - during summer session, granted, taught by a graduate student - but not enough to give us a room with windows or a working air conditioner. Not even during this, the worst heat wave in New York City's history. But let's not dwell, let's dive in. We're starting today with the most powerful magician who ever lived, an Italian sorcerer who amassed all the secrets of magic from creation to destruction to re-creation into one volume - and can anyone name him? I'll give you a hint, people: Shakespeare wrote a play about him. Prospero, people, from The Tempest, although Shakespeare's Prospero is very, very different from the real Prospero, the real, living, breathing Prospero, who was Genoa's Duke (not Milan's) from - when, people? (It was in your reading last night.) From 1498-1566, when three merchant ships he'd sent to Cathay, to China, returned carrying a disease-ridden crew infected with - can anyone guess? The Black Death, people, which killed over half of Genoa's population. The surviving half blamed Prospero for the plague and exiled him. Put him on a captainless ship, him and a thousand stinking, diseased corpses, bound for doom, and - what happened, people, does anyone know? Is Prospero dead? Did he drown when that rotten carcass of a ship broke apart? Hmm? (Possibly, though magicians are notoriously hard to kill.) Or is he out there somewhere? Working on his book, burning with hatred for Genoa, the city the betrayed him, plotting his revenge, perfecting his magic? I like to think so. That he's alive still, perhaps - as Shakespeare's play suggests - on an enchanted island, somewhere in the Mediterranean.

The Norman Conquests: Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn

RUTH.

I shouldn't have wasted my time coming down here. Norman makes these gestures regularly. And every time I fall for them. We've been married for five years, I really ought to know better. As a result of his hysterical phone call last night, I have not been able to do a stroke of work at home today and will probably lose my job tomorrow, when I finally turn up. I almost wish to heavens he'd gone away with Annie, had his weekend and got it over with. Instead of involving everyone else. Mind you, that would be much too simple for Norman. No point in making a gesture unless he has an appreciative crowd to applaud him. Well. I think other people's marriages are invariably a source of amazement. They usually are to me. I mean you and Sarah... You know, I have found quite often it's the people you look at and say, well they won't last long, who cling on grimly till death. Maybe they're so aware of public opinion, they're determined to prove it wrong. You and Sarah - me and Norman - Annie and that - Tom man. Though I think Norman's successfully knocked that on the head. I saw Tom stamping off into the night. Probably the most constructive thing Norman's done for some time. Saved Annie from a fate far worse than marriage. A sort of eternal engagement. Tom's not nice enough for her.

The Norman Conquests: Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn

SARAH.

Well, I blame Norman. That is absolutely typical... fur rug! It's just the sort of thing - Annie, will you stop making that ridiculous noise... typical behavior. Is that it? Was that the only occasion? I suppose it could have been worse. That poor woman. I mean, I don't have a lot of time for Ruth, as you know. Personally, I find her snide little remarks, her violent ups and downs just too much to cope with. I know she's your sister, I'm sorry for talking like this. However, I would not wish my worst enemy married to a man like... not even Ruth. Heaven knows why they married. Never understood it. What did she see in him?

The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney

NINA.

Have you ever watched any of those Nature things on TV? I mean, you see animals, birds, even insects operating under these incredibly complicated instincts. Courting, building their nests, rearing their young in the most amazing complex way. Well, I think people have these instincts, too. I mean any more than we realize. I think they're built into our blood, and I think we're most alive when we feel them happening to us. I feel most alive when I'm with animals, Mother. Really. I feel some instinctive connection. Put me with a dog, a cat, anything, and I feel I'm in touch with a whole different dimension... It's as if both of us... me and the animal... were reaching back across hundreds of thousands of years to a place where we both knew each other much better. There's something there, Mother. I know there's something there.

The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney

NINA.

Me? Is this me you're talking about? Comfortable and at home? Is that a compliment? Comfortable and at home? Oh boy, that's a laugh. That's a good one, John. Boy, you've really painted me into a corner. Ask Dr. Randall how comfortable I am. Ask him to show you the X-rays of my insides. He'll show you what it's like to be at home. Do you know anything about my life, John? Have you ever bothered to inquire what I do around here, all these years you've been away? Did you know that I am vice president of the S.P.C.A.? Did you know that I am interested in seeing-eye dogs, John? Did you know that? I am profoundly interested in them. I'm good with dogs, I'm the best, everyone says that, and what I want to do more than anything else in the world is go to this two-year school in Cleveland where you do nothing but work with seeing-eye dogs. I have a husband, John. I have a - life! I mean, what am I supposed to do, John? Start subsidizing Eastern Airlines every other day? Live in some motel? Rattle around some strange city where I don't know a soul? Just because I want to work with... because I happen to feel an attachment to... oh, God. I didn't realize I could get quite so upset about dogs.

The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney

NINA.

Oh boy, John. I swear. It's the old story. Once again, you and Jigger, who never show up here, who come up once a year for a day or two, if we're lucky, when we have to drop everything we're doing and rush to be at your beck and call - once again, you two end up getting all the attention, whereas I, I, who have remained here since I was married, who have lived here all my life... who see Mother and Pop at least once a week, who have them for Christmas and Thanksgiving and even Easter, for God's sake... I, who got Pop to go to a younger doctor... I, me, who drove Mother all over town for weeks after her cataract operation... who found them a new cleaning woman when their old one just walked out!... once again I am told I play a goddamn minor role! Wonderful or not, I need another drink. Oh, what difference does it make? Who cares? I just play a minor role. If I get ulcers, they're minor ulcers. If I die, it's a minor death.

The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney

ANN.

But I mean, there's a real need. Jane Babcock went to Connecticut last weekend to visit her old roommate from Westover, and they thought they'd go into New York to see a play. Well, they looked in the paper and there was absolutely nothing they wanted to see. Finally, they decided to take a chance on one of those noisy English musicals. But when they called for tickets, the man said he was going to charge then three dollars extra. Just for telephoning. When they were calling long distance anyway. Well, that did it, of course. They went to the movies instead. And apparently the movie was perfectly horrible. People were shooting each other - in the face! And using the most repulsive language while they were doing it, and the audience screamed and yelled and rattles candy wrappers all around them. Finally, they walked out and drove back to New Canaan, thoroughly disappointed with each other and the world. Jane said they really didn't snap out of it until they had cocktails. Jane said if one of your plays had been on, John, they would have gone to that. And paid the extra three dollars, too.

Woman in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn

SUSAN.

No. That's just the point, you see. That was how it was, originally. Yes. I whistled and you came. Yes. But not now. You just keep popping up. All of you. That girl. She's taken to just coming and sitting there, now, staring at me for ages on end. I was having a private conversation. I was perfectly able to cope. And now Tony's started. Chipping in when I'm talking to someone. Please go. Go on. Shoo. Vanish. There you are, you see. You don't take a blind bit of notice of me, do you? I've told you to go. You're still here. I want to see Gerald now. Go away. I'm going to have a chat with Gerald about his book. It's absolutely riveting, you know. It's all about the parish since 1386. Did you know that until 1874 there used to be sheep grazing where the town hall is now? I bet you didn't know that. Or I might just pop upstairs and embarrass my son and discuss sexually transmitted diseases with him. Or help Muriel make a soap flake soup.

Woman in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn

SUSAN.

I watch far too much television, if you call that relaxing. The problem is I watch such trash most of the time, I just sit there feeling guilty. Saying to myself, what on earth am I doing watching this? Why aren't I watching something useful? I mean, I do try sometimes to watch interesting programs but I find them all so boring. I read a bit. Not the right books, of course. Historical romances, that sort of thing. I can see you thoroughly disapprove. I - I did think about riding. Learning to ride. But I think it's a bit late at my age. Sitting astride some aged, minute pony with hundreds of giggling seven-year-olds looking on. I desperately wanted a horse when I was young but... my father didn't approve. Of animals. Dogs, cats, hamsters, horses. He had a theory that they gave off diseases. Nope, no pets at all.