Theatre

When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout

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Written By

Sharman Macdonald

Teens

Female

Comedy-Drama

Last week, I was on the bus, upstairs. I was going to see Dorothy and this girl up the front, she started having a fit or something. Must have been the heat. There were lots of people there between her and me but they, none of them... I went over to her and did what I could. She was heavy. I'd heard about them biting through their tongues. Epileptics. It wasn't pretty. Me and this other bloke took her to the hospital. But I saw her first. He wouldn't have done anything if I hadn't. I didn't get to see Dorothy. Well? That's worth something, isn't it? God. Are you listening? I'm not trying to bribe you. It's plain economics. I mean, I've made a mistake. It was my fault and I was wrong. I take it all on me. OK. Now if you let it make me pregnant... God. Listen, will you. If I'm pregnant it'll ruin four people's lives. Five. Right? My Mum'll be disappointed and her man'll walk out on her. That's two. Are you with me, God? I'll not be very happy. My mother'll hate me for the rest of my life for what I've done and that's not easy to live with. That's three. I'm still counting, God. Ewan'll be in for it. Well, he can't avoid it. I'm illegal and I've never been out with anybody else. Not that nobody fancied me. I wouldn't like to think I was unpopular. Lots of people fancied me. My mum said I had to wait till I was sixteen. Then she relented just when Ewan happened to be there. Poor old Ewan. That's four, God, that's four. Then there's the baby. If it's there and if I have it it's got no chance. It would be born in Scotland. Still there, are you? I hate Scotland. I mean, look at me. If I have an abortion the baby'll be dead so that'll be five anyway.

Theatre

Volpone

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Written By

Ben Jonson

20s–30s

Female

Period

Good sir, these things might move a mind affected With such delights; but I, whose innocence Is all I can think wealthy or worth th' enjoying, And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it, Cannot be taken with these sensual baits: If you have conscience – If you have ears that will be pierced; or eyes That can be opened; a heart that may be touched; Or any part that yet sounds man about you: If you have touch of holy saints, or heaven, Do me the grace to let me 'scape. If not, Be bountiful, and kill me. You do know I am a creature hither ill-betrayed By one whose shame I would forget it were. If you will deign me neither of these graces, Yet feed your wrath, sir, rather than your lust (It is a vice comes nearer manliness) And punish that unhappy crime of Nature Which you miscall my beauty: flat my face, Or poison it with ointments, for seducing Your blood in this rebellion. Rub these hands With what may cause an eating leprosy E'en to my bones and marrow; anything That may disfavour me, save in my honour. And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health; Report and think you virtuous – Oh! Just God!

Theatre

Unbearable Hotness

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Written By

Gabrielle Davis

Teens–20s

Male

Comedy

I just fuckin' killed Chuck. I think. I mean, he's just laying out there. He's not moving. I don't think he's breathing. I mean, there I was just up on the roof with Marissa – talking, laughing, having a great time. I tell her she reminds me of Sandra Bullock. I tell her I loved "Hope Floats". Who knew those would be the magic words? Next thing I know her clothes are off and we're loosening roof shingles like there's no tomorrow. And then there's biting and kissing and touching and suddenly someone starts beating on me, I mean, just pounding on me and growling. Yeah, growling. And I look up and there's Chuck. And I'm like, "What's the problem?" and he says "The problem is, dude, you're fucking my girlfriend." So I look at Marissa and I'm like "You're someone's girlfriend?" And she says "No." Then it comes out Chuck just wishes she's his girlfriend but actually she's his cousin or something, so he's got these feelings of guilt about wanting her...and then he starts crying. So that ruined the mood. Marissa puts her clothes on, and she goes back down through the window, back into the party. And I'm left with Chuck. Blubbering, whining, crying Chuck. And he starts in on how he's just this total fuck up and maybe he should just throw himself off the roof. And for a split second I'm thinking "YES! Throw yourself off the roof! Do it!" But I don't say that. I say "You're going to get a girl, buddy, just maybe not your cousin, huh?" And then I give him a friendly pat on the back. A nice manly slap on the back. And he looked heavy, I mean, who knew he'd go flying. Who knew he'd go flying right off the roof?

Theatre

Three Sisters

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Written By

Anton Chekhov

20s

Female

Period

Tell me, why is it I'm so happy today? As if I were sailing, with the wide, blue sky above me, and great white birds soaring in the wind. Why is it? Why? I woke up this morning, I got up, I washed – and suddenly I felt everything in this world was clear to me – I felt I knew how life had to be lived. Dear Ivan Romanich, I can see it all. A human being has to labour, whoever he happens to be, he has to toil in the sweat of his face; that's the only way he can find the sense and purpose of his life, his happiness, his delight. How fine to be a working man who rises at first light and breaks stones on the road, or a shepherd, or a teacher, or an engine driver on the railway... Lord, never mind being human even – better to be an ox, better to be a simple horse, just so long as you work – anything rather than a young lady who rises at noon, then drinks her coffee in bed, then takes two hours to dress... that's terrible! In hot weather sometimes you long to drink the way I began longing to work. And if I don't start getting up early and working, then shut your heart against me, Ivan Romanich.

Theatre

This Is Our Youth

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Written By

Kenneth Lonergan

Teens–20s

Male

Comedy-Drama

I don't really get what you're upset about. I thought we had a really good time together and I was actually in a fairly Up state of mind for once. Well, I didn't mean that in any kind of lascivious way, so I don't know why you want to take it like that. I really like you. I'm sorry I said anything to Dennis. I definitely caved in to the peer pressure. But I also definitely said as little as possible and was totally respectful of you in the way I talked about you. Even though I was pretty excited about what happened last night, and also about like, maybe like, the prospect of like, I don't know, like going out with you – Which I would be very into, if you were. But if you want to think the whole meant nothing to me, then go ahead because that's not the case. It's totally weird, like, taking all your clothes off and having sex with someone you barely know, and then being like "What's up now?" You know? Like it's such an intense experience but then nobody knows what to fuckin' say, even though nothing really bad actually happened. You know? I really like you... I don't really agree with most of your opinions...but I don't meet a lot of people who can actually make me think, you know? And who can hold their own in an interesting discussion. And who I'm totally hot for at the same time. You know? It's a fairly effective combination.

Theatre

The Relapse

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Written By

John Vanbrugh

20s–30s

Female

Comedy

What think you of springing a mine? I have a thought just now come into my head, how to blow her up at once... Faith, I'll do't; and thus the execution of it shall be. We are all invited to my Lord Foppington's tonight to supper; he's come to town with his bride, and makes a ball, with an entertainment of music. Now, you must know, my undoer here, Loveless, says he must needs meet me about some private business (I don't know what 'tis) before we go to the company. To which end he has told his wife one lie, and I have told her another. But to make her amends, I'll go immediately, and tell her a solemn truth. I'll tell her that to my certain knowledge her husband has a rendezvous with his mistress this afternoon; and that if she'll give me her word she'll be satisfied with the discovery, without making any violent inquiry after the woman, I'll direct her to a place where she shall see 'em meet. Now, friend, this I fancy may help you to a critical minute. For home she must go again to dress. You (with your good breeding) come to wait upon us to the ball, find her all alone, her spirit inflamed against her husband for his treason, and her flesh in a heat from some contemplations upon the treachery, her blood on a fire, her conscience in ice; a lover to draw, and the devil to drive. – Ah, poor Amanda!

Theatre

The Little Foxes

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Written By

Lillian Hellman

Teens–20s

Female

Period

Mama, I'm not coming with you. I'm not going to Chicago. I mean what I say with all my heart. There is nothing to talk about. I'm going away from you. Because I want to. Because I know Papa would want me to. Say it, Mama, say it. And see what happens. That would be foolish. It wouldn't work in the end. You only change your mind when you want to. And I won't want to. You couldn't, Mama, because I want to leave here. As I've never wanted anything in my life before. Because I understand what Papa was trying to tell me. All in one day: Addie said there were people who ate the earth and other people who stood around and watched them do it. And just now Uncle Ben said the same thing. Really, he said the same thing. Well, tell him for me, Mama, I'm not going to stand around and watch you do it. Tell him I'll be fighting as hard as he'll be fighting some place where people don't just stand around and watch. Are you afraid, Mama?

Theatre

The Libertine

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Written By

Stephen Jeffreys

20s–30s

Female

Drama

You have no understanding, do you? You have comprehended – just – that I am tired of being your mistress and your solution is to conscript me into becoming your wife. It is not being a mistress I am tired of, John. I am tired of you. I do not wish to be your wife. I do not wish to be anyone's wife. I wish to continue being the creature I am. I am no Nell Gwyn, I will not give up the stage as soon as a King or a Lord has seen me on it and, wishing me to be his and his alone, will then pay a fortune to keep me off it. I am not the sparrow you picked up in the roadside, my love. London walks into this theatre to see me – not George's play nor Mr. Betterton. They want me and they want me over and over again. And when people desire you in such a manner, then you can envisage a steady river of gold lapping at your doorstep, not five pound here or there for pity or bed favours, not a noble's ransom for holding you hostage from the thing you love, but a lifetime of money amassed through your own endeavours. That is riches. 'Leave this gaudy, gilded stage'. You're right, this stage is gilded. It is gilded with my future earnings. And I will not trade those for a dependency on you. I will not swap my certain glory for your undependable love.

Theatre

The Last of the Red Hot Lovers

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Written By

Neil Simon

30s–40s

Female

Comedy

You hypocrite! You soul-searching, finger-smelling, hypocritical son of a bitch! Who are you to tell anybody how to go through life? What would you have done if I came in here all fluttery and blushing and 'Ooh, Mr Cashman, don't put your hand there, I'm a married woman'? Were you going to tell me how much you respect me? You know damn well tomorrow you'd be back behind that counter opening clams and praying to Christ I'd never come back in your restaurant. And you know something? That's the way it should be. Forgive me for the terrible, sinful thing I'm about to say but I happen to like the pure physical act of making love. It warms me, it stimulates me and it makes me feel like a woman – but that's another ugly story. That's what I came up here for and that's what you were expecting. But don't give me, 'When I was nine years old my mother ran off with the butcher and I've been looking for someone to love me ever since.' I don't know your problems and I don't care. Keep your savory swordfish succotash stories to yourself. No one really cares about anything or anyone in this world except himself, and there's only one way to get through with your sanity. If you can't taste it, touch it or smell it, forget it! If you want a copy of that speech, send fifty cents and self-addressed envelope – It's getting late ... and I have to feed the lion at six.. Don't waste your time. We're incompatible. You need Joan Fontaine and I need a box of lozenges.

Theatre

The Importance of Being Earnest

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Written By

Oscar Wilde

50s+

Female

Comedy

Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice ... as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when everyone has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.

Theatre

The Importance of Being Earnest

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Written By

Oscar Wilde

20s

Female

Comedy

Oh! It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a ward. How secretive of him! He grows more interesting hourly. I am not sure, however, that the news inspires me with feelings of unmixed delight. I am very fond of you, Cecily: I have liked you ever since I met you! But I am bound to state that now that I know that you are Mr. Worthing's ward, I cannot help expressing a wish you were – well, just a little older than you seem to be – and not quite so very alluring in appearance. In fact, if I may speak candidly, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age. Ernest has a strong upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and honour. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable.

Theatre

The Good Father

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Written By

Christian O'Reilly

20s–30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

So I decided to go to the doctor. And I don't know about you, but I hate doctors. Terrify me. 'Course it was a woman doctor. Jesus, I nearly ran out of the place. But then I was thinkin', well what would I like better – have a woman or a man feeling me...? So that made it easier. Even so, it was, you know, embarrassin' – and the mad thing is the room was upstairs with the curtains open and didn't the 19A fly past – and the whole top deck nearly broke their necks for a gander. She closed the curtains after that. So I start tellin' her about my mole and cancer and all this and she starts feelin' me – like she had plastic gloves on and I was lyin' on this bed, like a baby almost – That's the thing. She looks at me and says, 'Are you aware that you only have one testicle?' Well, I nearly dropped, or I would have only she was holding me by the – and obviously one of them hadn't dropped, or somethin'. 'You're jokin'?' I says. She says, 'Surely you must have noticed?' But that was the thing. I always just assumed I had two. Like I never bothered countin' them. So she tells me then that I might have what they call an 'undescended testes', meanin' that one dropped, but the other didn't...she said I'd have to get it checked out, cos if there was one still up there it would have to be removed because, guess what – it could become cancerous. So she gives me this letter to bring to a urologist at the hospital. He tells me there's a one in four chance I'm not fertile, that I can't be a father, like. Like I didn't know until that moment just how much I wanted to be a father. It's stupid, but like I'd started imaginin' it, what I'd be like, walkin' around with a little fella holdin' me hand, teachin' him how to cross the road, or a little girl and holdin' her up in the air – the way they look down at you, they're so amazed to be up high. And bein' a good father like – encouragin' your kids, givin' them a tenner if they're stuck, askin' them how they are, always knowin' if somethin' was up, bein' there for them, bein' there for them always, always... givin' your life for them, givin' your life to them – fuckin' hell, that's the kind of person you want to be somebody, more of those kind of people, the kind of person I want to be. Father I wanted to be.

