LOVE AND MONEY by Dennis Kelly

DEBBIE


I put wall-paper paste in the coffee machine at work.
Beat.
You know the powder, you buy the powder in, while no one was looking I put it into the machine and
stirred it all in and left it and it clogged up the machine and they all stood around it staring at it, hurt, like
it was a dead puppy.
Beat.
When you print orders at work, they come out face up with the address on, on, on the front and you
never see the backs until they, you know, come back from the clients completed, the order form is on the
back, you see, so you never see the, until, so I stayed late one night and I photocopied the word 'cock'
on the back of all the order forms, with a big picture of a cock and balls that I drew in magic marker, and
then I put them back in the printer, and the next day they sent out thousands and they got hundreds of
complaints and lost their two biggest clients.

I keep falling asleep in meetings and no-one's noticed yet. They think I'm concentrating.

Last week I caught a mouse in my flat, I have mice, which is something I don't really, I don't really like
that, I have mice and I caught this one on glue paper, you know, the glue traps, I've tried everything else
and that's the only thing that works and the worst thing is that when you catch them they're still alive so
you have to, you know, despatch them, so I put a cloth over it and I hit it on the head with a cup, a mug,
but it took quite a few, you know, hits and it was screaming and I felt sick and I was crying and
everything and then I peeled it off the paper, you have to be very careful because the body's quite
delicate, and then I took a scalpel that I have for handicrafts and I slit its little belly open and I tugged out
all its insides and I stuck them and the body onto this Christmas card, so that it was splayed open with
the guts out into this Christmas tree design, and I sent it to my boss with writing cut out from a
newspaper saying 'Thanks for all the hard work and good luck in the new job cunt-face'. They called the
police.
Beat.
I wanted to be a newsreader when I was a little girl.
Pause. She picks up the card. He stares at her

CRUEL AND TENDER by Martin Crimp

Part 1, Scene 3

AMELIA
If you call me distressed
Jonathan
one more time
or use my name
Jonathan
one more time tonight I won't scream
no
what I will in fact do
is stuff your mouth with barbed wire.
Because forgive me
but I'm starting to find the way you speak
an atrocity which makes cutting a man's heart out
seem almost humane.
If you have something to say
about that child and my husband
say it. But don't and I repeat
don't think you can what?
'spare my feelings?'
because I am not a child
and do not expect to be treated like a child
in my own house - is that clear?
You think it's a secret
that my husband has other women?
You think he doesn't tell me about them?
Oh yes - oh yes - he tells me about them –
their names
the colour of their hair
because he knows I'd rather be told
even if being told is
and it is
I can promise you that it is
like having my face sprayed with acid.
When I slept with you
Jonathan
I told him the same evening
and after he'd punched his fist through the bathroom
wall
he made me put on my red dress
and took me dancing.

Whereas - let me guess - you and
Kitty? --was that Kitty on the phone?--yes?--Kitty?--
Kitty and yourself--poor little Kitty
has never been told, has she,
even though her ignorance
is precisely what you despise about her--
am I right?
Slight pause.
You see
Jonathan
I happen to believe that love and truth
are the same thing.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

Character name: Emily Webb

Gender: Female

Age Range: 16 — 25

Show: Our Town

Duration: 0 — 1 minutes

Monologue Type: dramatic,contemporary

Notes: Emily is talking to George, a boy whom she loves very much. However, in this monologue, she is quite upset with him.

I don't like the whole change that's come over you in the last year. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I've got to- tell the truth and shame the devil. Up to a year ago I used to like you a lot. And I used to watch you as you did everything? because we'd been friends so long? and then you began spending all your time at baseball? and you never stopped to speak to anybody any more. Not even to your own family you didn't? and, George, it's a fact, you've got awful concieted and stuck up, and all the girls say so. They may not say so to your face, but that's what they say about you behind your back, and it hurts me to hear them say it, but I've got to agree with them a little. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings? but I cant be sorry I said it.

Character name: Emily Webb

Gender: Female

Age Range: 16 — 25

Show: Our Town

Duration: 0 — 1 minutes

Monologue Type: dramatic,contemporary

Notes: Emily has died and has just joined the deceaced at the graveyard. She talks to her dead Mother-in-Law (Mother Gibbs) in this monologue about what Mother Gibbs has missed since she's died.

Mother Gibbs, George and I have made that farm into just the best place you ever saw. We thought of you all the time. We wanted to show you the new barn and a great long cement drinking fountain for the stock. We bought that out of the money you left us. Don't you remember, Mother Gibbs -  the legacy you left us? Why, it was over three hundred and fifty dollars. Well, there's a patent device on the drinking fountain so that it never overflows, mother Gibbs, and it never sinks below a certain mark they have there. It's fine. (Her voice trails off and her eyes return to the funeral group) It won't be the same to George without me, but it's a lovely farm. (pause, she looks directly at Mrs. Gibbs) Live people don't understand, do they? They're sort of shut up in little boxes, aren't they? I feel as though I know them. Mother Gibbs, when does this feeling go away? - Of being? one of them? How long does it?? I never realized before how troubled and how? how in the dark live persons are. From morning till night, that's all they are - troubled.

Character name: Emily Webb

Gender: Female

Age Range: 16 — 25

Show: Our Town

Duration: 0 — 1 minutes

Monologue Type: dramatic,contemporary

Notes: Emily has just died in childbirth and has been given the chance to go back home to a time she wishes to see. Looking at her mother and father whom she will never see again, she realizes that it was a mistake have gone back.

