Monologues for my drama students

Dear Readers,

School is getting a little bit better for me. (I teach drama at a middle school.) I got all new students two weeks ago, and I started out stricter, and I'm trying to plan better lessons and stuff, so I think I'm going to try to get my job back there next year. We'll see if they hire me back. In a lot of ways, it's a good job. And I'm thankful to have a job now, in this economy.

I spend a lot of time googling things like, "drama lesson plans" and "middle school theatre." And I spend a lot of time browsing lots of plays and I read "The First Days of School," by Harry Wong, and I think philosophically about the purpose of education and stuff like that, and when I'm away from school my mind often drifts back to the classroom, but I procrastinate getting down to the nitty-gritty of actually writing detailed lesson plans.

I have to spend a lot of time writing lesson plans because there is no drama curriculum I'm supposed to teach. I have to make the whole thing up.

There are some state standards I'm supposed to meet, but they're vague, and the state standards don't explain how they are supposed to be met, really. They don't give you any ideas for how to actually fill the time in each class period.

And there are no textbooks for my drama classes to use.

But I sort of like it that way. I like the freedom of being able to do whatever I want. But I'm scared of being scrutinized by the school administration. I have to fake confidence every day, and I have to look like I know what I'm doing, especially in front of my students.

So… I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I feel like college didn't prepare me that much for what teaching would actually be like.

In college I mostly learned about how minorities are oppressed in public schools and new teachers need to charge into the classrooms and bring about social justice. Yeah, in college I learned plenty about the importance of teaching multicultural literature, and the importance of teaching postcolonial/feminist/communist works that challenged the Eurocentric dead white male canon. And I learned how to be really sensitive to students' feelings, and I learned how bad President Bush was for implementing No Child Left Behind, and I learned about how evil standardized testing is, and I learned that children really ought to be left to roam free in the forest and learn from the natural fountain of knowledge within their own unique life-spirit, and I learned that Alfie Kohn was a great guy, and that Harry Wong was a heartless dog-trainer, and I learned that teaching in Spanish is just as good as teaching in English, because all languages are equally valid, linguistically speaking ... and you know, in teacher-preparation courses I learned practical things like that.

But I didn't learn much about the bigger issues, the loftier philosophical stuff, like, oh… writing lesson plans, what to do if a student is absent, or what to do with a student who is foaming at the mouth with a hatred for all authority.

(I'm exaggerating too much, and being sarcastic too much. I apologize for that. Does exaggerating and being sarcastic make my blog more fun to read, or does it make my blog dumber? I get tired of people who can’t get out of sarcastic-mode.)

Well, what I learned from my first semester teaching is that if a teacher can't manage the classroom, a teacher can't really teach anything. See this post to see what I mean.

But anyway, the real reason I’m blogging tonight is to say that what I need to find is a bunch of middle-school-friendly plays- plays with big casts, minimal sets, lots of female roles, an easy-to-understand plot and easy-to-understand dialogue. And the play needs to be conservative and family-friendly. And those plays are hard to find.

I'm having the same problem finding monologues my students can do. I bought some monologue books before school started last fall, and they were filled with mostly really advanced monologues that I don't think middle school thespians are ready for. And some of them had bad words or had adult themes or situations in them.

So I thought I would write a few monologues myself, and then my students can choose if they want perform one from a book or one that I've written.

Now, I'm not sure if I’m writing these monologues for my students or for myself. That is, I’m not sure if I’m writing them so my students can have good monologues to perform for school or if I'm writing them to feed my own ego. Or maybe I'm writing them so I can do what I love- write creatively- but still feel like I'm workings.

Whatever.

I think some of them are weird, and I think that my students might think that I’m weird for these monologues coming out of my brain... but on second thought, my students already think I’m weird. I told them I didn’t have a TV and they flipped out. It was a nice moment, actually. I think we bonded, my students and I.

Anyway, without, further ado, here are some of the monologues I’ve written this afternoon.

Enjoy.