Theatre

The Glass Menagerie

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Written By

Tennessee Williams

40s–50s

Female

Drama

Possess your soul in patience – you will see! Something I've resurrected from that old trunk! Styles haven't changed so terribly much after all. Now just look at your mother! This is the dress in which I led the cotillion, won the cakewalk twice at Sunset Hill, wore one spring to the Governor's ball in Jackson! See how I sashayed around the ballroom, Laura? I wore it on Sundays for my gentlemen callers! I had it on the day I met your father. I had malaria fever all that spring. The change of climate from East Tennessee to the Delta – weakened resistance I had a little temperature all the time – not enough to be serious – just enough to make me restless and giddy. Invitations poured in – parties all over the Delta! – 'Stay in bed,' said mother, 'you have fever!' – but I just wouldn't. – I took quinine but kept on going, going! Evenings, dances! – Afternoons, long, long rides! Picnics. – lovely! – So lovely, that country in May. – All lacy with dogwood, literally flooded with jonquils! – That was the spring I had the craze for jonquils. Jonquils became an absolute obsession. Mother said, 'Honey, there's no more room for jonquils.' And still I kept on bringing in more jonquils. Whenever, wherever I saw them, I'd say, "Stop! Stop! I see jonquils!" I made the young men help me gather the jonquils! It was a joke, Amanda and her jonquils! Finally there were no more vases to hold them, every available space was filled with jonquils. No vases to hold them? All right, I'll hold them myself – And then I – met your father! Malaria fever and jonquils and then – this – boy.... I hope they get here before it starts to rain.

Theatre

The Family Legend

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Written By

Joanna Baillie

20s–30s

Female

Period

O go not from me with that mournful look! Alas! Thy generous heart, depressed and sunk, Looks on my state too sadly. I am not, as thou thinkst, a thing so lost In woe and wretchedness. Believe not so! All whom misfortune with her rudest blasts Hath buffeted, to gloomy wretchedness Are not therefore abandoned. Many souls From cloistered cells, from hermits' caves, from holds Of lonely banishment, and from the dark And dreary prison-house, do raise their thoughts With humble cheerfulness to heaven, and feel A hallowed quiet, almost akin to joy; And may not I, by heaven's kind mercy aided, Weak as I am, with some good courage bear What is appointed for me? O be cheered! And let not sad and mournful thoughts of me Depress thee thus. When thou art far away, Thou'lt hear, the while, that in my father's house I spend my peaceful days, and let it cheer thee. I too shall every southern stranger question, Whom chance may to these regions bring, and learn Thy fame and prosperous state.

Theatre

The Duchess of Malfi

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Written By

John Webster

20s–30s

Female

Period

The misery of us, that are born great, We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us: And as a tyrant doubles with his words, And fearfully equivocates: so we Are forc'd to express our violent passions In riddles, and in dreams, and leave the path Of simple virtue, which was never made To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag You have left me heartless, mine is in your bosom, I hope 'twill multiply love there. You do tremble: Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh To fear, more than to love me. Sir, be confident, What is't distracts you? This is flesh, and blood, sir, 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster Kneels at my husband's tomb. Awake, awake, man! I do here put off all vain ceremony, And only do appear to you, a young widow That claims you for her husband, and like a widow, I use but half a blush in't.

Theatre

The Diary of Anne Frank

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Written By

Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett

Teens

Female

Period

Look, Peter, the sky. What a lovely, lovely day! Aren't the clouds beautiful? You know what I do when it seems as if I couldn't stand being cooped up for one more minute? I think myself out. I think myself on a walk in the park where I used to go with Pim. Where the jonquils and the crocus and the violets grow down the slopes. You know the most wonderful part about thinking yourself out? You can have it any way you like. You can have roses and violets and chrysanthemums all blooming at the same time? It's funny. I used to take it all for granted. And now I've gone crazy about everything to do with nature. Haven't you? I wish you had a religion, Peter. Oh, I don't mean you have to be Orthodox, or believe in heaven and hell and purgatory and things. I just mean some religion. It doesn't matter what. Just to believe in something! When I think of all that's out there. The trees. And flowers. And seagulls. When I think of the dearness of you, Peter. And the goodness of people we know, all risking their lives for us every day. When I think of these good things, I'm not afraid anymore. I find myself, and God, and I... We're not the only people have had to suffer. There've always been people that've had to. Sometimes one race, sometimes another, and yet...I know it's terrible, trying to have any faith when people are doing such horrible things, but you know what I sometimes think? I think the world may be going through a phase, the way I was with Mother. It'll pass, maybe not for hundreds of years, but someday I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart. Peter, if you'd only look at it as part of a great pattern. That we're just a little minute in the life? Listen to us, going at each other like a couple of stupid grownups! Look at the sky now. Isn't it lovely?

Theatre

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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Written By

Simon Stephens (after Mark Haddon)

Teens

Male

Drama

I remember the 20th of July 2008. I was 9 years old. It was a Saturday. We were on holiday in Cornwall. We were on the beach in a place called Polperro. Mother was wearing a pair of shorts made out of denim and a stripy blue swimming costume, and she was smoking cigarettes called Consulate, which were mint flavour. And she wasn't swimming. She was sunbathing on a towel, which had red and purple stripes and she was reading a book by Georgette Heyer called the Masqueraders. And then she finished sunbathing and went into the water and said, "Bloody Nora it's cold." And she said I should come and swam too, but I didn't like swimming because I don't like taking my clothes off. And she said I should just roll my trousers up and walk into the water a little way. So I did. And mother said, "Christopher! Look it's lovely." And she jumped backwards and disappeared under the water, and I thought a shark had eaten her and I thought a shark had eaten her and I screamed. And then she stood out of the water and came over to where I was standing and held up her right hand and spread out her fingers like a fan. "Come on Christopher, touch my hand. Come on now. Stop screaming. Touch my hand. Listen to me, Christopher. You can do it. It's OK Christopher. It's OK. There aren't any sharks in Cornwall."

Theatre

The Crucible

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Written By

Arthur Miller

Teens

Female

Period

I cannot bear lewd looks no more, John. My spirit's changed entirely. I ought to be given Godly looks when I suffer for them as I do. Look at my leg. I'm holes all over from their damned needles and pins. The jab your wife gave me's not healed yet, y'know. And George Jacobs comes again and again and raps me with his stick – the same spot every night all this week. Looks at the lump I have. Oh John, the world's so full of hypocrites! They pray in jail, I'm told they pray in jail! And torture me in my bed while sacred words are coming from their mouths! It will need God Himself to cleanse this town properly. If I live, if I am not murdured, I will surely cry out others until the last hypocrite is dead! But John, you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through and all my ignorance was burned away. It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman called me wicked any more but I knew my answer. I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame because some old Rebecca called me loose. And then you burned my ignorance away. As bare as some December tree I saw them all – walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me strength to call them liars and God made men listen to me, and by God, I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again! You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house!

Theatre

The Black Sequin Dress

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Written By

Jenny Kemp

30s–40s

Female

Drama

I can see a beautiful nightclub. Black shiny surfaces, all polished and clean, sparkling glasses full of champagne, gin and tonic, cocktails, liqueurs etc. Women melting into their partners' bodies, the men wrapped around them like blankets. The band, in a row laid back, handsome. Snacks, cards, cigarettes, money, lipstick, watches, jewellery, high stools, dancing, wild dancing, bare bodies under not much. They abandon themselves here. Get out of their day shoes and set off at a gallop, drinks whizzing down the gullet, talk gurgling up, hands wandering all over the place, anywhere will do, who cares. They have learned how not to care, how here to let go the reins. They want to show off, they want to fall in love with the moment and it to fall in love with them. Greedy are they? No, not greedy. Hungry. I love, I love, I love, love they think. Love me, me, me, me, all of me. Fill me up, fill me up. I've had a bath, I've put on my deodorant, my clothes are impeccable. Now now now do the next bit, come over they seem to be screaming. Come over here and really fill me up with something significant something – of value. A right word a soft word at just the right moment straight down the ear hole, ping bullseye, right to the hungry spot, ping and then ah, ah, that was it. Got it thank you, now anything I can do for you back? No, yes, not a sure thing at all, perhaps not. Or someone could walk up their timing perfect, and stand fitting the shape of me. Perfection, it would register. I would breath out, relax and they would sit and put a hand out somewhere on the table, it would contact my hand and ping down the arm would go, the message and it would run up the shoulder into the head, down whiz straight to the heart and zoom, zing the genitals aflame. And my dress would fill up with light. I would wake up and dance I would jump off the end of the pier, free fall. And he would fly over the end after me splash, gurgle gurgle gurgle. And down we go.

Theatre

The Bachelor Party

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Written By

Paddy Chayefsky

20s–30s

Female

Comedy-Drama

It's only a bachelor party. What can they do? Get a little drunk? Charlie doesn't drink, anyway. What do you think they're going to do, find some girls in the street? If some girl came over to Charlie, he would sit there, frowning and thinking it all out for about an hour, and then he'd get up and he'd say: 'Well, miss, I really don't think so.' He's so sweet, you know? I guess this is the way you get when you're having a baby. Everything and everybody seems rosy to you. I look at Charlie sometimes, and he looks handsome to me. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and I look down at him. he looks so sweet. So I pushed him a little. So he says, 'What?' His eyes are still closed. He's still sleeping. I said: 'Charlie, you love me?' So he says – his eyes are half closed, he can hardly keep awake – he says: 'What do you mean, how much? What do you want me to do, write out a profit-and-loss statement?' he's a bookkeeper, you know. I thought that was so funny. Don't you think that's funny? Well, it sounds stupid now, but in the middle of the night like that – he was half asleep – it sounded so funny. I just lay in bed giggling for about half an hour. I'm crazy about him.

Theatre

Tamburlaine the Great

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Written By

Christopher Marlowe

20s–30s

Female

Period

Earth, cast up fountains from thy entrails, And wet thy cheeks for their untimely deaths; Shake with their weight in sign of fear and grief. Blush, heaven, that gave them honour at their birth And let them die a death so barbarous. Those that are proud of fickle empery And place their chiefest good in earthly pomp, Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Ah, Tamburlaine, my love, sweet Tamburlaine, That fights for scepters and for slippery crowns, Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Thou that in conduct of thy happy stars Sleep'st every night with conquest on thy brows, And yet wouldst shun the wavering turns of war, In fear and feeling of the like distress Behold the Turk and his great emperess! Ah, mighty Jove and holy Mahomet, Pardon my love! O, pardon his contempt Of earthly fortune and respect of pity, And let not conquest, ruthlessly pursu'd, Be equally against his life incens'd In this great Turk and hapless emperess! And pardon me that was not mov'd with ruth To see them live so long in misery!– Ah, what may chance to thee, Zenocrate?

Theatre

Sweet Bird of Youth

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Written By

Tennessee Williams

20s

Female

Drama

Don't give me your "Voice of God" speech, Papa, there was a time when you could have saved me, by letting me marry a boy that was still young and clean, but instead you drove him away, drove him out of St. Cloud. And when he came back, you took me out of St. Cloud, and tried to force me to marry a fifty-year-old money bag that you wanted something out of – and then another, another, all of them ones you wanted something out of. I'd gone, so Chance went away. Tried to compete, make himself big as these big-shots you wanted to use me for a bond with. He went. He tried. The right doors wouldn't open, and so he went in the wrong ones, and – Papa, you married for love, why wouldn't you let me do it, while I was alive, inside, and the boy was still clean, still decent? You married for love, but you wouldn't let me do it, and even though you'd done it, you broke Mama's heart. Miss Lucy was your mistress long before Mama died. And Mama was just in front of you. (pause) Can I go in now, Papa? Can I go in now, Papa? I'm sorry my operation has brought this embarrassment on you, but can you imagine it, Papa? I felt worse than embarrassed when I found out that Dr George Scudder's knife had cut the youth out of my body, made me a childless woman. Dry, cold, empty, like an old woman. I feel as if I ought to rattle like a dead dried-up vine when the Gulf Wind blows, but, Papa – I won't embarrass you any more.

Theatre

Skylight

•

Written By

David Hare

30s–40s

Female

Drama

'Female'? That's a very odd choice of word. You see I'm afraid I think this is typical. It's something that happened... it's only happened of late. That people should need to ask why I'm helping these children. I'm helping them because they need to be helped. Everyone makes merry, discussing motive. Of course she does this. She works in the East End. She only does it because she's unhappy. She does it because of a lack in herself. She doesn't have a man. If she had a man, she wouldn't need to do it. Do you think she's a dyke? She must be fucked up, she must be an Amazon, she must be a weirdo to choose to work where she does ... Well I say, what the hell does it matter why I'm doing it? Why anyone goes out and helps? The reason is hardly of primary importance. If I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. I'm tired of these sophistries. I'm tired of these right-wing fuckers. They wouldn't lift a finger themselves. They work contentedly in offices and banks. Yet now they sit pontificating in parliament, in papers, impugning our motives, questioning our judgements. And why? Because they themselves need to feel better by putting down everyone whose work is so much harder than theirs. You only have to say the words 'social worker' ... probation officer' ... 'counsellor' ...for everyone in this country to sneer. Do you know what social workers do? Every day? They try and clear out society's drains. They clear out the rubbish. They do what no one else is doing, what no one else is willing to do. And for that, oh Christ, do we thank them? No, we take our own rotten consciences, wipe them all over the social worker's face, and say 'if ...' FUCK! 'if I did the job, then of course if I did it ... oh no, excuse me, I wouldn't do it like that ...' Well I say: 'OK, then, fucking do it, journalist. Politician, talk to the addicts. Hold families together. Stop the kids from stealing the streets. Deal with couples who beat each other up. You fucking try it, why not? Since you're so full of advice. Sure, come and join us. This work is one casino. By all means. Anyone can play. But there's only one rule. You can't play for nothing. You have to buy some chips to sit at the table. And if you won't play with your own time ... with your own effort ... then I'm sorry. Fuck off!'

Theatre

Silent Disco

•

Written By

Lachlan Philpott

Teens

Female

Drama

I look around and see everyone in their own little world smiling- everyone dancing to their own tune not giving a fuck what anyone else has playing in their ears. For one whole song everything like that. You and me dance like everyone else, no-one tells us we shouldn't be there, no one tells us we are dancing the wrong steps or we don't know shit. The Carnie winks at me and I look back at you Squid. We face each other in the silent disco. I look at your eyes-your tough eyes aren't tough aren't hard they're smiling. Right there and then-everything else blown away-just you and me Squid. You so close I feel you breathe. We've never danced like this before. You reach out and pull me closer to you. The way you pull me in-makes me feel like I'm the best thing in the world.

