Mayfield Secondary School
5000 Mayfield Road
Caledon ON L7C 0Z5
phone 905-846-6060
fax 905-843-9543
DRAMA
Monologue Package
Read over the four monologues for your gender. Select the one
that interests you the most; the one you can “see” yourself
performing. Memorize it exactly. Line security is important.
Check the definition and pronunciation of any words unfamiliar to
you. Practice saying the monologue aloud, suggesting the
personality of the character you are portraying through your tone
of voice and body language. Don’t worry about a costume.
FEMALE
A LOSS OF ROSES
by William Inge
A woman remembers her first day in school.
LILA: I remember my first day at school. Mother took me by the hand and I carried a
bouquet of roses, too. Mama had let me pick the loveliest roses I could find in the
garden, and the teacher thanked me for them. Then Mama left me and I felt kinda
scared, ‘cause I’d never been any place before without her; but she told me Teacher
would be Mama to me at school and would treat me as nice as she did. So I took my
seat with all the other kids, their faces so strange and new to me. And I started talking
with a little boy across the aisle. I didn’t know it was against the rules. But Teacher
came back and slapped me, so hard that I cried, and I ran to the door ‘cause I wanted to
run home to Mama quick as I could. But teacher grabbed me by the hand and pulled
me back to my seat. She said I was too big a girl to be running home to Mama and I
had to learn to take my punishment when I broke the rules. But I still cried. I told
Teacher I wanted back my roses. But she wouldn’t give them to me. She shook her
finger and said, when I gave away lovely presents, I couldn’t expect to get them
back.....I guess I never learned that lesson very well. There’s so many things I still want
back.
FEMALE
WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER
by A.R. Gurney
Bonny, 14
Bonny talks to us while waiting for a friend.
BONNY: You know where this is? This is the place out on the back road where Charlie
and Ted and I used to sell lemonade in the old days. I got a secret note from Charlie,
asking me to meet him here, so here I am. (Looks around.) I shouldn’t even be here.
My parents would kill me if they knew. They think he’s bad news from the word go. My
mother thinks he’s worse than Ted, even. So I had to lie to them. I told them I was
going over to Janice’s to listen to the “Hit Parade.” Oh, I’m lying more and more! Is this
what it means to become a woman? And why is it we women are always drawn to such
dangerous men? I feel like Juliet, in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Who says
this whole thing isn’t secretly about me? What a scary place this is, at night. Right
around here is where Margie Matthews met that skunk. And here’s where the Harvey’s
dachshund named Pickle was run over by the milkman. If I had any sense, I’d go over
to Janice’s after all. Anything, but stand around and wait for a crazy boy who’s run
away from his own home! But I can’t let him down.
FEMALE
QUILTERS
By Barbara Darnashek and Molly Newman
The “Quilters” are pioneer women who tell of their life experiences in the west. Here Annie tells
about her attempts to resist the quilting chores.
ANNIE: (to the audience) My ambition is to become a doctor like my father. I’m my father’s
girl. My greatest accomplishment was when I was ten years old and was successful in
chopping off a chicken’s head and then dressing it for a chicken dinner. My mother tries to
make me do quilts all the time, but I don’t want nothing to do with it. I told her, “Never in my life
will I stick my fingers til they bleed.” Very definitely. My sister Florry is a real good quilter, I
guess. Mother says so all the time. Florry’s favourite pattern is the Sunbonnet Sue. Mother
taught her how to do applique blocks and since then she’s made probably a dozen “Sunbonnet
Sue” quilts. You’ve seen ‘em, they’re like little dolls turned sideways with big sunbonnets on.
Florry makes each one different. (Annie demonstrates, mimicking Florry.) In one her little foot
is turned this or that, or she’ll give her a little parasol, or turn the hat a little bit. People think
they’re sooo cute. She made one for everybody in the family, so now there are little “Sunbonnet
Sue” quilts all over the house. She made a couple of ‘em for her friends, and last Spring, when
we all got promoted at school, she presented one to our teacher. I nearly died. And she’s still
at it. Let me tell you, she’s driving me crazy with her “Sunbonnet Sues.” So I decided to make
one quilt and give it to Florry. Like I said, I’m not such a good quilter as her, but I knew just
what I wanted to do with this one. It’s real small. Twin bed size. I finished it and put it on her
bed this morning, but I don’t think she’s seen it yet. I guess I done some new things with
“Sunbonnet Sue.” I call it the Demise of Sunbonnet Sue. Each little block is different, just like
Florry does it. I’ve got a block of her hanging, another one with a knife in her chest, eaten by a
snake, eaten by a frog, struck by lightning, and burned up. I’m sorta proud of it. You should
see it ... It turned out real good! (She exits smiling.)
FEMALE
THE FIGHTING DAYS
by Wendy Lill
In this play, set in 1910, Canadian feminist Nellie McClung speaks up for the rights of women.
NELLIE: My name is Nellie McClung and I’m a disturber. Disturbers are never popular.
Nobody likes an alarm clock in action, no matter how grateful they are later for its services! But
I’ve decided that I’m going to keep on being a disturber. I’m not going to pull through life like a
thread that has no knot. I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of
truth, some word that will shine in a dark place. And I want that word to be ...DEMOCRACY!
Democracy for Women. Because I’m a firm believer in Women, in their ability to see things and
feel things and improve things. I believe that it is Women who set the standards for the world
and it is up to us, the Women of Canada, to set the standards ... HIGH! Maybe I’m sort of a
dreamer, maybe I’m sort of of naive ... but I look at my little girls and boys and I think I want a
different world for them than the one I was born into. I look at them and my heart cries out when
I see them slowly turn towards the roles the world has carved for them: my girls, a life of
cooking and sewing and servicing the needs of men; and the boys, scrapping and competing in
the playground, then right up into the corridors of government, or even worse, the battlefields. I
want them to have a choice about their lives. We mothers are going to fight for the rights of our
little girls to think and dream and speak out. We’re going to refuse to bear and rear sons to be
shot at on faraway battlefields. Women need the vote to bring about a better, more equitable,
peaceful society, and we’re going to get it!
MALE
THE GLASS MENAGERIE
by Tennessee Williams
TOM: Listen! You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the
Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that--celotex
interior! with--fluorescent tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered
out my brains--than go back mornings! I go! Every time you come in yelling that “Rise and
Shine!” “Rise and Shine!” I say to myself, “How lucky dead people are!” But I get up. I go! For
sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self-self’s all I ever think of. Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is--gone!
As far as the system of transportation reaches! Don’t grab at me, Mother!
I’m going to the movies!
I’m going to opium dens! Yes, opium dens, dens of vice and criminals’ hangouts, Mother. I’ve
joined the Hogan gang, I’m a hired assassin, I carry a tommy-gun in a violin case! They call me
Killer, Killer Wingfield, I’m leading a double-life, a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by
night a dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother. I go to gambling casinos, I spin away fortunes
on the roulette table! I wear a patch over one eye and a false mustache, sometimes I put on
green whiskers. On those occasions they call me--El Diablo! Oh, I could tell you things to make
you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They’re going to blow us all sky-high
some night! I’ll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over blue
Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly--babbling old--witch.........
MALE
RATTLE IN THE DASH
by Peter Anderson
Two young men travel west in an old car sharing stories and adventures.
BRANDON: I ever tell you about the time my old man ran into our house? I was five or six and
I was upstairs in bed and my mother was reading me this bedtime story when we hear this
crash, sounds like thunder only it come from downstairs. My mother tells me to stay in bed and
goes down to see what’s up. She doesn’t come back for a while so I tiptoe down the stairs and
right there in the living room is the old man’s Thunderbird. It’s half inside and half outside and
there’s bricks all over and this perfect half-circle knocked out of the wall. And there’s the T-bird
sitting in the middle of the living room with the stars shining through. And this big crowd of
neighbours in pajamas and housecoats standing around outside staring into our house. Nobody
was talking. They were staring in at me and my mom and the T-bird in the living room. My old
man was sitting there behind the steering wheel with this stunned kind of look on his face like he
couldn’t believe it. I thought it was the most terrific thing he’d ever done.
MALE
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN
by Clark Gesner
Charlie Brown explains why he hates lunch time.
CHARLIE BROWN: I think lunch time is about the worst time of the day for me. Always having
to sit here alone. Of course, sometimes mornings aren’t so pleasant, either--waking up and
wondering if anyone would really miss me if I never got out of bed. Then there’s the night, too -lying there and thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done during the day. And all those hours
in between--when I do all those stupid things. Well, lunch time is among the worst time of the
day for me. Well, I guess I’d better see what I’ve got. Peanut butter. Some psychiatrists say
that people who eat peanut butter sandwiches are lonely. I guess they’re right. And if you’re
really lonely, the peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. Boy, the PTA sure did a good
job of painting these benches. There’s that cute little redheaded girl eating her lunch over there.
I wonder what she’d do if I went over and asked her if I could sit and have lunch with her. She’d
probably laugh right in my face. It’s hard on a face when it get laughed in. There’s an empty
place next to her on the bench. There’s no reason why I couldn’t just go over and sit there. I
could do that right now. All I have to do is stand up. I’m standing up. I’m sitting down. I’m a
coward. I’m so much of a coward she wouldn’t even think of looking at me. Why shouldn’t she
look at me? Is she so great and am I so small that she couldn’t spare one little moment just to
... She’s looking at me. She’s looking at me.
MALE
BILLY BISHOP GOES TO WAR
by John Gray & Eric Peterson
Canada’s greatest pilot hero in War 1 reveals the disorganization in the years of the war.
BILLY BISHOP: It was a grim situation. But we didn’t know how grim it could get until we saw
the RE-7 ... the Reconnaissance Experimental Number Seven. Our new plane. What you saw
was this mound of cables and wires, with a thousand pounds of equipment hanging off it. Four
machine guns, a five-hundred pound bomb, for goodness sake. Reconnaissance equipment,
cameras ... Roger Neville - that’s my pilot - he and I are ordered into the thing to take it up. Of
course, it doesn’t get off the ground. Anyone could see that. We thought, fine, good riddance.
But the officers go into a huddle.
(Imitating the Officers.) Mmmmmmm? What do you think we should do? Take the bomb off?
Take the bomb off!
So we take the bomb off and try it again. This time, the thing sort of flops down the runway like
a crippled duck. Finally, by taking everything off but one machine gun, the thing sort of flopped
itself into the air and chugged along. It was a pig! We were all scared stiff of it. So they put us
on active duty ... as bombers! They gave us two bombs each, told us to fly over Hunland and
drop them on somebody. but in order to accommodate for the weight of the bombs, they took
our machine guns away!
(As if writing or reciting a letter.) Dearest Margaret. We are dropping bombs on the enemy from
unarmed machines. It is exciting work. It’s hard to keep your confidence in a war when you
don’t have a gun. Somehow we get back in one piece and we start joking around and
inspecting the machine for bullet and shrapnel damage. You’re so thankful not to be dead.
Then I go back to the barracks and lie down. A kind of terrible loneliness comes over me. It’s
like waiting for the firing squad. It makes you want to cry, you feel so frightened and so alone. I
think all of us who aren’t dead think these things. Thinking of you constantly, I remain ...