Title: Bagging Groceries Forever

Character: James or Felicia, 17 years old. He or she has an attitude problem, but is very witty and entertaining.

Setting: Modern day America. In the boss’ office in a grocery store.

Background: The manager is having an interview with James/Felicia who is a courtesy clerk (a.k.a. bagger) at a grocery store. James/Felicia has not been performing the job well.

James/Felicia: Bag groceries forever?! Of course I don’t want to bag groceries forever. I mean, this job is OK, it’s better than flipping burgers, like my last job, but bagging groceries forever… I don’t think so. No offense, but this job is boring. Put the groceries in the bag, put the bags in the kart, smile and wave, smile and wave, smile and wave. And the customers are nuts! Like that old lady who says, (in mock old-lady voice) “Young man (or lady) Could you please put my groceries in a plastic bag and then tie the plastic bag and then put the plastic bag inside a paper bag and then put the paper bag in this cloth bag I brought? I like bags.” Or how about that guy who says, (in mock tough guy voice) “How dare you put my canned lima beans on top of my bananas?! You expect me to pay for the mushy bananas that you personally mushed?” I’ll tell you, I’d like to mush more than his bananas. So, to answer your question, bagging groceries forever? Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather invent a robot to do the job for me. I could call it Zor-bot 5000. He’d be like, (in robot voice) “Hello sir, thank you for shopping at our grocery store. Have a nice day. Warning! Warning! My computer chip is malfunctioning! Exterminate all humans!”


Title: Just Look at That Sunset

Character: Robbie, 25, a free-spirited yet underachieving restaurant worker

Setting: On a mountaintop.

Background: Robbie gets to the top of a hill on a hike with a friend and looks at the sunset as he thinks out loud about deep things.

Robbie: Gosh, look at that sunset! It’s beautiful. Makes me want to never go back to work. Yeah, like I was saying earlier, Richard, my boss, he orders me around like an animal. That’s the way he treats all of us at the resteraunt. “Sweep the floor!” “Wash the dishes!” “If I see a dirty tablecloth one more time…” Yeah. That’s my job. And yes, it’s true, I don’t have a car or a big house, or really many possessions to my name. But so what? In the long run, physical things don’t matter. And social standing, popularity, that doesn’t matter much either. I realize that now, now that I’m looking at a sunset. Lofty bosses, lowly workers- the knife of time cuts us all down to the same level. No one can escape that knife. So Richard has more money than me. So what? Does that make him better than me somehow? The way I see things, everybody has a hard life, everybody has struggles. I’m not a victim. Things are fine. Things are just fine. Well, of course things aren’t really fine- social equality, freedom, love- those things must be sought after and fought for, and those who oppose social equality, freedom and love, they need to be converted. We need to change them. You and me. But I think this sunset would do a better job of converting them than my words ever could. Gosh, just look at that sunset.


Title: Which Things Are Mine?

Character: Jake, 17. He likes punk music.

Setting: Jake is at a restaurant on a date with Sarah.

Background: Jake talks to an invisible person.


Jake: Hey, you ever heard of the Meat Puppets? Of course you haven’t. They’re an obscure eighties punk band, and you’re a cheerleader. (laughs) Well, they’re not just eighties. They’re nineties and they’re current, too. They’re really really cool. Oh, did I offend you? Sorry. Um, I’m really sorry. There’s music that I haven’t heard of before, too. I’m sorry. I always mess things up. (pause) Is that a new bracelet you’re wearing? (pause) It’s really nice. Where’d you get it? (pause) You’re not talking. You’re not talking to me because I offended you, is that right? OK. I understand. (trying to think of what to say to smooth the situation over.) Look, I didn’t mean that cheerleaders don’t listen to cool music. I’m sure they do. I’ve never been on a date with a cheerleader before, and so I just assumed that… well, nevermind. Um, if you’re interested, what I was going to say about the Meat Puppets is that they have some really weird lyrics. I can’t figure out what they mean. Like, this one line goes, “My mind, which things are mine? Well I thought I saw a few before I found out I was blind.” Maybe it’s nonsense. (the girl gets up to leave) I don’t know. Hey, where are you going? I was hoping we could listen to the Meat Puppets together. I’ll call you, if you want me to call you. (exits)


Title: Maybe Eggshell Blue

Character: Nicole, a 30 year old woman.

