by James McLindon

Setting:      The altar of a Roman Catholic Church

Time:          Next Saturday

Character:  FATHER GALLAGHER, a weary, dispirited, angry priest in his late 50′s

FATHER GALLAGHER stands at the lectern surveying the audience, his congregation, and the couple he is about to marry.

FATHER GALLAGHER

A wedding.  Liam and Moira.  Wasn’t it just a few months ago we were baptizing Moira in that font right over there, a little girl full of the sacred promise that all children thoughtlessly carry with them into this world?  A promise borne, not of their own merits, but of the persistent triumph of optimism over reality that is the very hallmark of a people of great faith.  Ah, yes, the promise of Moira … long before the belly ring and the tattoos and the attitude, the promise that is always there.  In the beginning.

A wedding.  We gather to applaud Liam and Moira as they march off together into matrimony, much the way New Englanders once cheered for their boys marching off to the Civil War.  Those long ago Union soldiers went, not to create a union as we create one today, but to fight savagely to preserve one … as all too soon Liam and Moira will no doubt have to fight to preserve theirs.  If they can be bothered.  Those long ago Union soldiers, who could be bothered, wore new uniforms appropriate for that adventure just as Liam and Moira today wear new uniforms appropriate for theirs.  Or inappropriate, depending on your view of Moira’s neckline.  I know what mine is.

A wedding.  I have given the same wedding sermon for the past 30 years.  Some of you opine–oh, yes, I hear the whispers–that I must lack imagination, or else I’d write a new one.  Well.  Be careful what you wish for.  Because, with no illusions that it will make any difference to this naïve pair of narcissists who stand before me today or to the joyless couples who sit out there, I’ve crafted a new one.

A week ago, I found myself on an airplane flying to a family reunion I couldn’t extricate myself from in Iowa City.  As I board, I’m met by relieved smiles from the more nervous flyers.  “Oh, good, we’re safe,” they’re thinking.  “God wouldn’t let anything happen with a priest on board.”  Ha!  September 11, a great priest, a legend in New York, kneels in the shadows of the doomed towers, anointing one of the dying when, 110 stories above his head, a poor soul facing flames worthy of the very mouth of hell decides to jump.  Where was God, my friends, the God who knows if even a sparrow falls from the sky? Where was God that He couldn’t have delayed that poor soul a few seconds? Where was He!  AWOL as usual, that’s where!  AWOL.  Continue Reading »

by Philip Kaplan and Stephanie Walter

Setting:       on a deserted street in a bad neighborhood

Time:           late at night

Character:  DAN, 30, a little arrogant, wearing expensive casual clothes

DAN is talking on a cell phone and appears very agitated.

DAN

(into phone)  If you get this message, I locked my keys and my wallet in my car, my cell phone’s been on low battery for half an hour, and this is a really bad neighborhood.

(dials another number)

Damnit!  This is Dan.  If you get this, I’m at the corner of …

(pause.  He reads a street sign.)

Gzerk Flapiziarana Memorial Place.  –screw it!

(DAN hangs up and dials another number.)

Pick up!  Pick up!  Great!  Belsky!  My car broke down and—what?

(beat)

(His voice changes.  He’s talking to a child)

Lizzie!  Oh, hi Lizzie, put Dadda on the phone. …  Uh, huh … That’s great.  Lizzie, put Dadda on the phone …  Uh, huh.  Fantastic.  Where’s your Dad?

(beat)

What? … I would love to see your drawing, Lizzie.  After Dadda saves me from all the hoodlums you can show me everything … Oh, you have a picture of a cow.  Great … It’s blue?  That’s so avante garde, a blue cow …  A red cow too? … Fantastic.  Lizzie, you hear that beep?  That’s my cell phone dying.  When it dies, I die, so speed it up a little? … Yellow? … A yellow cow?  I think I see where this is going.  You have more cows in inappropriate colors.  Get Daddy now! … Purple?  There’s no such thing as a purple cow, you moron!  Your dad says you’re such a frigging genius.

(getting more angry)  Continue Reading »

by Robert Michael Morris

Setting:       a stage … anywhere and everywhere.

Time:           present

Character:  ACTRESS, a regal, graceful woman of advanced years

(LIGHTS UP.  ACTRESS enters from the wings.  She is dressed in softly flowing silks and chiffons, a delicate scarf around her neck, a belt of silver mesh around her tiny waist.  Her dress is long sleeved; it is tight around the arms and accentuates her long, graceful, and expressive hands.  Her shoes, high heels and seductive for a woman of her age, match the rich colors of her dress.

She comes to center stage and regards the audience, her arms thrusting gracefully out, spreading widely to encircle them, then come back and are clasped together at her heart.  She then puts her hands out, palms toward to audience—a signal to them that she is about to speak.)

ACTRESS

I could never understand—even comprehend—why they always called Helen Hayes the “First Lady of the American Theatre.”

(She pauses.)

The First Lady of the American Theatre!

