Contemporary Monologues –
Gender Neutral (Last 10 years)

Character: Rendall

Age: Any

Play: HEADBABY

Author:  Joseph Arnone (published 2020)

Brief Synopsis: Headbaby is a one-act play that takes place some time in the future, raising questions on robotics, cryotechnology and computers. 

Speech:

I’ve repeatedly told you that society has changed. The world isn’t as you remember it. Your kind is no longer in control. Today, when humans are born, they are born inside a center and in this center they are designed according to the new laws of the realm. Basically, you are a rare breed that has gone extinct and no one cares. They stopped caring a very long time ago. Humanity had so much potential, but you’ve all seemed to get in your own way all too often and when it came down to it, a series of poor decisions were made and it was too late to ever go back. You are the last batch that was left behind on a whim. You aren’t even good enough for spare parts…oh, don’t feel so bad. Really. Each of us has our own reality and this is simply your own reality. I needed to map you and surprisingly everything successfully uploaded into my database. There is an entire copy of your brain in digital form, so you can live on.

Character: Clock

Age: Any

Play: GLASS. KILL. BLUEBEARD. IMP

Author: Caryl Chuchill (Premiered 2019)

Brief Synopsis: New contemporary drama. A girl made of glass. Gods and murders. A serial killer’s friends. And a secret in a bottle. Four stories by Caryl Churchill

Speech:

They look at me because I’m worth looking at. Time from me is richer because I’m old and X run through me since before their parents were born. And You See It Flow because my second-hand goes round and my minute hand goes round and my our hand goes slowly round and there’s none of this digital jumping. You gaze at me and think how long a minute last. paying for a whole minute would be torture. Joy for a whole minute would be exceptional. And even if I stopped I’d be kept as an object because my history is intriguing and my shape is graceful and my value is unquestioned.

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Character: (Characters in this series of stand-alone monologues are unnamed)

Age: Teenager

Play: EXAMPLES (from BULLIES)

Author:  Jim Chevallier (Published 2011)

Brief Synopsis: A series of monologues for teens and adults. What a bully makes a curse may later turn to be a great gift. But too many young people give up before that can happen, turning to substance abuse or even suicide. This collection of monologues looks at this national problem from many different points of view: those of the victims and the bullies, of teachers and parents, of bystanders who may or may not step in. 

Speech:

Here’s what I’ve figured out: everyone’s got a weak spot, something they hope that no one will notice. Me, I notice. But I don’t always talk about it. Sometimes just enough to let them know I could talk about it. But that’s for the dangerous ones, the ones who could hurt me. Some, I’m not afraid of. Them, I’ll talk about. They’re my examples. Here’s a for instance. Buster, who everyone’s afraid of? He sees a doctor. A special kind of doctor. Do I know what kind? No. I just know his office is by the cupcake shop, the pricey one downtown. One day my mother went there and left me in the car. Who do I see but Buster, being dropped off at the building next door. It’s only doctors. I checked. Mind doctors, mostly. So a few weeks later, out of the blue, he starts in on me. “What’s your problem?” I say. “Those cupcakes got you wired?” He stops cold. “Cupcakes? What the – ?” “You know, like they sell at that place downtown.” You should have seen his face. Dead white….

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Character: Tom (Identifies as Teresa- Transsexual)

Age: 14

Play: TRANSITION (from TEEN BOY’S COMIC MONOLOGUES THAT ARE ACTUALLY FUNNY)

Author:  Alessandra Rizzotti (published 2015)

Brief Synopsis: From a collection of teenage monologues by writers and comics who have written/performed for Saturday Night Live, The Tonight show, Last Comic Standing, and E! Entertainment. Theresa is about to come out to his drama club friends as transexual. Teresa is femme already, and her friends assume she’s a gay male, but Teresa has always been a girl, since she was little. This is a big moment for her.

Speech:

No Sarah, I’m not gay. I just think this play is probably the easiest way to express myself to drama club this year. Because, I dunno. There’s no other way to talk about this. Sarah, I want to tell you something. Can you listen? Why are you so excited? What I’m about to tell you might weird you out and I’m nervous. Stop smiling. Okay. Here goes. I always knew I liked dressing up in women’s clothes since I was two years old, but I’m starting to realise that that’s not gay… that’s something else. I’ve been looking it up on Google and I’m realising that I really identify as a woman. O-M-G. Can you listen? Because I want you to be the first person I told. You really helped me that one time when you and I were putting on makeup for fun, and I just realised in that moment how natural and good that felt. It felt like myself. Because when I put on skater shorts and baggy shirts, I feel like I’m outside my skin. 

Sarah, no, you can’t tell anyone. I sorta need to do this on my own. I was thinking that I could do it at the end of the play. My mum and dad don’t know. Honestly, they would probably be fine with it. I once found heels in my dad’s car once, so either he is having an affair or he dresses up like a woman too. And as for my mum, she knows I wear her lipstick in my room and dance to Diana Ross. I mean, she sometimes wants to join. So it’s no big deal on my family end. I just sorta want to be able to come out to all the kids at school in a really dignified sorta away. 

Why? Because it would be freeing. I don’t want to start my life as a whole new person in college; I want to be the person I’ve always wanted to be, starting now. Why can’t you understand that? We’re best friends, Sarah. I don’t like you that way. Shut up. You didn’t think I liked you, did you? We’re soul mates. That’s a different kind of love. O-M-G. Are you serious? My sexuality is fluid. I like boys and girls, just not you. I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you this way. Sarah, I thought we were so close because we were just best friends. No! I thought you wanted to wait till marriage to kiss and have sex, not for ME. Ah! This is so confusing. I didn’t mean to confuse you. 

I love you, but not in a sexual way. How did this become about us and not me? You always do that. Can’t you listen for once? Can’t you hear me out? Are we not going to be friends anymore? O-M-G. I thought you were a Christian liberal. One day when the world isn’t so bigoted, I’ll be able to be myself. 

What? I thought you were mad. Well I’m not in love back. I’m sorry. This conversation just made me asexual.

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Character: Fiona/Adrian- Transgender male (in this scene they are still female)

Age: late 20s

Play:  ROTTERDAM

Author: Jon Brittan (published 2016)

Brief Synopsis: It’s New Year in Rotterdam, and Alice has finally plucked up the courage to email her parents and tell them she’s gay. But before she can hit send, her girlfriend reveals that he has always identified as a man and now wants to start living as one. Now Alice must face a question she never thought she’d ask . . . does this mean she’s straight? A bittersweet comedy about gender, sexuality and being a long way from home.

Speech:

You Googled it and you took notes? Are you planning on writing an essay?
…
And you thought Wikipedia would tell you?
…
I tried to tell you last night. I don’t really know… Look, I haven’t really thought about this either, I just… I mean, I know there are procedures that some people have… But some people don’t have them, some people don’t have them at all, and I haven’t seriously considered… I mean, even if I did… transition, which is what it’s called, I’d need to live as a man for at least, like, two years before I could actually consider anything like… And in the meantime, if I did decide… I mean, it wouldn’t be a huge change, would it? It wouldn’t mean new clothes or much of a haircut. There’d just be… hormones.
Beat.
Sorry. Look, it won’t – It wouldn’t… I think there might be some side-effects but mostly it’ll just be, y’know, lower voice, facial hair… man stuff. And my periods would stop, so our bad moods wouldn’t be in sync any more.

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Character: Kay (hey/them, nonbinary, AFAB)

Age: Early 20s

Play: DEAL ME OUT

Author: MJ Halberstaft (performed 2019)

Brief Synopsis: November, 2016. A close-knit board game group meets for its weekly game night in Oberon’s father’s garage with an uncomfortable “game” on the menu: kick Dez out. But echoes of the polarized world outside invade their sacred space, and no one is prepared to face the real problem, which threatens to flip the board on them all. Deal Me Out is a comic drama set inside the world of gamers.

Speech:

It’s really all Elizabeth, she’s always set the schedule: we can go to Lewiston Mall on weekdays, but we can’t be seen there on weekends. Weekends we go to the Auburn Mall. And we can buy things on sale but not from a sale rack. Now that Josephine has her license back, we have to all go together in her car, or at the very least use the buddy system: two at a time. Now and then Elizabeth will go with one other person if Martin drops her off, but the whole point is that no one can ever arrive at the mall by themselves because if we have a hard time syncing up and finding one another we look retarded—her words, not mine. There was a whole episode when Josephine, Elizabeth, and I were at the mall and then Olivia got dropped off and it was a total disaster. So, buddy system: never one, and never three unless one of us is out of town and it’s, like, a known indisputable fact that the fourth isn’t coming to the mall.

Elizabeth’s new thing is controlling our social media presence. She makes us send pictures to her before we post them, and we have to post at least one picture of all four of us together every week, and we can’t repeat outfits in those; she’s working on a collage or something. And I like started running out of things I wear and she was finally like “This is why we go to the mall. You have every opportunity to buy more tops.”

She lost her shit last month when I cut my hair, because usually she wants approval first and I didn’t ask. And then I told her what it’s really about and her eyes got really big and she was like “You know what, this is totally okay. We’re living in different times, and a little diversity isn’t a bad thing.” She actually wanted Marina in the group instead of Olivia so that we’d have racial diversity but not too-much because Marina’s half-whatever.

And so I was surprised that she was cool about it. But then she started changing some of the schedule and stuff, and talking about branching out. She started hanging out with Klara one-on-one which felt like an interview, especially because her name starts with K too and she’s custom-ordered so much J-O-K-E stuff for her room.

She told me we could still hang out at the mall and stuff, but that she didn’t want to keep me in the weekly group picture but we could still hang out at the Lewiston Mall and at her house, but I should hang back on weekends when they went to the Auburn Mall, and she asked me to stop visiting her at the salon because people kept asking questions and, well she said, it was “for my own good.” She “didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.”

I said, “Elizabeth, that’s all really sweet of you to look out for me like that, but I have another new rule I was thinking of initiating,” and she was like “What’s that?” and I said, “How about I hang out with you zero days of the week, and we can talk to each other never and nowhere, for pictures, I’ll wear whatever I want and you can say nothing about it because you are not my friend. I like that schedule better.”

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Character: (characters in Love and Information appear in quick succession but have no name or set age)

Age: Any

Play: THE CHILD WHO DIDN’T KNOW FEAR (From Love and Information)

Author: Caryl Churchill (first performed 2012)

Brief Synopsis: In this fast moving kaleidoscope more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know.

Speech:

Once upon a time there was a child who didn’t know what fear was and he wanted to find out. So his friends said, Cold shiver down your back, legs go funny, sometimes your hands no not your hands yes your hands tingle, it’s more in your head, it’s in your stomach, your belly you shit yourself, you can’t breathe, your skin your skin creeps, it’s a shiver a shudder do you really not know what it is? 

And the child said, I don’t know what you mean. 

So they took him to a big dark empty house everyone said was haunted. They said, No one’s ever been able to stay here till morning, you won’t stay till midnight, you won’t last an hour, and the child said, Why, what’s going to happen? And they said, You’ll know what we mean about being frightened. And the child said, Good, that’s what I want to know. 

So in the morning his friends came back and there was the child sitting in the dusty room. And they said, You’re still here? What happened? And the child said, There were things walking about, dead things, some of them didn’t have heads and a monster with glowing – and his friends said, Didn’t you run away? and the child said, There were weird noises like screams and like music but not music, and his friends said, What did you feel? and the child said, It came right up to me and put out its hand, and his friends said, Didn’t your hair your stomach the back of your neck your legs weren’t you frightened? And the child said, No, it’s no good, I didn’t feel anything, I still don’t know what fear is. And on the way home he met a lion and the lion ate him.

Character: (characters in Love and Information appear in quick succession but have no name or set age)

Age: Any

Play: THE CHILD WHO DIDN’T KNOW PAIN (From Love and Information)

Author: Caryl Churchill (first performed 2012)

Brief Synopsis: In this fast moving kaleidoscope more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know.

Speech:

But what is it?
Pain is pain, it’s just
if I pinch
aah, get off. But if I pinch you
nothing
nothing at all
but stop because I get bruises.
How come you don’t
I never did when I was a baby
you were born like
yes and I used to chew my fingers
you mean chew?
and they got bandages put over or I’d chew them to the bone
because you know how babies
put everything in their mouth
I’d put myself in my mouth because I wasn’t any different.
And if you fell down
I threw myself down
because it didn’t hurt
jumped down a whole flight of stairs because that was a quick
way
and you were all right
broke both legs and once when I went swimming there were
rocks under the water and when I came out my legs were
pouring blood because I hadn’t felt
so you can’t feel anything
emotions I feel feelings
but physical
not pain, no.
And why not?
because there’s no signal going up to my brain
from your legs
from anywhere to my brain to say there’s damage, it’s hurting
so you never know what hurting is
so tell me what it’s like.
Hurting is well it’s pain, it’s like uncomfortable but more,
it’s something you’d want to move away from but you can’t, it’s an
intense sensation, it’s hard to ignore it, it’s very

but why would you mind that?

because it hurts. But no, sometimes pain’s all right if it’s not bad
like if your gum’s sore and you keep poking it with your tongue
or you might cut your finger and you hardly notice, yes if you’re
doing something exciting, soldiers can lose a leg and not even
know it.
that’s like me yes but why, what is it?
if someone’s tortured if they give them electric shocks it’s
unbearable or if they’ve got cancer sometimes they want to die
because my uncle

yes but I still don’t know what it is about pain
it’s just pain
but what is it?
You’ve been unhappy?
Yes
if someone you love doesn’t love you, you thought they loved
you and they don’t
yes
or you’ve done something you wish you hadn’t done it’s too late
now and you’ve hurt someone and there’s nothing you can do to
put it right
yes
does that help?
So it’s like being unhappy but in your leg?
But it’s also just what it is, like red is red and blue is blue.
But red isn’t red, it’s waves and it’s red to us.
So there you are, that’s what it’s like.
Can I pinch you again?

Character: A ( a police officer)

Age: Any

Play: [BLANK]

Author:  Alice Birch (premiered 2018)

Brief Synopsis: A huge, sprawling drama about the impact of the justice system on parent-child relationships, in a choose-your-own-adventure style. In this monologue, a police-officer is trying to explain to their teenage child what happened and why it’s important they keep trying to help. 

Speech:

He had pinned his girlfriend up against the wall. When we got there, she had purple finger marks all across her neck. She was like, no no no, it’s fine, they – the neighbour who called – made a mistake.
Again.
I’ve been there 3 times before.
Every time I see this woman she’s beaten up in some New way.
Body cam never picks anything up.
She’s always Indignant.
He’s always quiet. Polite. Lets her talk.
I don’t want to press charges, there’s nothing to say, yadda yadda.
I went there once and he’d pushed her face into her own vomit.
She had vomit on her face.
He’s kicked a baby out of her.
An actual f***ing baby.
Out of her.
You shouldn’t be able to Kick a baby out of a woman, that shouldn’t be a physical possibility.

This time. She’s hesitating. She’s thinking about it. He’s not completely thick, he’s kicked her below the neck so we can’t see it, but she’s finding it hard to walk. She’s on the edge of finally saying, yes please, yes please can you help me.
And he snaps.

Body cam.
Catches him kicking a door down, lifting me off the f***ing ground and and stamping on my head.
He’ll go to prison now.

Character: Mark (Transgender- Male to Female)

Age: 30s-40s (second eldest child of the Price family)

Play: THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

Author: Andrew Bovell (first performed 2016)

Brief Synopsis: Things I Know To Be True is a physical-theatre show about family, loss, broken dreams, and love in many of its forms. It is a funny and honest account of family life in the Australian suburbs. Over the course of one year, the four adult Price children struggle to establish their identities and deal with personal crises.

Speech:
I want them to drop me at the airport and keep going. I want this goodbye to be over. I beg Rosie with my eyes. She gets it but airport farewells are still a big deal for Dad and he insists on coming inside and walking me to the gate. There is mayhem at security as he sets off the alarms. How a man can have so many pieces of metal on him is a mystery to me but given that my time as a man is finite it’s not a mystery I need to give much further thought to. At the gate I tell Dad that I will come home soon to visit. And he tells me that he’ll come to see me as soon as I have settled in. Both of us know that neither of these things will happen but pretending they will somehow seems to make the parting easier. He holds onto me as we hug. We know that this will be the last time he will be hold me as his son. It almost does me in. And I look back from the gate and he is broken. He is weeping. Rosie is holding him. She has him. I have to look away. I have to look ahead. I have to keep walking. My father’s grief is a price I am prepared to pay. The plane turns down the runway, increases its speed, lifts off the ground and makes its ascent. I look down on the city where I grew up. By the time I land, Mark Price will just be someone I used to know.

Character: (Characters in this series of stand-alone monologues are unnamed)

Age: 30+

Play: THE HARD KNOCK OF OPPORTUNITY (from BULLIES)

Author:  Jim Chevallier (Published 2011)

Brief Synopsis: A series of monologues for teens and adults. What a bully makes a curse may later turn to be a great gift. But too many young people give up before that can happen, turning to substance abuse or even suicide. This collection of monologues looks at this national problem from many different points of view: those of the victims and the bullies, of teachers and parents, of bystanders who may or may not step in. 

Speech:

Didn’t I trust you? Didn’t I give you a chance? I could have managed those programmers myself; you know I could. You think I got to be the boss by accident? But I gave you an opportunity. That’s what you have to understand. I gave you a chance to show what you can do. Which, it turns out, isn’t much. Wouldn’t you agree? Am I wrong? If I’m wrong, just tell me. Go ahead and tell me. And don’t go telling me it’s because I was always stepping in. I had to get involved, didn’t I? Because you just weren’t cutting it. But it’s still your responsibility. Don’t go trying to shift this mess. What am I supposed to tell the client? Don’t you think he’s going to blame me? Of course he will. Only, don’t kid yourself. He knows I put you in charge; he knows I try to give my people a chance. Because that’s what a good manager does. And I’m a good manager. You’d agree with that, right? You wouldn’t say any different, would you?….