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    The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights
    The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights
    The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights
    Ebook250 pages2 hours

    The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights

    By Lynn Nottage

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    The Kilroys: "We Make Trouble. And Plays."

    "When I look at the list of women and nonbinary writers included in this volume, many of whom I have mentored or taught, it is a beautiful reminder that we are a community to be reckoned with, and that there is an abundance of vital narratives awaiting a larger audience. While there remains a great deal of work to be done to reach racial and gender equity in the theater, the powerful and provocative writing presented here is part of the inciting incident that will no doubt shake up the status quo." —Lynn Nottage, from her Foreword

    The Kilroys are back with a new collection of 67 monologues and scenes by women and nonbinary playwrights. This collection includes a monologue or scene from each play from the 2016 and 2017 editions of The List.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTheatre Communications Group
    Release dateMay 19, 2020
    ISBN9781559369169
    The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights
    Author

    Lynn Nottage

    Lynn Nottage's plays include 'Crumbs from the Table of Joy,' 'Fabulation' and 'Intimate Apparel,' for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. Her plays have been produced at theaters throughout the country. 'Ruined' is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 'Sweat' is winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

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      Book preview

      The Kilroys List, Volume Two - Lynn Nottage

      BRITTANY K. ALLEN

      Redwood

      A hip-hop-dance-class Greek Chorus and opinionated, long-dead ancestors help guide the relationship between Meg and Drew—a metropolitan, interracial couple whose lives are rocked when Meg’s Uncle Stevie becomes obsessed with unearthing the family’s ancestry. This monologue, from this time- and space-bending dramedy of manners gone very far south, is in Meg’s voice. She’s a quirky, black, twenty-something, middle-school teacher living in the present day. Has a big heart, but a bigger imagination.

      MEG: God!! No, okay? No, I don’t want you to go. But. Okay so, earlier today at the chambers, this older, well-meaning white lady Senatrix, before we even got started and folks were just kind of circulating in the hallways, grabbing coffee, whatever, she came up to me and put her napkin trash in my hand, without even making eye contact and it was unclear, really, at first, because she realized her mistake fast and apologized for it in many glances, and also with words, and also we won! but it’s hard to explain this but that kind of thing happens a lot, to me, right?

      I know you know and it’s horrible. But it’s also, not, horrible. But yeah, it’s horrible. Anyway. Today after that happened, and this whole exciting victory day was kind of tainted by this woman’s racist BS, my team was celebrating at Harlow’s, but I went outside and sat on this bench. And I cried a little bit because usually when that kind of thing happens I text you. And you say that, that it’s horrible, and I feel better. But today I knew that wouldn’t work. And then Meg got super crazy and couldn’t keep herself from saying that I was thinking also on this bench, if, okay one case scenario, we get married and have kids some day, well, did you know your kids will be black?

      But how could we even do that??? Don’t you see? If we can’t even. If you can’t even. How would I tell our story to a child? When I don’t even know how to tell our story to me. And you want to digest and my mom wants to forget and Stevie wants to—I don’t even know what Stevie’s fucking endgame is but—I guess I still want to pick at the scabs—because I’m worried that if I don’t the most important things about me will be lost all those moments in the day, you know, that are horrible but not horrible. And my ability to describe them to you, trust you with them. ’Cuz beyond all the horrible history stuff, Drew, if you’re not a scab-picker also, well. I worry. You see the problem? I worry I’d like, be picking away at scabs, and I’d bleed out one afternoon on like the couch without you noticing. I’d be bleeding and you just wouldn’t see it. To you, it wouldn’t even look real. I’m not making any sense, I’m sorry. And I’m a verbal person. When I don’t have the right words I feel like death.

      CHRISTINA ANDERSON

      How to Catch Creation

      Four artists and intellectuals in San Francisco struggle to nurture creative impulse and establish legacy—in both their professional and personal lives. When one discovers the works of a black queer feminist writer from a bygone era, their lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways. In this monologue Tami (late forties, black American woman, queer) confesses to her friend Griffin the struggles she’s had with creating her art and why.