Theatre

Secret Bridesmaids' Business

•

Written By

Elizabeth Coleman

30s

Male

Comedy

Look, sex and love are separate things...Well, they can be, that's all I'm saying. This thing with Naomi-okay, it should never have happened-but it didn't have to impact on what I have with Meg. I thought that was the deal. It was a separate arrangement. She told me she just wanted a bit of fun, and now she turns around and does this...! I mean, where the hell did that come from? If I'd known Naomi felt like that I would've broken it off with her months ago. Well maybe. Oh shit, maybe not. But I just-I just wish women would say what they mean. You know-plainly, clearly state what they want instead of expecting you to be psychic. Meg bought me this T-shirt at the Warner Brothers store, and it's got a picture of Superman on it. He's wearing this perplexed expression and he's saying you want me to leap tall buildings and be sensitive and supportive?! That's how it is with women. They want you to slay a dragon for them one second, then cry at a guide dog commercial the next. And somehow you're expected to guess when they want you to be controlling and when they want you to be crying-and if you don't make the right guess at the right time it's instantly construed as proof that you don't love them enough. If you really loved me you wouldn't need to ask. How many times have I heard that? Well I'm sorry, I've loved a few people a lot, but no-one's ever stepped out of the shadows and handed me a crystal ball. Anyway, I know I'm trying to change the subject. The fact is, I've been acting like a prick.

Theatre

Salomé

•

Written By

Oscar Wilde

Teens–20s

Female

Period

There is no sound. I hear nothing. Why does he not cry out, this man? Ah, if any man sought to kill me, I would cry out, I would struggle, I would not suffer...Strike, strike, Naaman, strike, I tell you...No, I hear nothing. There is a silence, a terrible silence. Ah! Something has fallen upon the ground. I heard something fall. It is the sword of the headsman. He is afraid, this slave. He has let his sword fall. He dare not kill him. He is a coward, this slave! Let soldiers be sent. (She sees the Page of Herodias and addresses him.) Come hither! Thou wert the friend of him who is dead, is it not so? Well, I tell thee, there are not dead men enough. Go to the soldiers and bid them go down and bring me the thing I ask, the thing the Tetrarch has promised me, the thing that is mine. (The Page recoils. She turns to the soldiers.) Hither, ye soldiers. Get ye down into the cistern and bring me the head of this man. Tetrarch, Tetrarch, command your soldiers that they bring me the head of Jokanaan.

Theatre

Ruben Guthrie

•

Written By

Brendan Cowell

20s–30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

School school school school school. Fuck, um – well my parents sent me to a boarding school. I mean how hard is it to have one kid asleep at night in your house how hard is it but no . . . boarding school! Look, I gotta say I wasn't like 'this' at boarding school, I didn't like getting smashed on rocket fuel and talking about vaginas, honestly I had no interest in Alcohol at all. I spent my money on magazines and electronics – fashion mostly. By the time I reached Year Eight I had fifteen pairs of jeans. So of course the rugby guys and the rowing guys and the wrestling guys would come in at night and they'd pin me down and get it out of their system – the rage. 'Nice shoes faggot – you got mousse in your hair let's put mousse in his anus!' I'd be flipping through MAD magazine and just put the thing down and take it. Fine. But then this guy called Corey joined our school, and suddenly all that stopped. Corey was older than me, bigger than me and a whole lot cooler than me. He drove a black Suzuki Vitara had five earrings and the word 'Fuck' tattooed inside his lip. My mum was always saying 'bring Corey with you on the weekend' and she'd go all flushed and wear low-cut tops in the kitchen. To this day I don't know why he chose me but he did.

Theatre

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

•

Written By

Tom Stoppard

20s–40s

Male

Comedy

Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? Nor do I, really... It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead... which should make a difference... shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air – you'd wake up dead, for a start and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it... Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that, I mean you'd be in there for ever. Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, really... ask yourself, if I asked you straight off – I'm going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking – well, at least I'm not dead! In a minute someone's going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out. 'Hey you, whatsyername! Come out of there!' I wouldn't think about it, if I were you. You'd only get depressed.

Theatre

Romeo and Juliet

•

Written By

William Shakespeare

Teens

Male

Period

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady; O, it is my love! O that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!

Theatre

Romeo and Juliet

•

Written By

William Shakespeare

Teens

Female

Period

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three hours' wife, have mangled it? But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have killed my husband. Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring. Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain, And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband. All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, That murdered me. I would forget it fain, But oh, it presses to my celebration, Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds. "Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banishèd."

Theatre

Red

•

Written By

John Logan

20s

Male

Drama

Bores you?! Bores you?! — Christ almighty, try working for you for a living! — The talking-talking-talking-Jesus-Christ-won't-he-ever-shut-up titanic self-absorption of the man! You stand there trying to look so deep when you're nothing but a solipsistic bully with your grandiose self-importance and lectures and arias and let's-look-at-the-fucking-canvas-for-another-few-weeks-let's-not-fucking-paint-let's-just-look. And the pretension! I can't imagine any other painter in the history of art ever tried so hard to be SIGNIFICANT! You know, not everything has to be so goddamn IMPORTANT all the time! Not every painting has to rip your guts out and expose your soul! Not everyone wants art that actually HURTS! Sometimes you just want a fucking still life or landscape or soup can or comic book! Which you might learn if you ever actually left your goddamn hermetically sealed submarine here with all the windows closed and no natural light — BECAUSE NATURAL LIGHT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!

Theatre

Rather Be a Man

•

Written By

Joseph Arnone

20s–30s

Female

Comedy

I don't know what it is with me lately but I just get so UGH! when guys come up to me, with their cheesy lines, (imitating guy) "Hey, you have such a beautiful smile" or "Can I just tell you that you are so beautiful". Ugh! It disgusts me. I mean, who the hell does this guy or that guy think he is to give me such compliments? What gives him the right? I don't do anything to give off any kind of interest whatsoever, I completely look the other way when I see eye contact happening and they STILL come over thinking they're so suave and it's simply repulsive. You know what I'm saying?? What does a girl have to do these days? Maybe if I just vomited on myself the guy would walk the other way but I bet even then, I'd get, "The way you vomit on yourself is just so, so delightful." All I want is to be left alone. I have a man, I love my man and I do my best to be polite but the irritation and the cheesy lines are getting to be too much. Guys are blind, they really are, OBLIVIOUS to when a girl is not interested. There are days when I rather be a man.

Theatre

Punk Rock

•

Written By

Simon Stephens

Teens

Male

Drama

Human beings are pathetic. Everything human beings do finishes up bad in the end. Everything good human beings ever make is built on something monstrous. Nothing lasts. We certainly won't. We could have made something really extraordinary and we won't. We've been around one hundred thousand years. We'll have died out before the next two hundred. You know what we've got to look forward to? You know what will define the next two hundred years? Religions will become brutalised; crime rates will become hysterical; everybody will become addicted to internet sex; suicide will become fashionable; there'll be famine; there'll be floods; there'll be fires in the major cities of the Western world. Our education systems will become battered. Our health services unsustainable; our police forces unmanageable; our governments corrupt. There'll be open brutality in the streets; there'll be nuclear war; massive depletion of resources on every level; insanely increasing third-world population. It's happening already. It's happening now. Thousands die every summer from floods in the Indian monsoon season. Africans from Senegal wash up on the beaches of the Mediterranean and get looked after by guilty holidaymakers. Somalians wait in hostels in Malta or prison islands north of Australia. Hundreds die of heat or fire every year in Paris. Or California. Or Athens. The oceans will rise. The cities will flood. The power stations will flood. Airports will flood. Species will vanish forever. Including ours. So if you think I'm worried by you calling me names, Bennet, you little, little boy, you are fucking kidding yourself.

Theatre

Promedy

•

Written By

Wade Bradford

Teens

Female

Comedy

Young women need the Prom. It's a rite of passage as sacred as getting your driver's license or buying your first bra. There are only a few things in life that are guaranteed to be glorious and memorable and sparkling with gowns and cummerbunds. Prom is the quintessential teenage experience. Think of the unlucky grown-ups and the elderly who lament the day they decided not to go to the Prom. It is a key ingredient to a happy and meaningful life. Prom is short for Promenade, a slow, gentle walk through a shady glen, and this beloved ceremony symbolizes our journey from the shadows of adolescence to the bright sunshine of the adult world with all its freedoms. And it may be the only chance I'll ever have to dance with a boy. Maybe I'll never have someone get down on a knee and offer me a diamond ring. Maybe I'll never walk down the aisle with a smug look of bridal triumph. But it is my right, and the right of every plain, frumpy, book-wormy, soon-to-be librarian to have one night of Cinderella magic. Even if we have to go with our cousin, or our gay best friend from tap class, we will have a Prom. And you will help me.

Theatre

Pramkicker

•

Written By

Sadie Hasler

30s–40s

Female

Comedy-Drama

He called me by my name. His name for me. Judy Rude. Because I 'always swear'. Apparently. The only fucking person I have ever allowed to call me Judy. I went and stood in a card shop for a bit to sort my head out. I hadn't seen him since we split up, not once. Ten years. It's weird – I always thought I wasn't that bothered about him, but I've not really liked anyone since. Not enough to live with. And you don't expect that when you break up with someone do you? That they won't be bettered. Upgraded. That you will just ... stand still. Ten years. Fuck. So I stood there in the shop, and there were loads of congratulations cards – new babies, pink and blue, storks with bundles, balloons, all spewing out. There was one, with a photo of fat little baby feet, next to a card which said 'It's your birthday, let's get wankered'. And all of a sudden I didn't know who I was anymore. Was I free? Or wasted? Just for a minute. Then I was fine. Left the shop. AND THEN OF COURSE I STARTED GOING FUCKING STIR-FUCKING-CRAZY THINKING OF ALL THE THINGS I COULD HAVE SAID. Like, 'What the fuck were you doing having a kid months after breaking up with me', like 'You said you were like me, you never wanted kids', like 'Damn straight I look good – I haven't been sucked dry by tit-leeches'. And then I almost threw up, because that lady who smells of egg went by, and also because what if, what if we'd stayed together, what if he'd asked me, and I'd said yes in a moment of madness and let him do his thing, and we'd done the normal stuff, and had the babies, would that be my life now? Would I be happy? Happier? Different? What? WHY WASN'T I GOOD ENOUGH TO WANT TO IMPREGNATE? How come Judy Rude lost out to Molly Blah?

Theatre

Plenty

•

Written By

David Hare

30s–40s

Female

Drama

Motoring together it was easier to say we were man and wife. In fact I was barely even his mistress. He simply rang me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd like a holiday abroad. I was amazed. People in our organisation really didn't know each other all that well. You made it your business to know as little as possible, it was a point of principle. Even now you don't know who most of your colleagues were. Perhaps you were in it. Perhaps I met you. I don't know. Tony I knew a little better, not much, but I was glad when he rang. Those of us who went through this kind of war, I think we do have something in common. It's a kind of impatience, we're rather intolerant, we don't suffer fools. And so we get rather restless back in England, the people who stayed behind seem childish and a little silly. If you haven't suffered ... well. And so driving through Europe with Tony I knew that at least I'd be able to act as I pleased for a while. That's all. It's kind of you not to have told the ambassador.

Theatre

Phèdre

•

Written By

Jean Racine

30s–40s

Female

Period

Each moment's precious to me, Theseus, listen. It was I who cast my eyes, profane, incestuous On that son of yours, so chaste and virtuous. Heaven lit the fatal flame within my breast: That detestable Oenone managed all the rest. She feared lest Hippolytus, learning of my ardour, Might reveal a passion that filled him with horror. The traitress, profiting from my profound weakness, Hurried to you to denounce him to your face. She has punished herself, and escaped my anger, By seeking in the waves a far gentler torture. A blade would have already ended my fate too: But I wished to let virtue, suspected, cry to you. I wished, in exposing my remorse to you, To go down to the dead by a slower route. I have taken...I have spread through my burning veins, A poison that Medea brought to Athens. Already the venom flows towards my heart, An unaccustomed chill pierces my dying heart: Already I see as if through a clouded sky, Heaven, and a husband my presence horrifies. And Death, from my eyes, stealing the clarity, Gives back to the day, defiled, all his purity.