(She does a kind of regal wave, mock humility bow; arms open wide acknowledging grand applause and adulation.)

She didn’t do that much theatre, you ask me.  Oh, back in its infancy!  Right after the somewhat truncated run of “Our American Cousin.”  With the Drews and early Barrymores.  Maude Adams.  Back in the days when Tallulah was a virgin, dahling!  But she got out when the going got good!  I’ve never been a big follower of athletics, but that Mr. Vincent Lombardi said one or two bright things.  You know … that pithy little aphorism about “when the going got tough … you know.  Well, never mind.

Helen took one of the first trains out of Grand Central headed toward Hollywood!

(She says the word with loathing and repulsion.)

Oh, I don’t want to sound petty.  I hope I’m not sounding petty.  I don’t want to.  There is so much pettiness in our business as it is.  Mostly among agents … and producers … and casting directors … and other actors.  I hope I haven’t arrived at my age, all of my experiences, all my successes trailing off behind me like so much stardust only to find myself petty.  It is an occupational hazard in a business that depends almost exclusively on the good graces of others.

Where was I?  Continue Reading »

by John Hadden

Setting:       empty stage

Time:           present

Character:  QUINCY KRACZLIC, well-mannered, good-looking, in his early 50′s

Debussy piano music is heard.  QUINCY emerges in tails.  He winks offstage as he enters.  He brings out a tall stool, an egg timer, and a phone book.  He exits.  Music fades and benign pre-set lights cross-fade to a sharp spotlight.  Quincy enters again and bows.  [note:  Quincy Kraczlic's name pronunciation almost sounds like "Crotch-lick"]

QUINCY

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Quincy Kraczlic.  I’m a Foreign Service Officer on leave from Tashkent, obviously—on leave, that is—where I hold the post of Ambassador.  I know, I know, you’re all interested in what the hell is going on over there just now, but I have to say that’s not why I’m here today.  I’m not supposed to talk about all that.  I don’t really know anything about it anyway.  So many things can compromise the mission; you let something slip and without even knowing it, you’ve just killed somebody who has kids and plays bassoon in the state orchestra.  (He laughs, then blanches slightly) But life goes on.  There are other things that are more…  I don’t know, more… delightful.  (Looks offstage for his wife) This town, for instance.  The shops!  The restaurants!  Delightful.  Oh, damn… I was going to do this right at the beginning, dammit.

(Quincy takes out an egg timer from his pocket, turns it to ten minutes.)

They’ve told us to limit our act to ten minutes.  So we’ll be up here, and by the way, (looking offstage again) I’d like to thank the committee for bending the… for giving us this chance… and the community at large, this chance, as guests of the community, I mean, on behalf of the… (He wanders offstage)

(QUINCY is heard offstage:)

Nonsense, my love, they’re very receptive.  You’ll see, it’ll turn out perfectly.  Just imagine you’re at a reception.  All right, darling?  Ça va?

(QUINCY returns to stage.)

It is my privilege (cues booth for music, with just an eyebrow) to invite you to spend the next… eight… minutes or so, with me and my fantastic wife… Antoinette— (cues again, less subtly) and the fruits of our little hobby… Continue Reading »

by Penny Brandt Jackson

Setting:       A wedding planner’s office on the upper east side of Manhattan.

Time:           Morning

Character:  Nell “Montana” Sloan, 23 years old, very attractive blonde with
                   expensively placed caramel highlights, dressed like Grace Kelly
                   in a cashmere sweater, pearls, and a tweed skirt

Nell sits in a chair —she speaks to the wedding planner.

NELL

Don’t ever get stoned with your Mom.  Just not cool.  She’s going to start telling you things you really don’t want to know.  How she’s not sure, but you could be the love child of Mick Jagger.  Or Keith Richards.  But she was too stoned at the time.  SURPRISE!!  God, I just hate hippies.  What’s worse—rich hippies.  My Mom grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and went to Miss Porter’s School for Girls.  That’s the place where Jackie O went too.  I would have killed to have gone to Miss Porter’s School for Girls.  But this was the Sixties and my Mom had to get kicked out for—guess what?—smoking dope with the townies.  And headed out to San Francisco, Summer of Love, which ended up in Altamont, Summer of Hell.  See, I know all this hippie history.  That was actually my major in college.  History that is, but focusing on the era.  My senior thesis was called “The Sixties: Cultural Revolution or Just One Bad Trip?”  Don’t think I was born in pearls and cashmere.  This took a lot of hard work. 

My Mom sent me to a Waldorf school.  Waldorf.  Not like the fancy hotel, which, by the way, would be a perfect place to get married, but mixed up, like a Waldorf salad, which is really a crazy salad filled with all these things like celery and apples and walnuts and grapes and way too much mayo.  I mean a salad should be simple—just lettuce, a few tomatoes, and maybe some oil and vinegar.  And this Waldorf School was filled with too many things too— Continue Reading »