      TAMI:

      Griffin, I think you should leave.

      If I let my rage pilot this conversation,

      I will definitely say things that will hurt us both.

      And I don’t want to do that.

      When you say shit like that—it just … stop being a fucking emotionally aware black feminist all the damn time, and see me Griffin. Your best-fucking-friend, Tami Sterling-Brown. Talk to me like a regular fucking human being!

      Stop being so conscious and just see me.

      =.=

      =.=

      It had been almost three years since I stopped painting.

      =.=

      =.=

      =.=

      Do you know what happened three years ago?

      =.=

      The testimony that convicted you

      got thrown out as insufficient.

      And you and I started the journey to get you free.

      =.=

      We thought you would die in that prison, Griffin.

      We never talked about it, but I knew we had come to

      terms with the

      possibility of that.

      And then that testimony got thrown out.

      I thank God every day

      that you got your justice. So many others don’t,

      but you did. I am so grateful for that.

      If I’m honest with

      myself—with both of us:

      your freedom trapped me.

      =.=

      =.=

      It did.

      When your mother passed, I picked up the fight

      to keep that connection with you. To sustain your line

      to the outside world. And I took that torch with pride

      and determination but there were sacrifices, Griffin.

      And when that testimony got thrown out …

      I put everything I had into getting your freedom.

      =.=

      I’m not claiming Riley to be a savior or anything.

      I know how complicated it is … but the time

      I have with her … it’s mine … it’s something she and

      I have.

      And I haven’t shared that type of … with any other

      woman in a long time.

      In a really long time. And, I know it was my choice not

      to get serious

      with other women after I escaped that nightmare with

      Stevie. I know that.

      And I’m not angry at you, Griffin.

      I just need you to see me where I’m at right now,

      and see where I’ve been.

      NGOZI ANYANWU

      Good Grief

      Good Grief is a meditation and exploration of grief through the eyes of our heroine, Nkechi, a first-generation Nigerian woman as she navigates the loss of her best friend through reliving memories of growing up in suburban Bucks County. We listen to our tragic hero Matthew Jason George, also known as MJG, talk about the first time he met his father.

      MJG:

      Father? Dad? Papa?

      I tried all those and he just stared straight through me.

      Then I tried

      Hey I’m your son.

      Then I tried I think I’m your son.

      Then I asked if I had the wrong address

      But I knew I hadn’t, ‘cause

      I was staring at my future

      If I believed I had one

      Anyway …

      He said I know.

      He knew …

      he knew …

      he knew

      where I was

      that I existed

      where I lived

      where I went to school

      how I got into my first fight at Conwell Egan ’cause

      someone called me a light-skin tree monkey.

      He had a picture of me …

      He didn’t miss me though

      I’m missable, right? I feel like …

      if I met me

      I’d like me

      I’d wanna claim me

      Right?

      I’ve been thinking this whole time that he must have been walking around with this like … what do they call it when you have a limb missing and you act like you still have it?

      I thought he’d have like this phantom feeling.

      Cut to a dude setting a table with no one there.

      He sets it every night waiting for me to show.

      And then he’s like nah I did this all wrong

      and he resets it.

      The table

      Every day.

      Hoping that today will be the day

      Where he fills this …

      phantom whatever.

      Then he’s like,

      fuck this,

      my son’s a man.

      So he goes in his fridge,

      grabs a six-pack,

      cracks open a beer—

      Rolling Rock.

      He places a beer on the table in front of my empty chair and he just talks. Watching TV, talking to no one. That’s what I imagine he did with his days. I used to have dreams about that shit. Did you know that?

      Would we hug? Would we shake hands like men and then hug?

      How

      When

      Where I’d run into him.

      I’d create the scenarios in my head.

      I use to imagine myself walking around in the world.

      We would meet eyes on the street and know.

      We’d calmly sit down.

      We’d talk about how the Eagles need to get their shit

      together if they ever wanna win a conference final.

      We’d eat at a diner.

      Share some shit over some pie and marvel about how

      there were some fine-ass sons-a-bitches walking around.

      Nothing too cliché.

      Just these two men who would come to an

      understanding.

      Then he’d say some wise shit.

      And we’d go through this ritual like once a week

      For like …

      EVER.

      And he’d wanna know me …

      Pussy shit right?

      The Homecoming Queen

      Kelechi is a well-known writer who returns to Nigeria from her life in the United States to care for her ailing father after more than a fifteen-year absence, only to be confronted with all the things she’s left behind. Godwin, Kelechi’s father, sits at his deathbed and gives his last rites to his daughter.

      PAPA:

      You are quiet

      You are never quiet

      When you were born

      You came out like:

      (He screams a baby’s scream. It takes too much out of him.)

      Will you chronicle this

      I want you to chronicle this in case I say something great

      Can you do that?

      (Kelechi gets a notepad. They sit there silent and wait. Time passes.)

      What was I saying

      Of course

      If I could do it over

      I would not have been a professor

      I would have taught kindergarten because the young are

      willing to learn. Adults are stubborn

      why go to school if you already believe you have the answers.

      It’s true?

      Eh-hehn.

      Write dat down.

      (Time passes.)

      …

      I do not believe in the exclusivity of Heaven. Oya why can’t everyone have their peace? It can’t just be for the Igbo people.

      It will be too loud.

      (Time passes …)

      I would now like to speak on my regrets

      I wish I had not quit football when my father told me to, I was soo good.

      KELECHI:

      What position?

      PAPA:

      Strikah!

      I would go

      Pyum

      Pyum

      Pyum

      Down the field

      Unstoppable.

      ……

      I was unstoppable then, if you knew me then

      If you knew me … If you knew my heart

      Perhaps you could have loved your father.

      ……

      Perhaps that could have been something you could have

      learned to do. My biggest regret

      hmmm

      Was failing my daughter

      Things they get away from us.

      ……

      Forgive eh

      Forgive

      But I am late

      My apology is on African time

      No good

      But she is at my side so perhaps

      I did not do all the bad things. What do you think?

      KELECHI:

      …

      I think that is right Oga.

      Hey, my life

      Will you hold my hand?

      (She does.

      Time passes.)

      Write this down

      It began with a boy who looked up to his father, a sullen

      man who looked like this:

      (He scrunches up his face.)

      That is where the first missteps were taken

      I wanted so badly to unscrunch his face so I became the

      person he wanted me to be instead of the person I wanted to

      ……

      If I could start over I would have taught you Igbo well well.

      KELECHI:

      Dad I know Igbo.

      PAPA:

      You don’ mean it

      Well I wasn’t so bad then, mm?

      In the end

      We are just what we teach, then we move on

      So someone can do better, try again

      Do bettah

      Try again

      Do bettah

      Try again.

      ……

      What are the five lessons?

      KELECHI:

      Commitment Dedication Knowledge Perseverance and

      PAPA AND KELECHI:

      Common sense.

      (Time passes.)

      PAPA:

      Chinyere … my love

      You have come back. What have you brought for me?

      (Time passes.

      He wheezes, his speaking is barely audible, he mumbles to himself,

      Then

      A gasp.)

      Hey!

      A gal?

      You don’ mean it?

      (He smiles a wide grin.

      He passes.)

      Nike or We Don’t Need Another Hero

      Nike follows our Olympians as they have been fighting a million- year war against the Titans, but to win they must find Nike, the Goddess of Victory, and remind her of who she is. This is a Greek superhero graphic novel heroine story told through the lens of blickety blackness. Nike recalls when, how, and why she left the

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