Theatre

On the Exhale

•

Written By

Martín Zimmerman

30s–50s

Female

Drama

You always imagined it happening to you. Some young student — always male — in your cramped basement office, twitching with anger, fear, about not getting into med school, law school, or the like, about mountains of debt swallowing his stillborn future, and all because of you. Because you dared make him look outside himself, see past his narrow experience, to the inherent difficulties that come with not being male, because no, you wouldn't consider changing his grade, but most of all, because you dared challenge him... Entitlement mixes with adrenaline, with fear, with testosterone, you smell the incendiary cocktail wafting off him while his leg twitches wildly... Until he lifts the edge of his shirt — a simple, subtle gesture, graceful even — he flips up the bottom corner of his tasteful green button-down, and there it is. Obediently waiting in its holster. Eyeing you with its obsidian stare. You slowly raise your hands. Why? Instinct, probably? You've seen it a hundred times in movies — this is the way you survive when someone pulls a gun, right? You slowly lift your empty arms, the international symbol of plaintive innocence — never mind that this young man isn't a cop, "and even if he were, raising your hands is far from a guarantee of survival." Still, your hands ascend, weightless, while words tumble out, heavy and insubstantial at once; they're all that stand between you and this man, his gun, its obsidian stare. Maybe you're right. Maybe there's something to your point of view. Maybe we can take another look at your final grade–

Theatre

Oleanna

•

Written By

David Mamet

20s

Female

Drama

Professor, I came here as a favour. At your personal request. Perhaps I should not have done so. But I did. On my behalf, and on behalf of my group. And you speak of the tenure committee, one of whose members is a woman, as you know. And though you might call it Good Fun, or An Historical Phrase, or An Oversight, or All of the Above, to refer to the committee as Good Men and True, it is a demeaning remark. It is a sexist remark, and to overlook it is to countenance continuation of that method of thought. You love the Power. I'm sorry. You feel yourself empowered ... you say so yourself. To strut. To posture. To "perform." To "Call me in here..." Eh? You say that higher education is a joke. And treat it as such, you treat it as such. And confess to a taste to play the Patriarch in your class. To grant this. To deny that. To embrace your students. And you think it's charming to "question" in yourself this taste to mock and destroy. But you should question it. Professor. And you pick those things which you feel advance you: publication, tenure, and the steps to get them you call "harmless rituals." And you perform those steps. Although you say it is hypocrisy. But to the aspirations of your students. Of hardworking students, who come here, who slave to come here – you have no idea what it cost me to come to this school – you mock us. You call education "hazing" and from your so-protected, so-elitist seat you hold our confusion as a joke, and hopes and efforts with it. Then you sit there and say "what have I done?" And ask me to understand that you have aspirations too. But I tell you. I tell you. That you are vile. And that you are exploitative. And if you possess one ounce of that inner honesty you describe in your book, you can look in yourself and see those things that I see. And you can find revulsion equal to my own. Good Day.

Theatre

NSFW

•

Written By

Lucy Kirkwood

20s–30s

Male

Drama

I can't think of anything. I'm sorry. I'd like to be able to but. I loved her. I do love her. I actually can't right now deal with the idea that she's gone, that I might not ever wake up with her again, or go on holiday, because I think, sorry if this is a bit, but I think she's my soulmate. Stupid things like I love watching her eat, the way she eats is so... and she's funny and beautiful and. Brave and – like, we were on the Tube once, it was really crushed and there was this man, he wasn't like a tramp, he was in a suit, he had a briefcase, and she realised this man had taken his, you know – his... penis, out, through his flies, and he was sort of, rubbing it on her but the Tube was so packed you know, so people didn't notice, but when she saw it, she started shouting really loud, 'Look at his chipolata!', till everyone was looking at them – and you'd think that would be really embarrassing. wouldn't you? But I just loved that, she's just, fearless and what happened is the whole Tube, together, starting chanting at him, we're all chanting together at this man, 'Chipolata! Chipolata!' and I thought: I actually feel like part of something, you know? For the first time in my life I feel like I'm part of something, like we, people, together, can change things. People can stand up and stop shit things happening. Because that's what it was like when I was with her, I felt... connected to the world, and all the things the world could be if we were just, better versions of ourselves, so it's like that better world was sort of a shared space that existed in both our heads, so there was like a world, that we lived in together, that we'd helped to make and it was just for us, it was our secret. We had a secret and we lived in it together and that's it, really. I just really love her.

Theatre

Noises Off

•

Written By

Michael Frayn

50s+

Female

Comedy

It's no good you going on. I can't open sardines and answer the phone. I've only got one pair of feet. Hello.... Yes, but there's no one here, love.... No, Mr. Brent's not here...He lives here, yes, but he don't live here now because he lives in Spain... Mr. Philip Brent, that's right.... The one who writes the plays, that's him, only now he writes them in Spain... No, she's in Spain, too, they're all in Spain, there's no one here... Am I in Spain? No, I'm not in Spain, dear. I look after the house for him, but I go home at one o'clock on Wednesday, only I've got a nice plate of sardines to put my feet up with, because it's the royal what's-it's called on the telly — the royal you know — where's the paper, then? And if it's to do with letting the house then you'll have to ring the house-agents, because they're the agents for the house.... Squire Squire, Hackham and who's the other one...? No, they're not in Spain, they're next to the phone in the study. Squire, Squire, Hackham, and hold on, I'll go and look. Always the same, isn't it. Soon as you take the weight off your feet, down it all comes on your head.

Theatre

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America

•

Written By

Stephen Sewell

30s–40s

Male

Drama

Look, mate, I don't know what's happening – I just arrived, right? And, all right, I know the Americans go on with all this flag-waving, patriotic bullshit and think the rest of the world hates them, but fuck, Talbot, they're right: the rest of the world does hate 'em – I hate 'em, and I want to live here! It's envy, isn't it? Everyone looks at what they've got and wants it...They just want the stuff, that's right, isn't it? And figure the reason they can't get the stuff, is because the Americans are stopping them. That's where we're at now, and now some prick's actually done something about it, and killed three thousand people, and the Americans are fucking mad as hell, because they know every single one of them is on that plane hurtling towards the Twin Towers and they don't like it and they're not going to stand for it, and they're going to get the pricks that're threatening them. Well, all power to George W – I don't want the fucking pricks to win, either. There were Aussies killed up there, mate, there were English, there were Scots, there were fucking Moslems, for fuck's sake! There was fucking everybody: everyone's hopes were up there in those two towers....It's a war, Talbot – It is a war. It's a war against terror and it's a war against ignorance, and it's a war against prejudice and pure dumb-arsed fuckwittedness, and we've got to win that war, otherwise we're fucked.

Theatre

Much Ado About Nothing

•

Written By

William Shakespeare

20s–40s

Male

Comedy

This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud; happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair – 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness. And virtuous – 'tis so, I cannot reprove it. And wise, but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit – nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Theatre

Mrs Warren's Profession

•

Written By

George Bernard Shaw

40s–50s

Female

Period

No, you don't understand. I do. Liz called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don't know. The other two were only half sisters: undersized, ugly, starved looking, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half-murdered them if mother hadn't half-murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week—until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn't it? Liz didn't, I can tell you: she had more spirit. We both went to a church school—that was part of the ladylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and went nowhere—and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came back. I know the schoolmistress thought I'd soon follow her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that Lizzie'd end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all he knew about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead factory than I was of the river; and so would you have been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as a scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was a waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo station: fourteen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns in her purse. She's living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there. Chaperones girls at the country ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman—saved money from the beginning—never let herself look too like what she was—never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up good-looking she said to me across the bar "What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing out your health and your appearance for other people's profit!" Liz was saving money then to take a house for herself in Brussels; and she thought we two could save faster than one. So she lent me some money and gave me a start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and then went into business with her as a partner. Why shouldn't I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high class: a much better place for a woman to be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned. None of the girls were ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home.

Theatre

Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play

•

Written By

Anne Washburn

20s–40s

Female

Drama

He told me that he had gone to do it, he had, he was at a gas station, a mile and a half from the main entrance. It's this gorgeous fall day and he's siphoning off one of the tanks. He has containers. He has a dolly, or—what are those things, where it's a couple of planks, basically, on wheels like this . . . and usually it has strips of carpeting on it? He's determined, he's totally set to go. And then he had a, he had a. A flash? A very vivid—just one of those, fantasies you have all of a sudden. He said he saw himself walking towards the plant and there's the reactor right above him, and up the little service roadway and he's at the shed, the the the service shed, and he busts at the lock until he busts it open. And he pictures this shed as being vast, shadowy, and at the end of it this huge hulking generator. And he steps into the shed and he's maneuvering the dolly inside when he realizes, that it's quiet. It's so quiet. He lowers the dolly and he almost can't bear it but he walks, all the way across the shed, his boots on the concrete floor. He's standing right in front of the silent generator and he reaches out, he touches it: it's cold, dead. He's too late. And his heart is pounding. And he has a flutter in his stomach which he thought, What is this, is this adrenaline? And he thinks: probably not. And this ache, starting up in his head. And he leaves the shed and the reactor . . . it's right there, right above him, half lit up by sunlight, And now he gets the first wave of nausea. He discovers he's shitting his pants. And. This is weird. He doesn't want the reactor to get to watch him die. So he starts off, back down the road. And he's thinking, all I want is to get around that curve up there. So I'm out of sight. Feets, just carry me that far. Feets don't fail me now. And this is the point where he snaps out of it. He's standing at the gas station, with his dolly, and six gas canisters he's scrounged from garages, and a few plastic tubs he found in restaurants. And he looks up the roadway leading to the plant. And he knows he can't do it. He drops the siphon. He walks away. He said: it's not knowing, that's the problem. He said: I think I just can't handle the dread.

Theatre

Mirandolina (The Mistress of the Inn)

•

Written By

Carlo Goldoni

20s–30s

Female

Comedy

Huh! Marry Him! His Excellency Signor the Marquis Skinflint. That would be the day! The husbands I'd have, if I'd married all that had wanted to marry me! They've only got to enter this Inn and they fall in love with me and think they can marry me on the spot. Except this Signor Baron, the ill-mannered lout! What right's he got to think himself too high and mighty to be civil to me? Nobody else who's ever stopped at this Inn has ever treated me so! I certainly don't expect him to fall in love with me at first sight—but to behave like that! That sort of thing infuriates me. So he hates women? Doesn't want anything to do with them? The poor fool. He hasn't met the woman yet who knows how to set about him. But he will. Oh, yes, he will, all right. And, who knows if he hasn't just met her. Yes, this fellow might be exactly what I need. I'm sick to death of men who run after me. As for marriage—there's plenty of time for that. I want to enjoy my freedom first. And here's a chance to really enjoy it. Yes, I'll use every art I have to conquer this enemy of women!

Theatre

Me As a Penguin

•

Written By

Tom Wells

20s–30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

I had a good think last night. While I was projectile vomiting. And I decided, perhaps the gay scene of Hull isn't for me. It's the vodka, I think. Among other things. Honestly. I looked deep inside myself. And I just found: wool. I'm not a great one for nightclubs, not a party animal. Can't imagine I ever will be. I don't even like sex that much, to be honest. Rather have a good yoghurt. I think the best thing I can hope to do with my life is. Knitting. I like hanging round with old ladies in experimental cardigans. They're nice. Kind. I fit in. Think they've even twigged about, you know. Always speak very highly of Dale Winton when I'm around, so. Perhaps I'd better just. Do that. For a bit. Took myself down to the beach one afternoon. Sat in the shingle, looking for fossils. Didn't find much. Half a devil's toenail. Bit off an ammonite's shell. A tampon. Then I watched the waves for a bit. They've got a rhythm, you know. Sort of: inviting. I thought: I could just keep sitting here, let it wash round me, like arms. No one'd know. Then I thought: actually. Looks a bit cold. Went home and watched Countdown. It's not the same without Carol Vorderman but still. Better than. You know.

Theatre

Marriage

•

Written By

Nikolai Gogol

20s–30s

Female

Comedy

Honestly, this choosing business is so difficult. If there were just one or two, but four! Take your pick. Mr Anuchkin isn't bad-looking, but he's a bit skinny, of course. And Mr Podkolyosin isn't too bad, either. And truth to tell, though he's rather stout, Mr Omelet's still a fine figure of a man. So what am I to do, if you please? Mr Zhevakin's also a man of distinction. It really is difficult to decide, you can't begin to describe it. Now, if you could attach Mr Anuchkin's lips to Mr Podkolyosin's nose, and take some of Mr Zhevakin's easy manner, and perhaps add Mr Omelet's solid build, I could decide on the spot. But now I've got to rack my brains! And it's giving me a fearsome headache. I think it'd be best to draw lots. Turn the whole matter over to God's will, and whichever one comes out, that'll be my husband. I'll write all their names on a bit of paper, roll them up tight, then so be it. Life's so trying for a girl, especially when she's in love. It's something no man will ever understand, and anyway they just don't want to. Now, that's them ready! All that remains is to put them in my purse, shut my eyes, and that's it – what will be, will be. This is dreadful... oh God, please make it Anuchkin! No, why him? Better Mr Podkolyosin. But why Mr Podkolyosin? In what way are the others worse? No, no, I won't... whichever comes out, so be it. Oh! All of them! They've all come out! And my heart's pounding. No, no, it's got to be one! Oh, if only I could draw out Baltazar... no, what am I saying? I mean Mr Anuchkin...no, I won't, I won't. Let fate decide.

Theatre

Lord of the Flies

•

Written By

William Golding (stage adaptation)

Teens

Male

Drama

What makes things break up like they do? I mean, what is wrong with people? Let's go to the other side of the island to hunt and have fun...and die here on this bloody island!? Doesn't anyone care about getting rescued?! The fire should always be the number one priority! If it wasn't for Jack, I would probably be at home right now... My hair... it's so long... I mean, I can barely see. And I can barely get my fingers through it. My clothes... they're like cardboard. The salt... it's everywhere. Look at my nails. I would do anything for a bar of soap... anything just to have a bath. Look at my face... look at me! I probably look like one of Jack's hunters with all this dirt. Stupid face painting...as if they think it actually helped them catch that boar. I could be home right now. I could off this island with mom and dad and... Mom always told me that sometimes things are better left unsaid and I have tried. I have tried to reason with him. I don't understand. I was voted chief fair and square. He always says I am afraid and I am sometimes. But who wouldn't be? Even Jack looked scared when he ran down that mountain. But of course, he will never admit that. What did I ever do to Jack? Why do you hate me, Jack? I just wanted to work together, get things done on this island, and do everything we can to be rescued. But he doesn't seem to care. I know he has a family; doesn't he want to see them? And he is such a show-off: "I cut the pig's throat, I spilled her blood" So what Jack?! Is that going to get us rescued? Of course not. The fire will. It is our only hope. Only no one understands that. Well, Piggy does, but Piggy understands everything, but it doesn't matter anyway. There was a ship... Supposed I stopped caring? Just like the others. Only Piggy seems to care... and I need more than Piggy on my side...So maybe I should forget the fire, put mud and blood on my face and join the rest of them. They seem to be having fun. And they probably have eaten lots of meat. Some meat would taste really good right now... So maybe I should stop caring too...