Setting: A modern American home, in the living room.

Background: Nicole is working two jobs to pay the mortgage on their house while the husband remains unemployed. Nicole comes home late from work and confronts her husband who is sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Nicole: (turns off TV) Dustin, we need to talk. Listen, I’m trying to be supportive of you and I’m trying to be supportive of us, and our relationship. And, you know, I wanted to put those candleholders on the wall, right there, (points to a place on the wall) the candleholders I showed you at the department store. I wanted to get them in lavender. Or maybe eggshell blue. Remember? I haven’t decided yet – lavender or eggshell blue. But I haven’t decided yet because it doesn’t matter which color I pick because I’m not going to get them. You told me not to buy them, and I respect you, I do respect you Dustin, so I want to do the reasonable things you ask me to do, and because we can’t afford it. So I can’t have my candleholders. I accept that. (shifting moods) I loved you once, Dustin. You were a good man. Everybody told me you were a good man. My mother loved you, my sisters loved you, Christine couldn’t stop telling me about how jealous she was that I found you. And on our wedding day, you were a man. I looked in your eyes, you held me in your arms, and we danced. But, now, Dustin, you’re a boy. A small child. I can see that now. How can I love a child the way I am supposed to love a husband? Well, that’s all I wanted to say. You can watch TV again. (turns the TV back on.)


Title: The Willpower of The Lizard

Character: Roger, 21, just returned to America from a tour of duty in Iraq.

Setting: A front porch.

Background: Roger is talking with a friend he hasn’t seen in a long time. Roger is trying to explain his emotions.

Roger: Ever since I got back from the war, I get jittery around people. Real jittery. People don’t understand it, why it’s hard for men who get back from Iraq to get back to the normal swing of things. Men aren’t the same as they used to be once they get back from over there. “Go get a job,” they say. “Go on a date. That’ll cheer you up,” they say. “Go see a movie.” Well, I don’t feel like seeing a movie. Movies are too spooky. I tried going to the movies, and I got the jitters. I got the jitters real bad. There’s too much movement, there’s too many flashing lights on that gigantic screen. I want to look at something for a long time and not have it change, you know? I must sound crazy. And maybe I am crazy. I’m crazy because I don’t want to go to the movies. Well, I’ve been taking long walks lately, just trying to sort stuff out in my mind. I went deep in the desert yesterday. Deep in the desert. I saw a lizard, eating ants. You should have seen that lizard. It was all intensity. All instinct, and the only word I have for it is just pure intensity. And I thought, why can’t I have what that lizard has? I want the brain and the willpower of the lizard.


Title: I Want To Be an Actor

Character: Sally/Frank 14 years old.

Setting: A bedroom.

Background: Talks straight to the audience.

Sally/Frank: I want to be an actor. A real actor. Well, I guess I sort of am an actor already. I was in a few plays before, but they weren’t real plays. They were fake plays. They didn’t even charge money to get in. That’s when you know if a play is fake- if they don’t cost anything, they’re fake. Let’s see… I was a sheep in the Christmas play. Baah. (makes the sound of a sheep.) Oh, and then in another fake play, I was a tree, and I only had one line. I still remember it: (holds arms out like a tree.) “Look at me, I’m a tree, don’t my branches bring you glee?” Apparently the playwright didn’t get the memo that rhyming lines are so elementary school. Oh wait, we did do that play in elementary school. Whatever. But like I was saying, I want to be a real actor, like on Broadway. Mmmm, Broadway, I just love the way that word sounds. Broadway. Or maybe I could be an actor on off-Broadway. Really, I’d even settle for off-off Broadway. But not off-off-off Broadway- that’s way too many offs. Anyway, look everyone! (ultra-dramatic) To be or not to be, that is the question! Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa