Monologues

Posted on by Conrad

I was recently asked if I had any monologues that actors could use for auditions. Monologues were always the hardest things to write, but over the last couple of years, I’ve become really fond of writing them. And not because they’re “easy” to write, far from it! But I love them because, they NEED to be EARNED! It’s like when a character reaches a boiling of emotions when they’re trying to keep stuff bottled up and something pops that cork and sprays all over the audience. THOSE are the types of monologues I’m still searching for.

But for now, here’s a list and links of where you can find some of mine:

MELISSA
The sun is starting to come up. You don’t have much time.
Celestino.
I…
I’m not going to pretend to know what you and your friends have gone through, but I do know what it feels like to be misunderstood…
to feel less than…
to be invisible.
I wish I could remember how to stop swallowing my words…
to cut my nerves from flinching at raised hands and voices…
to believe that the only way to survive was to no longer…
be.
And then you came in through that window bruised… bloodied… hurt…
but unbroken.
There was never a break in your eyes, in your will, or spirit.
Something I’ve needed, wanted, and even dreamed of having.
You had the kind of freedom that could only be born from fighting for one’s own value while constantly being drowned in an ocean of hate. The kind of freedom that was powerful enough to ride the royal blue waves of hope, opportunity, and courage to these unknown shores of amber grain and purple mountains bathed in golden sunsets.

I know that America isn’t everything that Walt Whitman wrote about, but I need you to not lose hope. You know what this country is supposed to be like… more than some of the ones who were even born here. We need more people like you.

ABBY
I know that some of you are wondering what I’m doing here… working that is. Just to let you know, I started doing telling my jokes at an open mic. Sorry for not telling you earlier or for not inviting you, but I was really nervous… and it’s a step. Like for all of us, when we tell our stories, it’s a step. God knows I was never able to talk to my family about what happened and why I’m no longer with Basilio and why I’m still not married. I was embarrassed and afraid that they’d think everything was my fault. For a while, I even thought everything was my fault. He’d work late and sometimes not even come home for dinner. Maybe, that’s why my jokes are always about food… like “Do you know why the butter wouldn’t stop telling jokes? Because it was on a roll.”

But… I thought that maybe… if I tried harder, or lightened the mood… it would stop. But the more I tried, the… Nothing worked. How screwed up do you have to be to accept all the blame he would put on me? What started out with “How’d you forget to buy Country Crock again?!” And then that explanation would turn into yelling which turned into shoving. And that shoving turned into…. well, I know you know… and I grateful for that cuz that helps. To know that someone else knows… you know?

And after that “Where’s my butter?” incident, I met Jackie, the nurse at the hospital who stitched up my eyebrow, after another bad day. Even though I didn’t say anything to her or to the police, she knew. It’s weird when you don’t know someone, but you can just… know. And without a word, she gave me a card to the My Sister’s House. I can still hear her voice saying, “They’ll take care of you.” I finally found that safe place that didn’t judge me, or gave me advice on how to deal with him, or provided me with training on how to get a job. But more than any of that, I finally had people to listen and care about you. I don’t know where I’d be without if Jackie never gave me that card. She saved the life of a person who didn’t think she even had one left.

VALERIE
I was sold by my family.
The reason I come to America was because my mother sold me to a man from next village. I did not find that out until I was kidnapped by that man’s son. One minute I was walking with my friends and the next I was picked up by two men and thrown into the backseat of a car.
They take me to house in other village and this woman kept trying to give me an oramal–a how you say, a handkerchief–to put on my head, meaning I agree to marry him. Of course, I do not put on. Then they force me to write a letter to my mother telling her that I was taken by them. I was sure that my mother would come to take me home, but when she come to the house to see me, I saw a man give her money. The money paid to replace me.
And I never saw her or my sister again.

FRANCISCO
America’s a place where we finally have the chance to turn into something or someone better, you know? To find the American Dream.

When we first arrived, all I wanted to do was start a band and play for someone… anyone. And that’s just what I did. Out in the park or at the pier. One time someone even paid me to play dressed up like a clown.
And I hate clowns. They’re so damn creepy. But I had to do it because… because it was the right thing to do. I’m the man. I was supposed to be the provider. That’s the way it was supposed to be. And I tried, but…

My best was never good enough for his mother.

There was that time when I would set up my amp and a bucket down the block from the Blue Dot on Sunset. And every time Johnny Bones Simone, that’s the owner of the Blue Dot, would walk up the block, I would always ask him for a shot to play inside the club. Shoot. People always told me that I played just like Eric Clapton or B.B. King. Know who they are?

No? Of course, you wouldn’t. But you know the blues don’t ya? Not that either?

Well.. the blues is… well, I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore since… Man. Being compared to Clapton or King was like… I swore they taught me everything about playing a guitar. Well everything except how to look like them, because Bones would always say, “You sound great, but you just wouldn’t fit in, Man. Good luck.” Good luck? What does luck have to do with playing the blues? The blues is about…

Being blue.

And that’s why I’m here… to find some color left in this world… by finding Walter… by finding my son.
I want to make things right. I want to finally know him. I want to know what’s he like. How he likes school. Does he play music? Is he okay without knowing his father?
I hate that the only thing I do know is that I’m tired of coming home to an empty North Hollywood apartment when the only good thing I made on this planet lives in a huge white house with a white picket fence… in Kentucky.

Some American Dream.

CARMELITA
Stupid piece of paper? That piece of paper tells people that you are not a quitter. That piece of paper says that you took your education seriously. It means that all of the hours I sacrificed cleaning up after old people who treat me like the crap in their diapers would mean something. It would mean that you were the only thing that…. How else could I justify my existence? Where’s your father, huh? Not here. And your brother was murdered for doing something NO ONE will tell me about! And you? Ang tigas ng ulo mo! [You’re so hard headed!] You can’t even see that people are trying to help you achieve something that so many other people take for granted. I graduated from college in the Philippines and people think my only purpose in this country is to serve them. You have a chance to be better than me. I don’t want you to feel like shit all the time. I don’t want you to know what it’s like to live as a failure. And I feel like that whenever I get one of those bills, or when I get one of those phone calls from your school telling me how bad you are, because believe me, I feel ten times worse.
So, I’m sorry that you think a diploma is just a piece of paper. To me, it’ll mean that I finally did something right.
(Silence.)
I’m going to bed. Don’t worry about all of this. Do your homework. Do something right for once, Anak. For me.

MARY
When we were kids, Crisostomo would climb the tallest tree in Batangas and cut down the coconuts at its very top. At night, after having our fill of coconut meat and juice, we would lay under a blanket of stars and make up stories for the different constellations that reflected in our eyes. Like how the Big Dipper was used as Bathala’s tabo. Or how the three stars that make up Balatik’s sword of Orion was used to fight off dragons for the honor of his love, the Goddess Dawn. If I had that sword, I’d use it to fight this empty feeling of loss for what was once the bottomless vessel of joy in hearing his voice, in hearing his laughter and in hearing the beat of his heart sync with mine as I lay my ear to his chest before falling asleep. I’d give anything to use that blade to cut out the agony of what a hundred of Cupid’s arrows feels like as they fall from the sky to pierce the symbol of love that beats within my chest. And with this… this infinite ache, I make this devoted vow to never love again until his body is returned to me.

PARKER
We had some really good talks while we sat in that room with the Chemo I.V. drip thingy running from that bag into her arm. Talking was a good for her. Probably got her mind off of feeling nauseous at the beginning of her treatment. But then she’d get used to… not like I could ever get used to it. Lung Cancer was the worst villain for us… for her to face.
Knowing her, she probably did give it that “Look of Bitter Disappointment” and even tried to guilt it out of her body. I know I didn’t, but she eventually made peace with the C word and, for all I know, probably tried to make it her friend by making it a traditional Filipino feast.
We had her favorite foods at her reception last week, including Bibingka, which I knew I burned. I’m a writer, not a baker.