Theatre

Key Exchange

•

Written By

Kevin Wade

20s–30s

Male

Comedy

So great. So we get keys made for each other's apartments. So then you know what happens? I'll tell you what happens. Maybe one night I'm at a party, a bar, whatever, and I met a girl, and right off we know it's a mutual attraction situation, and we have a little chat and a drink maybe, and next thing you know we're in a cab, and there's a physical thing that's happening, and we're chewing each other's faces and trying to decide where to go, you know, your place or mine, only hold the phone here, there is no decision to be made, because you've got a key to my place, and I don't know if you've dropped by or what, and I don't want to chance putting either you or me in that awkward situation, so it's off to her place somewhere in the East Eighties where I've got to climb over her two roommates and three cats to do it on a foam mattress on the floor real, real quiet like because Sally my roommate has a commercial callback at nine-thirty in the morning and this whole time I'm having some resentment towards you because your having a key meant that it had to be the cats and the floor and Sally the roommate asleep or nothing.

Theatre

Key Exchange

•

Written By

Kevin Wade

30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

If you really want to know, married life sucks. My wife left me. The composer. The guy she's been working with. He tells her he can't help himself. And she can't help herself. So they're out there somewhere helping themselves. I can't believe it. We're in bed. I'm trying to get something started, and she up and turns on the light and starts to cry and says we've got to talk. "There's this man, Michael. You've met him. Eric. The musician. I don't know how this happened. I have, we have feelings for each other. I've been trying to rationalize them away, pressure from the wedding, the intimacy of working together, but I can't. I'm with you now, but I'm thinking about him, and that's not fair to either of us. I can't sneak around on you. I have to figure out what I'm doing. I can't just live in this limbo." Then we're in the bathroom, and she's putting all her makeup and shit into a bag, and she's telling me that it's nothing I've done, this Eric guy is totally different, they connect on a whole other level. I still can't believe it. She starts to pack up her diaphragm and jelly, and I say can't you hold off on the fucking until you know a little better just what the fuck you are doing? And she says physical attraction is part of what's between them, and it's her body. We fight. She's really crying hard now, and she goes back into the bedroom. I see the tube of diaphragm jelly lying next to the sink. I'm nuts, you know, I'm really crazy. I empty the tube of jelly into the toilet, take my tube of muscle liniment, hold the two tubes nozzle to nozzle, and fill up the jelly tube with Tiger Balm.

Theatre

I've Come About the Assassination

•

Written By

Tony Morphett

Teens–20s

Male

Drama

Violent? Violent, are we? Tell me what else we've ever been shown, Dad. Eh Dad? Eh? What else have we ever seen, eh? Teenager ordered the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, eh Dad? Bit of a kid worked out the answer to the Jewish problem, eh Dad? All you kids. All so violent. You were a violent kid, Dad, weren't you? Fighting in the revolution. Cutting people's throats an all. Who was it told you to cut the throats, Dad? Teenager was it? Or was it some old bastard with a grey moustache and one foot in the grave? Eh, Dad? Eh? Who nutted out the area bombing in Germany? Who worked out the flying bombs for England? Who said for every one bomb that drops on our kids, we'll drop ten on theirs? Rotten pimply-faced teenage hooligans, wasn't it? Eh, Dad? You know why you say we're violent? Because some of us have taken a wake-up to you. I wouldn't swat a fly for you or anyone else your age. But if I needed to, for myself, I'd cut God's throat. I'm not killing for old men in parliaments. I'm killing for myself. And do you know why, Dad? Because all along, right down the line from the man with the club killing on the witchdoctor's say-so, right through to the poor helpless bastards spitted on bayonets in what a warm, fat bishop could call a just war, right down the line, there's always been another generation of kids to send off to get killed. But this is it. Since that bomb. If we muff it, it .... is ... this ... generation ... that... picks ... up ... the ...cheque. So that's why I'm not listening to anyone but me. And for all sorts of confused reasons, I am going to kill that man in the car.

Theatre

Gruesome Playground Injuries

•

Written By

Rajiv Joseph

20s–30s

Male

Drama

You know what, Kayleen? Jesus Christ, you know, I came to your house last year and your dad was there, and I know he hates my guts, he always has, and he's like She is where she is. I don't know where the girl is. He said he didn't care and didn't care to know. And I was about to just leave, but I didn't. I didn't and I said to that son of a bitch... You remember, asshole? You dead piece of shit!? You remember what I said to you!? I said to him, you are fucking worthless. You have a daughter and she is a gift from God. She is the most perfect being to ever walk this earth and you don't even know it. And she loves you because you're her stupid father. But you've never loved her back, you've just damaged her and fucked her up, and never bothered to notice she's this angel. So fuck you, cocksucker. And then I told him I hoped he'd die alone. Which he did. So I feel a little guilty about that now. I can take care of you, Leenie.

Theatre

Goodbye Charles

•

Written By

Gabrielle Davis

20s–30s

Male

Comedy

I'm not the kind of guy who spends hundreds on a last minute flight, back to New York, tears across town, then run up six flights of stairs and knocks on my best friend's girlfriend's door in order to run off and elope with her based on one crazy, thoughtless, inexplicable romantic night. So what am I doing here, Audrey? I'm not passionate. I'm a fact checker for Christ's sake. And the fact of me – being here – doesn't check out. It's nuts! Soul mates? I don't believe in them. Never have. So how can I be yours? The fact is, you hardly know me! And I hardly know you! Now your boyfriend, I've known since kindergarten. Am I really willing to throw all those years of friendship away based on...what? Some feeling? Because the fact is you are in a relationship. Because the fact is we just met yesterday. Because the fact is I'm not the kind of guy who falls in love. That's a fact. A cold hard fact. And facts are supposed to be true. But the problem is....despite every fact I can muster, there's something that still doesn't check out. Because the truth is despite all facts to the contrary...I still love you madly. And it just defies all reason. All morality. All sense. But I do. I love you madly. And it's not like me. And I don't want to. But I can't help it.

Theatre

Gloria

•

Written By

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

20s–30s

Male

Comedy

There this girl who works here – Vanessa? She one of them girls that has Witherspoon face. You know how some white girls just randomly be looking like Reese Witherspoon? Vanessa be getting so mad when I say that though. She be like, 'Shawn, that is racist! All white people do not look alike!' And I'm like, Bitch, it's not racist if I say you look famous. I mean, it's only racist if I say you look like some basic run-of-the-mill white chick, you know? There's a difference. I mean people be mistaking me for somebody else all the time. And that's the shit that be getting me mad, you know? That's when I'm like, All black people do not look alike, you know what I mean? It's like No, I'm not the guy who mowed your dad's lawn. And no, I'm not your student from the year you did Teach for America! That's different. Vanessa just be so sensitive. It's not like I mistook her for Reese Witherspoon. It's not like I tapped her on the shoulder and was like, 'Reese Witherspoon, is that you?' I just said she look like Reese Witherspoon, because she got a Witherspoon face. I mean, it would be different if somebody mistook me for somebody famous once in a while. That would be nice. But that, like, never happens.

Theatre

Folk

•

Written By

Tom Wells

50s+

Female

Comedy-Drama

Oh, it was fine. I mean: not fine fine – everything's... I've been at the hospital, Kayleigh. I don't know if Stephen said. Getting some tests done. I've got angina. Which for some reason I keep calling: vagina. It doesn't help. It means, Kayleigh, no more fun. No more drinking, no more getting worked up, no more smoking, apparently – I'm ignoring that, obviously but. I'm getting pills, blood-thinners. They've showered me with leaflets. The consultant basically said I could pop my clogs at any moment. Added to which: he was a very pale man, heavy-breather – I did wonder briefly if he might actually be Death, come to get me. But then one of the other doctors popped in, called him Nigel, mentioned something about badminton so I thought: probably not. It's hard to imagine the Grim Reaper with a shuttlecock. But that's not the worst bit, Stephen. Picture this: I've been through all the sitting, the waiting, spent three pounds thirty-nine on a mediocre sandwich, been wired up to a monitor, jogged, et cetera, I've been jiggled about, prodded, pressed with some very chilly instruments, got released, finally, back into the world, with my clogged-up arteries and uncertain future, I'm in the lift going down, who should I bump into? Who should get into the lift with me on floor number seven? I'll give you a clue: he's got a fucking hernia. And did he ask how I was? No. He spotted me, took a deep breath, launched into another two-hour rant about what a rough deal it is – whinging, complaining, whining. I mean, I know it's not nice to have a bit of your stomach lining poking out, I get it, I do, but really – how much more is there to say? Anyway, I'm sorry to be so late back.

Theatre

Fleabag

•

Written By

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

20s–30s

Female

Comedy-Drama

Okay. Into the shower. Boom. Bedroom. Make-up. Boom. Gonna really make an effort. I take half an hour trying to look nice and I ended up looking... amazing. I mean, best in ages. One of those days. Boom. Gorgeous, fresh-faced, heels, wearing a skirt, new top, little bit sexy, on my way to save my café and yes, I am strutting. I see a man walking towards me from the bus stop. He can't take his eyes off me. I'm all walking like I've got a paintbrush up my arse, thinking: Yeah, check me out, cos it's never gonna happen, Chub Chub. I opened the café with my friend Boo. She's dead now. She accidentally killed herself. It wasn't her intention, but it wasn't a total accident. She didn't think she'd actually die, just found out that her boyfriend slept with someone else and she wanted to punish him by ending up in hospital and not letting him visit her for a bit. She decided to walk into a busy cycle lane wanting to get tangled in a bike. Break a finger, maybe. But it turns out bikes can go fast and flip you into the road. Three people died. She was such a dick. I didn't tell her parents the truth. I told her boyfriend. He cried a lot. Chub Chub's getting closer. Oversized jacket. Meaty face. Looks me up and down. It's like he's confused about how attractive I am – he can't quite believe it. I worry for a second I'm going to make a sex offender out of the poor guy. He's about to say something. Here we fucking go, this better be good. He's passing, he's passing. He clears his throat, brings his hand to his mouth and coughs: "Walk of shame." It's too late to go home and change. I have some flat shoes in my bag and anyway, he's fat. And he can't take that off at night.

Theatre

Fen

•

Written By

Caryl Churchill

30s–50s

Female

Drama

It was after she died I started drinking, which has been my great sin and brought misery to myself and those who love me. I betrayed them again and again by saying I would give it up, but the drink would have me hiding a little away. But my loving sisters in Christ stood by me. I thought if God wants me he'll give me a sign, because I couldn't believe he really would want someone as terrible as me. I thought if I hear two words today, one beginning with M for Margaret, my name, and one with J for Jesus, close together, then I'll know how close I am to him. And that very afternoon I was at Mavis's house and her little boy was having his tea, and he said, 'More jam, mum'. So that was how close Jesus was to me, right inside my heart. That was when I decided to be baptised. But I slid back and had a drink again and next day I was in despair. I thought God can't want me, nobody can want me. And a thrush got into my kitchen. I thought if that bird can fly out, I can fly out of my pain. I stood there and watched, I didn't open another window, there was just the one window open. The poor bird beat and beat round the room, the tears were running down my face. And at last at last it found the window and went straight through into the air. I cried tears of joy because I knew Jesus would save me. So I went to Malcolm and said baptise me now because I'm ready. I want to give myself over completely to God so there's nothing else of me left, and then the pain will be gone and I'll be saved. Without the love of my sisters I would never have got through.

Theatre

Fat Pig

•

Written By

Neil LaBute

20s–30s

Male

Drama

I'm weak. That's what I basically learned from our time together. I am a weak person, and I don't know if I can overcome that. No, maybe I do know. Yeah. I do know that I am, and I can't... overcome it, I mean. I think you are an amazing woman, I honestly do. And I really love what we've had here. Our time together... But I think that we're very different people. Not just who we are- jobs or that kind of thing- but it does play into it as well. Factors in. We probably should've realized this earlier, but I've been so happy being near you that I just sorta overlooked it and went on. I did. But I feel it coming up now, more and more, and I just think- No, that's bullshit, actually, the whole work thing. Forget it. (Beat.) I'm just, I feel that we should maybe stop before we get too far. It's weird to say this, because in many ways I'm already in so deep. Care about you a lot, and that makes it superhard. But- I guess I do care what my peers think about me. Or how they view my choices and, yes, maybe that makes me not very deep, or petty, or some other word, hell, I don't know! It's my Achilles flaw or something. It doesn't matter. What I'm sure of is this- we need to stop. Stop seeing each other or going out or anything like that. Because I know now how weak I am and that I'm not really deserving of you, of all you have to offer me. I can see that now. Helen... things are so tricky, life is. I want to be better... to do good and better things and to make a proper sort of decision here, but I... I can't.

Theatre

Fat Pig

•

Written By

Neil LaBute

20s–30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

Dude, I understand. Like, totally. I used to walk ahead of her in the mall or, you know, not tell her stuff at school so there wouldn't be, whatever. My own mom. I mean ... I'm fifteen and worried about every little thing, and I've got this fucking sumo wrestler in a housecoat trailing behind me. That's about as bad as it can get! I'm not kidding you. And the thing was, I blamed her for it. I mean, it wasn't like a disease or like some people have, thyroid or that type of deal ... she just shovelled shit into her mouth all the time, had a few kids, and, bang, she's up there at 350, maybe more. It used to seriously piss me off. My dad was always working late ... golfing on weekends, and I knew it was because of her. It had to be! How's he gonna love something that looks like that, get all sexy with her? I'm just a kid at the time, but I can remember thinking that. Yeah, it's whatever, but ... this once, in the grocery store, we're at Albertsons and we're pushing four baskets around – you wanna know how humiliating that shit is? – and I'm supposed to be at a game by seven, I'm on JV, and she's just farting around in the candy isle, picking up bags of "fun size" Snickers and checking out the calories. Yeah. I mean, what is that?! So, I suddenly go off on her, like, this sophomore in high school, but I'm all screaming in her face ... "Don't look at the package, take a look in the mirror, you cow! PUT 'EM DOWN!" Holy shit, there's stock boys – bunch of guys I know, even – are running down the isle. Manager stumbling out of his glass booth there, the works. But you know what? She doesn't say a word about it. Ever. Not about the swearing, the things I called her, nothing. Just this, like, one tear I see ... as we're sitting at a stoplight on the way home. That's all.

Theatre

Dry Land

•

Written By

Ruby Rae Spiegel

Teens

Female

Drama

I've been sleeping in my swimsuit. I've been sleeping in my swimsuit. For superstitious reasons. I haven't taken it off for a week. Because of this thing tomorrow. Swimming for the coach. One day he's going to come watch me at a meet, and the next he wants me to come swim my best while he's taping me from under the water, like invading all that space. And I've only seen his face once on a website, like a weird confusing blue website. And this is the only place I'm getting recruited for because a year and a half ago I had this thing where I couldn't swim for like three months so all the other schools dropped me. And I have a rash. Like a really bad rash. I think. I haven't seen it. I mean whatever. I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me, I'm just saying that I'm not like physically fit and smiling. I just. My mom is out of town, and her boyfriend is a car salesman with a kid. Who I hate. And I haven't spoken to my best friend who might be my ex-best friend, I don't know, we haven't spoken in a week and she's not coming to practice so, I told you. Do you feel special?

Theatre

Dry Land

•

Written By

Ruby Rae Spiegel

Teens

Female

Drama

I used to hang out a lot at the Rock Shop. You know the store by the freeway where you can crack rocks that look like regular dull rocks but actually have this crazy dyed crystal stuff on the inside? I used to hang out there all the time and crack rocks. And hang out with the boys who worked behind the counter and then I went through puberty and they told me that I couldn't crack the rocks anymore. That it was weird for someone my age with the way I look to be cracking rocks while kids had birthday parties. So you know what I did? I replaced some of the rocks with regular rocks, like from my yard. I never went back to see what happened but I bet they really had to explain when the birthday boy or whatever cracked this big rock and all there was, was more rock. That there wasn't anything special hiding underneath that it was just more rock.

Theatre

Dags

•

Written By

Debra Oswald

Teens

Female

Comedy

All right. I'm going to admit something I never thought I'd admit to anyone ever. I've got a crush on Adam. Head over heels. Uncontrollable passion, etcetera. Unrequited passion, of course. Now I know this sounds like I'm throwing away everything I've said so far. And I guess I am. I know every girl at school except Monica is in love with him. I know he'd never go for a dag like me. I know it's hopeless. I know all that. But I can't help it. Just thinking he might look at me, my heart starts pounding like mad. And then I worry about whether he can tell my hearts going crazy, and I have to act really cool. This crush – it's like a disease. Do you know – oh, I'm almost too embarrassed to admit this – Adam misses the bus sometimes. 'Cos he's chatting up some girl or something. And do you know what I do? I get off the bus after one stop and walk back to school, so I can hang around the bus stop hoping he'll turn up. Just so I can ride on the same bus with him. Isn't that the most pathetic thing you've ever heard? I'm crazy. I can lie here for hours thinking about him. Writing these movies in my head where Adam and me are the stars. I try to imagine how he'd notice me and fall hopelessly in love with me and all that. Like, one of my favourites is that the bus breaks down one day in this remote place and there we are stranded together. He discovers that I was this really fascinating woman all along. Far more interesting than all those silly girls at school. But – I say that I can't bear to be just another notch on his belt. So Adam has to beg me to go out with me. Grovel almost. That's a pretty over-the-top version.

Theatre

Cowboy Mouth

•

Written By

Sam Shepard & Patti Smith

20s

Female

Drama

You're so neat. You're such a neat guy. I wish I woulda known you when I was little. Not real little. But at the age when you start finding out stuff. When I was cracking rocks apart and looking at their sparkles inside. I would've took you to this real neat hideout I had where I made a waterfall with tires and shit, and my own hut. We could've taken all our clothes off, and I'd look at your dinger, and you could show me how far you could piss. I bet you would have protected me. People were always giving me shit. Ya know what? Once I was in a play. I was real glad I was in a play 'cause I thought they were just for pretty people, and I had my dumb eyepatch and those metal plate shoes to correct my duck foot. It was The Ugly Duckling, and I really dug that cause of the happy ending and shit. And I got to be the ugly duckling, and I had to wear some old tattered black cloth and get shit flung at me, but I didn't mind 'cause at the end I'd be that pretty swan and all. But you know what they did, Slim? At the end of the play I had to kneel on the stage and cover my head with a black shawl and this real pretty blonde-haired girl dressed in a white ballet dress rose up behind me as the swan. It was really shitty, man. I never got to be the fucking swan. I paid all the dues and up rose ballerina Cathy like the North Star. And afterwards all the parents could talk about was how pretty she looked. Boy, I ran to my hideout and cried and cried. The lousy fucks. I wish you were around then. I bet you would've protected me.

Theatre

Così

•

Written By

Louis Nowra

20s–30s

Male

Comedy

It was the fault of the psychiatrist. I'd been seeing him because of my Pyromania – that's a person who likes lighting fires-but you probably know that being University educated. You know the problem with pyromania? It's the only crime where you have to be at the scene of it to make it a perfect crime, to give yourself satisfaction. 'Course, that means the chances of you getting caught are greater, especially if you're standing in front of the fire, face full of ecstasy and with a gigantic hard on. So, the cops got me and I'm sent to the shrink. He tells me that I've got an unresolved problem with my mother. I think, hello, he's not going to tell me to do something Oedipal, like fuck her or something...but that wasn't the problem. My ego had taken a severe battering from her. He said I had better resolve it, stop treating her like I was still a child. It made some sort of cosmic sense. I had to stand up to her. So I thought about it and realised that I had to treat it like a boxing match, get the first punch in, so to speak, to give me the upper hand in our relationship. She had five cats. One night I rounded them up, put them in a cage, doused them with petrol and put a match to them. Well, boy, oh, boy, what a racket! They were running around the backyard burning and howling-there's no such thing as grace under pressure for a burning cat, let me tell you. I hid in the shrubs when Mum came outside to see what was happening. Totally freaked out, she did. Five of them, running around the backyard like mobile bonfires. I figured I'd wait a couple of hours till the cats were dead and mum was feeling a bit sorry for herself and I'd knock on the front door and say to her 'Hi, mum, I've come to talk about our unresolved conflicts' but, oh, no, one of those cats ran into the house. In a couple of minutes the whole bloody house was alight and within half an hour there was no bloody front door to knock on. (a beat) If it wasn't for that damn cat, I wouldn't be here.

Theatre

Bull

•

Written By

Mike Bartlett

20s–30s

Female

Drama

You have a kid don't you? You do. I know you do. So. So you don't need to hide it. You have a kid. Yeah. Tough. What's its name? Is it Harry? It is Harry. I know it is. You know how I know this? It's because once when we left work, I was walking behind you and you walked all the way down the road, and I could see you in front of me, and I saw you meet this woman in a coffee shop it wasn't a nice coffee shop I was surprised you went into it, it was a Costa or something not even a good one a shit Costa, and I watched you meet this woman and she had a little toddling little thing, and I waited and I saw you go to the loo, and then I ran in and said oh I was hoping to catch you and I pretended I was in a hurry, and I had a little chat with Marion, is that her name your ex and she told me about Harry, and I said I was a colleague and you were taking ages in the toilet actually we talked about it we didn't know what you were up to in there, but it meant we had a good talk about you, and in the end when you still didn't come out I said I needed to dash and I'd catch you tomorrow instead, but that conversation with her gave me quite a lot of crucial information. Which I've always known when you've tried to hide things or lie or whatever, I've always known about your life things that you don't know I know. I know you have to pay Marion that certain amount every month and when she hears that you're out of work her low estimation of you will drop even further it will I promise she won't be surprised that's the really tragic thing for you, she won't be like oh my God you lost your job! Oh my God! She'll be like, yeah of course he lost his job fucking loser good thing I got out while I could, better not let him see Harry too much don't want Harry to grow up in the distorted disabled image of his fucking drip drip of a father. I expect that's what she'll think. It's tough isn't it, life. Is it a lot more difficult than you imagined it would be? I mean I'm sure you thought it was difficult but that through sheer hard work, and practice and training and long hours and inspiration and in your case perspiration you would come through and in the end, succeed, because you thought that despite everything, it was, in this country at least, a meritocracy and that fair play and honest, transparent behaviour at work would be rewarded in the end. That bad people like me would fall at the wayside and good people like you would triumph. That's what you thought isn't it? Oops...

Theatre

Broadway Bound

•

Written By

Neil Simon

40s–50s

Female

Comedy-Drama

What do I want to do? Is that how it works? You have an affair, and I get the choice of forgetting about it or living alone for the rest of my life?...It's so simple for you, isn't it? I am so angry. I am so hurt by your selfishness. You break what was good between us and leave me to pick up the pieces...and still you continue to lie to me. I knew about that woman a year ago. I got a phone call from a friend. I won't even tell you who..."What's going on with you and Jack?" she asks me. "Are you two still together? Who's this woman he's having lunch with every day?" She asks me...I said, "Did you see them together?" She said, "No, but I heard."...I said, "don't believe what you hear. Believe what you see!" and I hung up on her...Did I do good, Jack? Did I defend my husband like a good wife?...A year I lived with that, hoping to God it wasn't true, and if it was, praying it would go away...and God was good to me. No more phone calls, no more stories about Jack and his lunch partner...no more wondering why you were coming home late from work even when it wasn't busy season...until this morning. Guess who calls me?...Guess who Jack was having lunch with in the same restaurant twice last week?... Last year's lies don't hold up this year, Jack...This year you have to deal with it.

Theatre

Britannicus

•

Written By

Jean Racine

30s–50s

Female

Period

The Emperor is condemned to an unending sorrow. She is not dead, she is – where Nero may not follow. When she escaped from here, she ran as if to go To see Octavia, but then she took a road That leads to nowhere. I watched her as she ran, distraught, Out of the palace gates. She soon found what she sought, The statue of Augustus. Falling down, she wept At the marble feet, her arms around him, prayed: 'Accept My prayers, Prince; by this cold stone that I embrace, Protect, both now and henceforth, the last of all your race. Rome has just seen the murder of the only one Of all of us who worthily could have called himself your son. They wished me to betray him after he had died. But I must keep faith with him. So I here decide To dedicate myself to that eternal god, Whose altar you now share, your virtue's just reward.' Meanwhile the people, by the confusion worse confounded, Press on her from all sides, until she is surrounded By a multitude, that, moved by her tears, and pitying Her obvious distress, take her beneath their wing, And lead her to the temple, where they still maintain, As in ages past, the eternal Vestal flame. Nero sees all of this, but does not dare to enter: Narcissus, more intent to please, makes for the centre, Approaching Junia, fearlessly, with utter lack Of shame, begins, profanely, to try to force her back – A blasphemy that falls victim to a hundred blows: His sacrilegious blood incontinently flows, Drenching Junia. Nero, barely comprehending What he is looking at, abandons him to his bloody ending – And goes back. All avoid him. Silent, grim, Junia's name the only sound that comes from him.

Theatre

Blood Wedding

•

Written By

Federico García Lorca

Any

Female

Period

It is turning. The great wheel is turning for the water is flowing. And the water is flowing because the wedding has come. The branches are parted and the moon stands aglow on her platinum balcony. Set the table! The lovers have sung, but the water still flows. It flows because the wedding has come. Bring out the frosted fruits and the candied bitter almonds! Prepare the wine! (Pause.) Wonderful girl. Girl of our lands. Watch how the water flows. It flows from your wedding. Gather your skirts and stay in your home. Hide under the wing of your man. Because your husband is now a terrifying angel, a warlike peacemaker, and yet ... Uh! Listen ... Now the countryside wakes in pure anticipation, because a rumour of bloodshed is spilled. The great wheel is turning Because the water is flowing, and now the wedding has come. Let the dark water shine!

Theatre

Blood Wedding

•

Written By

Federico García Lorca

Any

Female

Period

The moon goes in and they come nearer. Here they shall stay. The lacerated Flight of their screams Will be stifled By the voice of the trees, and the voice of the river. This is the place. This is the time. I am tired. On bedroom floors The coffins lie open The white sheets are spread For heavy bodies With their throats cut. And the birds Will go on sleeping. The wind Will bundle their cries In her skirt and fly off with them Over the dark trees, Or bury them In soft mud. The Moon! The Moon!

Theatre

Blackrock

•

Written By

Nick Enright

Teens

Male

Drama

You back me up, I'll back you up. Then whatever happened we're not in it. I know you didn't kill her! I did. I fucken killed her. Shana come on to me, then she backed off. Spider says it's a full moon, heaps of other chicks down the beach, take anyone on. I knew which ones were up for it, mate. We both did. We checked them out together. And they were checking us out, weren't they? You and me and every other prick. The whole fucken netball squad. So, I get out there. Wazza's getting head from some bush-pig up against the dunny wall. One of them young babes, Leanne? I don't know, comes running up to me, calls my name, Ricko, hey, Ricko! She grabs me, pashes me off. She's on, no, she's fucken not, she's with some fucken grommet, he takes her off down the south end. I head towards the rock. I hear my name again. Ricko. Ricko. It's Tracy. Tracy Warner. I go, right, Jared was here. It's cool. I'll take his seconds. She's on her hands and knees. Says will I help her. She's lost an earring, belongs to Cherie, she has to give it back. There's something shiny hanging off the back of her T-shirt. I grab it, I say, here it is. She can't see it. I give it to her. I say what are you going to give me? She says she's going home, she's hurting. I say hurting from what? Guys, she says, those guys. Take me home, Ricko. Tells me I'm a legend, says she feels okay with me. Look after me, Ricko. Take me home. Puts her arms around me. I put mine round her. I feel okay now, Ricko. She feels more than okay. I say I'll take you home, babe, but first things first. I lay her down on the sand, but she pushes me off. Oh, she likes it rough. I give it to her rough. Then she fucken bites me, kicks me in the nuts. My hand comes down on a rock...A rock in one hand and her earring in the other. It was like it just happened. The cops wouldn't buy that, but. Would they? Now if I was with you...Will you back me up mate? You got to. You got to. Please. Please, Jazza.

Theatre

Baby Reindeer

•

Written By

Richard Gadd

20s–30s

Male

Comedy-Drama

I don't know what it was in me – but I start to pay her little compliments here and there – Your birthday's coming up?! Your twenty-first, is it?! You're forty-five?! Well, I'll be damned! You had better give Peter Pan his moisturiser back! I began to love her laugh. Obsess with it. Do everything I could to eke it out of her. It was flirtatious, fun. Surface level. I genuinely thought I was doing a nice thing. You don't need to fancy someone to flirt with them, right? It's casual, it's harmless, it's – Becoming a joke around the bar – She sat in the middle of it all – soaking up each comment like it fuelled her, the walls of the pub dropping away and it's prom night – her in the middle of the dance floor, us watching on spellbound. Martha is talking about her Belsize Park penthouse when a joke presents itself. She says she is decorating her bedroom at the moment, and she needs her curtains hung. The comment hangs in the air. She needs her curtains hung. Someone? Anyone? Is nobody taking it? Curtains hung? As in, the curtains you get in a house? Vaginal curtains –?! 'I'll hang your curtains?!' Everyone pisses themselves laughing. Bar her. She just sits in the middle of it all, her lips stationary, her big brown eyes widening. I am looking at her, wanting her to laugh. Wanting her to share in the joke. But she doesn't. She just stares. I knew then, in that moment – That she has taken it literally.

Theatre

Away

•

Written By

Michael Gow

Teens

Male

Drama

Yeah, that's what I had. An infection. Everyone knew I had some infection. I was sick. I was told the infection was running its course. That I had to fight. I did. One day a doctor came and sat on my bed and had a long talk with me. He told me that before I got completely well again I would get a lot worse, get really, really sick. And no matter how sick I got not to worry because it meant that soon I'd start to get well again. He was full of shit. He couldn't look me in the face to say it. He stared at the cabinet next to the bed the whole time. And the nurses were really happy whenever they were near me, but when I stared them in the face, in the end they'd look away and bite their lips. When I was able to go home the doctor took me into his office and we had another talk. I had to look after myself. No strain, no dangerous activity. Keep my spirits up. Then he went very quiet, leant over the desk, practically whispering how if I knew a girl it'd be good for me to do it, to try it. 'It', he kept calling it. It, it. I put him on the spot. What? Name it. Give it a name. He cleared his throat. 'Sexual intercourse'. But if I was worried about going all the way I could experiment with mutual masturbation. Know what that is?

Theatre

August: Osage County

•

Written By

Tracy Letts

60s+

Female

Drama

I ever tell you the story of Raymond Qualls? Not much story to it. Boy I had a crush on when I was thirteen or so. Real rough-looking boy, beat up Levis, messy hair. Terrible under-bite. But he had these beautiful cowboy boots, shiny chocolate leather. He was so proud of those boots, you could tell, the way he'd strut around, all arms and elbows, puffed up and cocksure. I decided I needed to get a girly pair of those same boots and I knew he'd ask me to go steady, convinced myself of it. He'd see me in those boots and say, "Now there the gal for me." Found the boots in a window downtown and just went crazy: I'd stay up late in bed, rehearsing the conversation I was going to have with Raymond when he saw me in my boots. Must've asked Momma a hundred times if I could get those boots. "What do you want for Christmas, Vi?" "Momma, I'll give all of it up for those boots." Bargaining, you know? She started dropping hints about a package under the tree she had wrapped up, about the size of a boot box, real nice wrapping paper. "Now Vi, don't you cheat and look in there before Christmas morning." Little smile on her face. Christmas morning, I was up like a shot, boy under the tree, tearing open that box. There was a pair of boots, all right... men's work boots, holes in the toes, chewed up laces, caked in mud and dog poo. Lord, my Momma laughed for days. My Momma was a mean, nasty old woman. I suppose that's where I got it from.

Theatre

As You Like It

•

Written By

William Shakespeare

Teens–20s

Female

Comedy

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother, That you insult, exult, and all at once, Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,– As by my faith, I see no more in you Than without candle may go dark to bed,– Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's sale-work. Od's my little life! I think she means to tangle my eyes too. No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it: 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, That can entame my spirits to your worship. You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain? You are a thousand times a properer man Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you That make the world full of ill-favour'd children: 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her; And out of you she sees herself more proper Than any of her lineaments can show her. But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can; you are not for all markets. Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer: Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.

Theatre

Antigone

•

Written By

Sophocles

Teens–20s

Female

Period

So to my grave, My bridal-bower, my everlasting prison, I go, to join those many of my kinsmen Who dwell in the mansions of Persephone, Last and unhappiest, before my time. Yet I believe my father will be there To welcome me, my mother greet me gladly, And you, my brother, gladly see me come. Each one of you my hands have laid to rest, Pouring the due libations on your graves. It was by this service to your dear body, Polynices, I earned the punishment which now I suffer, Though all good people know it was for your honour. O but I would not have done the forbidden thing For any husband or for any son. For why? I could have had another husband And by him other sons, if one were lost; But, father and mother lost, where would I get Another brother? For thus preferring you, My brother, Creon condemns me and hales me away, Never a bride, never a mother, unfriended, Condemned alive to solitary death. What law of heaven have I transgressed? What god Can save me now? What help or hope have I, In whom devotion is deemed sacrilege? If this is God's will, I shall learn my lesson In death; but if my enemies are wrong, I wish them no worse punishment than mine.

Theatre

after the End

•

Written By

Dennis Kelly

20s

Female

Thriller

I think a lot about what makes people do things. What makes us behave in certain ways, you know. Every night I've been thinking about this. Trapped in whatever, behaviour, I dunno, cycles of violence or something and is it possible to break, these cycles, is it possible to break... And I'd be sitting there thinking about this and this cat, this gorgeous cat with no tail would come to my door. I'd have the back door open because the garden looks, and she'd be terrified at first, it looks beautiful it really does. So I bought some food for her and the first time she just sniffed at it and ran away, the moment I moved, you know, no sign of her for the rest of the night, and I'm thinking, reactions and responses, patterns, violence breeding violence, and the next night she's in a bit further and I'm looking at her tail thinking 'that's been cut off' and I don't think it was, I think she's a Manx, I think they're born without tails, and the next night she's further in and I'm beginning to get used to this, beginning to look forward to it. And the next night she's in and she's eating and from then on she's in every night; she's on my lap she's following me around, she's waiting on the window ledge for me when I get home. And we sit there every night and I'm thinking behaviour and patterns and is it actually possible to break these patterns of whatever and she's eating and meowing to be let in. Every night. And one night she scratches me, out of the blue, cats, you know, just a vindictive cat-scratch, look: (Shows him.) See? She knew she'd done wrong. Took her three nights to get back into my lap. And I'm stroking her and thinking. Warm, delicate, you know. And I put my hands around her neck. And I squeeze. And I squeeze. Until her neck is about the thickness of a rope. And I still squeeze. And I'm sitting there – and this is last night – with this dead cat in my lap, and I thought I'd come in and see you. And here I am.

Theatre

After Dinner

•

Written By

Andrew Bovell

30s–40s

Female

Comedy-Drama

I'm fine now. Honestly. Just pretend that nothing happened. It's just that for a moment I thought Martin was still with me and I panicked. Isn't that silly. I was thinking about what I was going to order when I remembered that I hadn't left anything out for Martin. I thought of him searching through the fridge and not finding a morsel. I wanted to say something, to tell you he'd be looking for his dinner but I couldn't get it out. It was as though a large piece of phlegm had lodged in my throat and my words couldn't pass it. But then I remembered. Martin wouldn't be wanting his dinner because Martin's not with me any more. Martin's dead. And the phlegm just slid away. Poor Martin. If only I was a little quicker. To have held him in my arms before he went. But how was I to know? How was I to know he was about to die. Men don't have strokes when they're thirty eight years old. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault, was it? Have I told you how Martin died? We'd finished our dinner. Martin was in the loungeroom watching television and I was in the kitchen doing the washing-up. I'd nearly finished the pots when I smelt this most vile smell. So I put the dog outside but the smell didn't go away. I searched high and low through that kitchen. Martin couldn't stand unidentified smells. Then I realised that the smell was coming from the lounge room. I went in and there was Martin sitting bolt upright in his chair with his nostrils quivering and the most terrible look on his face. He would hate me for telling you but he'd lost control of his bowels. Something he normally never would have done. 'Martin', I said. 'Is everything alright?' 'No dear'. And they were his last words. He closed his eyes and slid off the chair. The poor man, he was such a clean person when he was alive. So sad that he had to die in such shame. And thank God we didn't have any children. And God knows we tried. Still, where would we be now if we had children? Not here, not out on the town having such a good time.

Theatre

A Property of the Clan

•

Written By

Nick Enright

Teens

Female

Drama

I play the song for you...every time I come. The paper said somebody nicked your flowers. People are really off. But they're planting a tree for you at the front of the school tomorrow at lunchtime. But you probably know that now. I bet you know a lot of things now. I should have been there with you Trace. A few times that night I thought I might sneak out. I really wanted to. Mum was reading in her room and I was just watching TV, I could have just left it on, sneaked out, come and found you. But I didn't. And I keep thinking, if I had, would it have been different? Nobody seems to say anything straight. All these rumours go round and I just want to yell out, "this is Tracey you're talking about! She was here last week – working at the Pizza Hut, going to netball, catching the ferry. She was one of us!" I wish I kept them earrings. I woke up that night, faces looking down at me. I should have known. When I went round your place on Sunday and I saw the cop cars and the guys from Channel – I should have realised. You were calling to me. That nightmare, it wasn't one, it was you calling. The faces – they were guy's faces, and I knew them all. The cops came round our place too, Mum was spewing. They're going to interview everyone who was at the party. 70 kids they're gonna talk to. But no one can talk to you. You can talk to me. Tracey – please talk to me.

Theatre

A Midsummer Night's Dream

•

Written By

William Shakespeare

Teens–20s

Female

Comedy

O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies; For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears: If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers. No, no, I am as ugly as a bear; For beasts that meet me run away for fear: Therefore no marvel though Demetrius Do, as a monster fly my presence thus. What wicked and dissembling glass of mine Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne? But who is here? Lysander! on the ground! Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound. Lysander if you live, good sir, awake

Film

Wet Hot American Summer

•

Written By

Michael Showalter & David Wain

40s+

Male

Comedy

I wanna thank all of you for a terrific summer. Cooking for all you nice people has really helped me get over the fact that I fought in the Vietnam War. Have a great winter, I'm gonna go hump the fridge. Yes folks, it's true. I said I'm gonna go hump the fridge. What you may not know is that I also own a bottle of dick cream, I fondle my sweaters, and I often like to smear mud on my ass. You're probably as yourselves, "Isn't he a wierdo, outcast, loose cannon?" Maybe. I don't think so. I wanna introduce you guys to someone. This is my friend. (Holding a can of vegetables.) I don't know who he is, but I do know this: At a time when I was trying to hide myself from myself, he was there to show me a new way. 'Cause I couldn't hide from him. And I can be proud of who I am. I put it to you, Camp Firewood, as we spend the last dinner together: Be proud of who you are. Look at me, Ma, I made it! I'm okay! Now if you don't mind, I have some unfinished business to attend to.

Film

The Shawshank Redemption

•

Written By

Frank Darabont

50s+

Male

Drama

Get busy living or get busy dying. That's goddamn right. For the second time in my life, I'm guilty of committing a crime. Parole violation. Course, I doubt they're going to throw up any road blocks for that. Not for an old crook like me. I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Film

The Shape of Water

•

Written By

Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor

40s–50s

Female

Comedy-Drama

Made Brewster pigs in a blanket tonight before leavin'. Fresh dough – the good sausages – thick – and Boy, he just ate 'em up. (beat) No thank-yous – no yum-yums – not a peep, tho – Man is silent as the grave. But if farts were flattery, honey – he would be Shakespeare. Then I get home and I make him breakfast. Bacon and eggs and buttered toast. I butter the man's toast, Elisa. Both sides – As if he were a child... And I don't get a "Thank You." Will you look at this? Look – Some of the best minds in our country – peeing all over the floor in this here facility. There's pee freckles on the ceiling!! How do they get it up there? Just how big a target do they need, you figure? They get enough practice that's for sure. My Brewster, no one ever called him a great mind, even he hits the can seventy percent of the time.