(softly, more in wonder than in grief)

I can't bear it. They're so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I'm here. I'm grown up. I love you all, everything. - I cant look at everything hard enough. (pause, talking to her mother who does not hear her. She speaks with mounting urgency) Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at one another. (pause, looking desperate because she has received no answer. She speaks in a loud voice, forcing herself to not look at her mother) I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. (she breaks down sobbing, she looks around) I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back - up the hill -  to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners? Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking? and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths? and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. (she asks abruptly through her tears) Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute? (she sighs) I'm ready to go back. I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.

Not Such Stuff by Chris Wind

Background Info: Juliet (as in Romeo and Juliet) talks into the night, wondering where Romeo is, and why it matters so much.

Juliet: Romeo, Romeo,
Where the hell art thou?

Have you stopped along the way
To play at your stupid battle games?

Or have you changed your mind,
And decided not to come
Thinking me too 'easy' and thus insincere:
What perversion of thought is this?
Because I say what it is I want,
Direct and forthright,
You judge my desire false?
While the one who dallies,
Says no to mean yes,
You deem true and take her
Seriously?
Or perhaps you think to be 'easy' is to be unchaste:
If so, you misjudge
Yourself!
Because I want you       (I want you)
Does in no way mean
I am a woman who wants every man.
Do you think of yourself so poorly?
Can you not accept that it is you who–
That one look of yours makes me wet
One touch sends a fire through every nerve
That it is you, standing there
 In your tights so tight
And your shirt
Carelessly open,
Your chest–

Oh Romeo, Romeo,
Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
'Tis true you asked the same last night
When you came
And I bid you go
–For you had come so ill-prepared!

I bid you go to the Friar–
Not for a marriage,
'Tis but a farce:
We say there will be no sex
Until there is marriage
Meaning until there is love;
But if we marry at first sight,
Then 'tis surely not a token of love
But a license for sex.
(Indeed, my mother's talk to me
Of marriage
Was as awkward as a first broaching
Of the subject of sex!)
And what need have we of a license–
Better use can we make of a sheath!
(The Friar, do you forget, is also a pharmacist!)

Yes, I bid you go
But only to return–
Return, Romeo, come–
Part thy close curtain, love-perfuming night,
As I will soon mine own unclasp,
let fall,
To offer sweetest heavens
To my love, my Romeo, come–
Steal upon catpaws silent in the night
Follow my purr, come,
Leap into my arms!
Let us kiss once for every star in the sky
A thousand times our lips shall meet!
Let me feel your body
Move sleek along mine
Let me touch you, Romeo, here      and here
('Tis true, as spoken, strangers' love is boldest!)
Flutter your fingers upon my breast,
Play with me love, at tug and nip
'Till my body stiffens in arched pleasure!
Come, let me surround you
Let me suck at the moon's liquid
'Till you clench and howl!
Then lick me love,
Seek my treasure with your teasing tongue
Nibble the pearl in folds of oyster,

My hands tearing at your head,
'Till I am gasping in wild heat,
Come, now, thrust your hard desire
reach deep in to me love–
Let me feel your panting breath–
Come night, loving black-silked night,
Come take me, wake me,
Make me cry out
For more!
Come, Romeo, come
Come,
Oh,
Come!

Nurse laughs to see me so–
(Though mother would faint,
Still confusing innocence with ignorance)
Young love, she mutters, fanning my face;
But I protest, 'tis not love,
Not of ones so young,
Nor of ones just met–
Let us be clear:
Yours was an artful come-on
(‘Let lips do what hands do’)
For a classic pick-up–
'Tis young lust, I tell her true:
I want sex
With a desire pure as the lace on my bodice;
She clucks to hear me talk so,
And I would persist–
But what's in a name?
That which we call making love
By any other name
Feels as good.

DETROIT by Lisa D’Amour

Scene IV


SHARON


Kenny you are not going to believe this. I am fucking losing it - do you see me? I am losing it!
It was the pink jogging suit lady. At our door! Only she wasn't wearing a pink jogging suit, she
was wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt. And she came over to ask us politely - sort of - politely if
we could keep our dog from shitting on her lawn. WE DON'T HAVE A DOG. Exactly. And so I
said to her, politely, I said, ''We don't have a dog" and she said, "Yes you do have a dog and it
is quite fond of taking craps on my lawn." "Quite fond." Like slicing a razor blade across my
face - "quite fond." And I said, "Lady, do you want to come in my house? We've got NOTHING
in our house, especially a DOG. Especially we do not have a DOG." And she said, "Listen,
missy." FUCKING MISSY! "Listen, missy. I've lived in this neighborhood for six years, and I
jog every morning. This dog appeared out of nowhere and started crapping on my lawn. I'm
not asking you to get rid of it, I'm just asking you to clean up his crap." And I practically started
crying - look at me I'm crying now-and I said, "Ma'am, people have accused me of many things
before, but they have never accused me of having a dog. You need to investigate further, you
need to knock on other doors-" And she said - her voice changed and she said, "Look, if it
craps on my lawn one more time, I am calling the police" and I said, "Are you. kidding? The
police are going to fucking LAUGH IN YOUR FACE if you call them about some dogshit." And
she said, "AHA! So you DO have a DOG!" And I said, "No, no, no, no, no fucking NO there is
no dog here, lady!" And she just shook her head and kind of kicked our plant and said, "Ha, I
thought it was fake." And turned around. I mean FUCK, Kenny, FUCK. This is like FUCKED
UP. (SHARON sees BEN) What the fuck happened?