Film

The Parent Trap

•

Written By

Nancy Meyers & Charles Shyer

20s–30s

Female

Comedy

Knock-knock. Can I join you? Guess the news of the engagement came as a bit of a shock, huh? You know, I remember what it was like to be eleven. I had my first beau at eleven. It's a wonderful age. You're starting to feel like a woman and believe it or not soon you'll understand what it's like to be in love. So what if I'm young and beautiful? That's not a crime, you know. And for your information, I adore your father. He's exactly-the kind of man I always planned on marrying. This is the real deal, honey and nothing you do is going to come between as. The reality is, angel, you are no longer the only girl in Nick Parker's life. Get over it. I hope you're not suggesting I'm marrying your father for his money. Now you listen and listen good. I'm marrying your father in two weeks whether you like it or not. So I suggest you do not tangle with me anymore. You're in way over your head. Is that clear?

Film

The Parent Trap

•

Written By

Nancy Meyers & Charles Shyer

Teens

Female

Comedy

I have a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. I'm a genius. Annie, wake up, you're related to a bona fide genius. You want to know what Dad is like, right? And I'm dying to know Mom. So what I'm thinking is ... Oh man, this is so brilliant, it's scary. I think we should switch places. When camp's over, I leave as you and go back to London and you leave as me and go to California. We can pull it off. We're twins, aren't we? I'll teach you to be me and you teach me to be you. C'mon, I gotta meet my Mom. I told you I'm brilliant.

Film

The Notebook

•

Written By

Jeremy Leven & Jan Sardi

20s–30s

Male

Romance

You know, I've been thinking a lot about why we shouldn't get married. At first, I couldn't think of any reasons. But then it dawned on me. The one dark secret that will absolutely be the wedge that keeps us apart. Your parents. Dear old Mom and Dad. You see, here's the problem. They love me. I am exactly the type of man your parents want you to marry. From the south, have a good job... And an absolutely wonderful dancer, if I do say so myself. If you marry me, your parents will be ecstatic, and you will have lost a lifelong battle of defiance against them. See what I'm saying? I think you have to marry me. Because if you do, your parents will always know the unhappiness you feel for not being able to disappoint them. Imagine the guilt they would feel for not allowing you to choose your husband unwisely. They'd be racked with guilt. They'd be miserable. So even though you've technically lost, you've really won.

Film

The Holiday

•

Written By

Nancy Meyers

30s

Female

Romance

Sure. Listen. I know it's hard to believe people when they say, "I know how you feel." But I actually know how you feel. You see......I was... ...seeing someone back in London. We worked for the same newspaper. And then I found out that he was also seeing this other girl, Sarah... ...from the Circulation Department on the 19th floor. It turned out that he wasn't in love with me like I thought. What I'm trying to say is, I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible. How it can actually ache in places that you didn't know you had inside you. It doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get or gyms you join or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with girlfriends. You still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood. And how in the hell, for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy? And sometimes you can even convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that however long "all that" may be you'll go somewhere new. And you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all that fuzzy stuff those years of your life that you wasted that will eventually begin to fade.

Film

The Holdovers

•

Written By

David Hemingson

50s+

Male

Comedy-Drama

Angus, listen. You're not your father. I know, because no one is his own father. I'm not my dad, no matter how hard he tried to beat that idea into me. (beat.) I find the world a bitter and complicated place, and it seems to feel the same way about me. I think you and I have this in common. Don't get me wrong – you have your challenges. You're erratic and belligerent and a gigantic pain in the balls, but you're not me, and you're not your father. You're your own man. Man. No. You're just a kid. You're just beginning. And you're smart. You've got time to turn things around. Sure, the Greeks had the idea that the steps you take to avoid your fate are the very steps that lead to it, but that's just a literary conceit. In real life, your history does not have to dictate your destiny.

Film

The Hangover

•

Written By

Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

30s

Male

Comedy

I'd like to, I'd like to say something that I've prepared tonight. Hello. How 'bout that ride in? I guess that's why they call it Sin City. You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack, it grew by one. So – there were two of us in the wolf pack. I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, 'Wait a second, could it be?' And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast! Blood brothers!

Film

Steve Jobs

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Written By

Aaron Sorkin

30s–40s

Male

Drama

You had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna announce the names of everyone who designed the launch demo. I'm gonna introduce everyone and ask them to stand up. The bag was designed by Susan Kare, the Macintosh font that's crawling across the screen was designed by Steve Capps, the starry night and sky writing was Bruce Horn. Down to the calculator. And then I'm gonna say the voice demo that didn't work, was designed by Andy Herztfeld. 5 in 6 is your first chance of surviving the first round of Russian Roulette, and you've reversed those odds. So unless you wanna be disgraced in front of your friends, family, colleagues, stockholders and the press, I wouldn't stand here arguing. I'd go try get some more bullets out of the gun. Do it, Andy! Stop – you. What size shirt do you wear? Does anyone know what size shirt he wears? Does anyone know what size shirt I wear? The disk fits in your pocket. I need a shirt with a breast pocket, I can take it out on stage. I need a white shirt, in my size with a breast pocket! Go to the lobby, find someone who's my size who's wearing a white shirt, tell them I'll trade him for a free computer and he can keep my shirt. It has to be white. The Mac is beige, I'm beige, the disk is blue, the shirt has to be white. Andy?

Film

Steel Magnolias

•

Written By

Robert Harling

40s–50s

Female

Drama

I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine! I can jog all the way to Texas and back, but my daughter can't. She never could. God! I'm so mad, I don't know what to do. I want to know why. I want to know why Shelby's life is over. I want to know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was. Will he ever know what she went through for him? Oh, God, I want to know why! Why? Lord, I wish I could understand. No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way. I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first. I don't think I can take this. I don't think I can take this. I just want to hit somebody till they feel as bad as I do. I just want to hit something! I want to hit it hard!

Film

Requiem for a Dream

•

Written By

Hubert Selby Jr. & Darren Aronofsky

50s+

Female

Drama

I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hmm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old. Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.

Film

Pride and Prejudice

•

Written By

Deborah Moggach (after Jane Austen)

20s

Female

Period

And I might as well enquire why, with so evident a design at insulting me, you chose to tell me you like me against your better judgement?! If I was uncivil then that is some excuse, but I have other reasons you know I have. Do you think anything might tempt me to accept the man who has ruined, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister? Do you deny it Mr Darcy? That you separated a young couple who loved each other, exposing your friend to the censure of the world for caprice and my sister to its derision for disappointed hopes. And involving them both in misery of the acutest kind? I suppose you suspect his fortune had some bearing on the matter? And what about Mr Wickham? What excuse can you give for your behaviour towards him? He told me of his misfortunes. You ruin his chances and yet you treat him with sarcasm? And those are the words of a gentleman? From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit your selfish disdain for the feelings of others, made me realise you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

Film

Monster

•

Written By

Patty Jenkins

30s

Female

Drama

I always wanted to be in the movies. When I was little, I thought for sure, one day, I could be a big big star. Or maybe just beautiful. Beautiful and rich like the women on TV. Yeah, I had a lot of dreams. And I guess you could call me a real romantic because I truly believed that one day, they'd come true. So I dreamed about it for hours. As the years went by, I learned to stop sharin' this with people. They said I was dreaming, but back then, I believed it wholeheartedly. So whenever I was down, I would just escape into my mind, to my other life, where I was someone else. It made me happy to think that all these people just didn't know yet who I was gonna be. But one day, they'd all see. I heard that Marilyn Monroe was discovered in a soda shop and I thought for sure it could be like that. So I started goin' out real young and I was always secretly lookin' for who was gonna discover me. Was it this guy? Or maybe this one? I never knew. But even if they couldn't take me all the way, like Marilyn, they would somehow believe in me just enough. They would see me for what I could be and think I was beautiful. Like a diamond in the rough. They would take me away to my new life and my new world, where everything would be different. Yeah. I lived that way for a long, long time. In my head, dreaming like that. It was nice. And one day, it just stopped.

Film

Million Dollar Baby

•

Written By

Paul Haggis (after F.X. Toole)

30s

Female

Drama

I'm 32, Mr. Dunn, and I'm here celebrating the fact that I spent another year scraping dishes and waitressing which is what I've been doing since 13, and according to you I'll be 37 before I can even throw a decent punch, which I have to admit, after working on this speed bag for a month may be the God's simple truth. Other truth is, my brother's in prison, my sister cheats on welfare by pretending one of her babies is still alive, my daddy's dead, and my momma weighs 312 pounds. If I was thinking straight I'd go back home, find a used trailer, buy a deep fryer and some Oreos. Problem is, this the only thing I ever felt good doing. If I'm too old for this then I got nothing. That enough truth to suit you?

Film

Mean Girls

•

Written By

Tina Fey

Teens

Female

Comedy

Why were you talking to Janis Ian? She's so pathetic. Let me tell you something about Janis Ian. I was best friends with her in middle school. I know, right? It's so embarrassing, I don't even... whatever. Then, in eighth grade, I started going out with my first boyfriend, Kyle, who was totally gorgeous but he moved to Indiana, and Janis was, like weirdly jealous of him. Like, if I blew her off to hang out with Kyle she would be like, "Why didn't you call me back!?" And I would be, like, "Why are you so obsessed with me?" So then my birthday was an all-girls pool party and I was like, I can't invite you, Janis, because I think you're a lesbian. I mean, I couldn't have a lesbian there. Girls were going to be in their bathing suits. I mean, right? Then her mom called my mom and was, like, yelling at her. It was so retarded and then in the fall when we started high school all her hair was cut off and she was totally weird and now I think she does heroin.

Film

Marriage Story

•

Written By

Noah Baumbach

40s–50s

Female

Drama

I'm gonna stop you there. When you do this for real, don't ever say that. When you do this for real don't ever say that. People don't accept mothers who drink too much wine and yell at their child and call him an asshole. I get it, I do it too. We can accept an imperfect Dad. Lets face it, the idea of a good father was only invented like 30 years ago, before that fathers were expected to be silent, and absent and unreliable and selfish, and we can all say we want them to be different. But on some basic level we accept them. We love them for their fallibilities. But people absolutely don't accept those same failings in mothers. We don't accept it structurally and we don't accept it spiritually. Because the basis of our Judeo-Christian whatever, is Mary, Mother of Jesus, and she's perfect. She's a virgin who gives birth! Unwaveringly supports her child and holds his dead body when he's gone. And the dad isn't there, he didn't even do the fucking! God is in heaven! God is the father, and God didn't show up. So you have to be perfect and Charlie can be a fuck-up but it doesn't matter. You will always be held to a different higher standard. And it's fucked up, but that is the way it is.

Film

Marriage Story

•

Written By

Noah Baumbach

30s–40s

Female

Drama

Anyway, you were asking about Charlie. So yes, so I was happy with Ben, but aware of the deadness. And then I went to New York to meet a director for a space movie, but one where they take space seriously. Sex trafficking in space. It was political, or they wanted us to think it was. It was actually just fulfilling the same need certain fucked up porn does. Anyway, while I was there, the producer invited me to a play. It was in someone's living room with all the lights on and like nothing I'd ever seen before. A strange, surreal dystopian story. So well acted and one of the actors was this big shaggy bear who played all his lines looking directly at me which I knew couldn't be really the case, but it felt that way, and of course later I learned that it was. Afterwards, I was introduced to the cast and this bear turned out to also be the director. He didn't really know who I was – or he did, or he figured it out later – and that was it. He started talking to me. And I talked back – and the dead part wasn't dead, it was just in a coma. And it was better than sex, the talking. Although the sex was also like the talking... everything is like everything in a relationship, do you find that? We spent the whole night and next day together, and I just... never left. And to be honest, all the problems were there in the beginning, too. I just went along with him in his life because it felt so damn good to feel myself alive. In the beginning I was the actress, the star, so that felt like something. People came to see me, at first. But then the farther away I got from that and the more the theatre company got acclaim, I had less and less weight. I became "Who?" And he was the draw. And that would have been fine, but...I got smaller. I realized that I didn't really ever come alive for myself, I was just feeding his aliveness. And then I got pregnant. And I thought "having a baby will be ours, really ours, and it will also really be mine" and he was so excited. But kids... they belong to themselves. Like the instant they leave your body, it's just a process of going away from you. And I didn't belong to myself. All of the furniture in our house was his taste. I wasn't even sure what my taste was anymore because I'd never been asked to use it. I didn't even pick our apartment, I just moved into his. So this pilot came along, and it shot in LA and it paid so much and it was like there was a little lifeline thrown to me. And I was embarrassed about it in front of him, but also, it felt like "this is who I am, this is what I'm worth." And if he had taken me in a big hug and said "Baby, I'm so excited for your adventure" then we might not be getting divorced. But he made fun of it. And was jealous, like he is. And that's when I realized that he truly didn't see me. He didn't see me as something separate from him. And I asked him to say my phone number. And he didn't know it. So I left. I think Charlie also slept with Mary Ann, the stage manager.

Film

Maggie's Plan

•

Written By

Rebecca Miller

30s

Female

Comedy-Drama

My parents were married fairly young and they never had kids. They were academics. Then they eventually, my dad moved away... But then later, years later, they ran into each other at a party and they...they got together that night. And that's how I was conceived. On the bed with all the coats. My mum always said it's because I needed to be born. My mother raised me on her own. She was a professor of 9th century British poetry. She wasn't very practical. So I ended up doing all the day-to-day stuff. I was organising the bills by the time I was twelve. She came from a Quaker family, so she used to take me to Quaker meetings with her. I still go sometimes. We had a nice life. And then, when I was sixteen, she died. So I moved in with my dad after that. It was cordial, and quiet. My dad is a kind man, and he made the best of it. We both did.

Film

Jurassic Park

•

Written By

Michael Crichton & David Koepp

30s–40s

Male

Sci-Fi

Gee, the lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here staggers me. Don't you see the danger, John, in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force that the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that found his dad's gun. I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others have done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourself so therefore you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now you're selling it! You wanna sell it! Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should. This is not some species that was obliterated by deforestation or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction.