PETER PAN by James Matthew Barrie (Can be played by a boy or girl). This is from the enchanting tale of the Lost Boys and their leader Peter Pan, the little boy who doesn't want to grow up. Just before this scene, Capt. Hook has poisoned Peter's glass of medicine which Wendy has left for him. Tinker Bell, Peter's faithful fairy companion, has seen this and tells Peter of the Captain Hook's kidnapping of Wendy and the Lost Boys, and then drinks the medicine to save Peter's life. In this scene, the actor must imagine that Tinker Bell's movement and speech .....in the language of the fairies, which sounds to human ears like a small ringing bell, PETER: (Waking up) Who is that? (Tinker Bell speaks in a long ungrammatical sentence.) Wendy and the boys captured by the pirates! I'l rescue her! I'll rescue her! (He leaps to his dagger and begins to sharpen it. In answer to Tinker Bell) Oh, that is just my medicine. (Tinker Bell speaks) Poisoned? Who would have poisoned it? | promised Wendy to take it, and | will as soon as | have sharpened my dagger. (Tinker Bell swallows the medicine, Peter notices) Why, Tink, you've drunk my medicine! (Peter's eyes follow Tinker Bell as she flutters strangely about the room. She “lands,” and Peter listens to her faint voice). It was poisoned and you drank it to save my life?! Tink, dear Tink, are you dying? (He has never called her “dear Tink” before and for a moment she is thrilled; she alights on his shoulder, gives his chin a loving bite, whispers ‘you Silly ass,” and fails on her tiny bed.) Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is dead! Her voice is so low | can scarcely tell what she is saying. ‘She says - she says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies! (Peter rises and throws out his arms — he knows not to whom, perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one.) Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe clap you hands! (Peter sees that that his plea has worked and that somewhere many, many children have clapped their hands in fervent belief...because Tinker Bell's light pulses stronger and stronger until she is up and flying around the room) Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to rescue Wendy!THE CORN IS GREEN by Emlyn Williams. (Although this play takes place in a remote Welsh mining town, no accent is required for the audition. Morgan Evans is speaking to his British teacher, Miss Moffatt who has taken a deep interest in his school advancement, and has tutored him with devout dedication. Morgan is alternately enthusiastic about learning and rebellious as he feels that his education is alienating him from his tight-knit mining community. Here he expresses his frustration at the changes he has been undergoing.) MORGAN: | shall not need a nail file in the coal mine. | am going back to the mines. | do not want to learn Greek, nor to pronounce any long English words, nor to keep my hands clean, because.... Because. | was born in a Welsh hayfield when my mother was helpin’ with the harvest — and | always lived in a little house with no stairs, only a ladder — and no water — and until my brothers was killed | never slept except three in a bed. | know that is terrible grammar, but it’s true. The last two years | have not had no proper talk with English chaps in the mine because | was so busy keepin’ this old grammar in its place. Tryin’ to better myself, the day and the night!...You cannot take a nail file into the “Gwesmor Arms" public bar! Ihave been there every afternoon for a week, spendin’ your pocket money, and | have been there now, and that is why | speak my mind! Because you are not interested in me. How can you be interested in a machine that you put a penny in and if nothing comes out, you give it a good shake? “Evans, write me an essay; Evans, get up and bow; Evans what is a subjunctive?” My name is Morgan Evans and all my friends call me Morgan, and if there is anything gets on the wrong side of me it is callin’ me Evans!...And do you know what they call me in the village? “The schooimistress's little dog!” What has it got to do with you if my nails are dirty? Mind your own business!From "GEMINI" by Albert Innaurato In this piece, HERSHEL a shy, socially inept, lonely boy explains his passionate interest in the trolleys (where he lives in Philadelphia), to an older girl he really likes and may even have a crush on. Oh, I'm not just interested in subways. | love the buses too, you know? And my favorites are, well, you won't laugh? The trolleys. They are beautiful. There's a trolley graveyard about two blocks from here. | was thinking, like maybe Randy would like to see them, you know? | could go see the engine anytime. The Trolley graveyard is well, like, | guess beautiful, you know? Really. They're just there, like old creatures everyone's forgotten, some of them rusted out, and some of them on their sides, and some, like the old thirty-two, is like standing straight up as though sayin’. Like, I'm going to stand here and be myself, no matter what. | talk to them, Oh, | shouldn't have said that. Don't tell my mother, please? It's, you know, like people who go to castles and look for, well, like, knights in shining armor, you know? The past was beautiful and somehow, like, pure. The same is true of the trolleys. | follow the old thirty-two route all the time. It leads right to the graveyard where the thirty-two is buried, you know? It’s like, well, fate. The tracks are half covered with filth and pitch, new pitch like the city pours on. It oozes in the summer and people walk on it, but you can see the tracks and you see like it's true like old things last, good things last, like you know? The trolleys are all filthy and half covered and rusted out wand laughed at and even they're not much use to anybody and kind of ugly like, by most standards, they're like, they're wel, I guess, beautiful, you know?Honey, I'm a Leprechaun ‘Comedic male monologue from the play Goodtye Charies by Gabriel Davis Why can't you accept I'm a leprechaun? Its like you're embarrassed. When we're out and | mention to people that I've recently transformed into @ leprechaun, you always laugh lightly then veer the conversation to another topic. | don't want them to think I'm crazy either, but | can't lie about who am. It is who | am Look at the facts. There's a salary freeze but | got a raise. The market took a beating, but my stocks are up. Housing values are in the toilet, just not our house. No people aren't lucky lke that. How do you explain that rainbow in our back yard? Rainbows do not linger for a week in low humidity. | mean | get this isn't what you bargained for when you said "I do” But people change. Not usually into leprechauns but - and granted the priest said "do you take this man..." not "do you take this leprechaun...” But this can't come as a total surprise. When you went on that special K diet and I went on that lucky charms diet...that should have tipped you off. ‘Or when | started to develop five o'clock shadows at 10 am. Honey this kind of aggressive beard growth is not natural...for humans. And I get you don't like it, how the stubble chaffes, and that's why I'm shaving every hour practically, for you. But, cmon, you have to accept this. We have to get it out in the open so we can work through it, together. This isn’t easy for me either, | denied itat first too. You know when | couldn't deny it anymore? That day after my physical, when they found the sudden and medically puzzling height loss. I know the doctor explained it away as unusually drastic spinal ‘compression, but | saw the look on your face, on his. And me, my stomach dropped out, Remember how you comforted me. Said | didn't really seem much shorter. Still the same strapping man you married. But you towered over me as you said it. | felt so scared. Remember I couldn't sleep...came to bed late. But then, that night, when I came to bed, you were already out. | gave you alittle peck and sald ‘goodnight - you said, and you had that tone, half asleep, you said | love you, lite fella Little fella. There it was the truth. Ithurt, But less so because you were there. Snoring a litle. Beside me. And you reached out and took my hand the way you always do. Because some things haven't changed. | know it's scary. But please, just accept it, even if it makes us 2 litle weirder as a couple, please say it. Say - say honey | accept that you are a leprechaun. And then we can get on with the rest of our lives. What do say?OPEN ADMISSIONS by Shirley Lauro The present. A new York City college speech class. CALVIN JEFFERSON (18) intense, intelligent, and street-smart, confronts his instructor Ginny Carlsen about his grade, class performance and the value of what he's being taught. CALVIN: But | don't know how to improve it. Thass what | come to ax you! Ax you!? Okay, man. Miss Shakespeare, Speech communication |! Know what I'll “ax” you, how come | been in this here college all this time and | don't know nothin’ more than when I came in? This supposed to be some big break for me. Supposed to be my turn. You know what | mean —an my sister Salina go me off the streets, man, where | been dealing dope and been in six foster homes — and five schools, she give me this break, ‘cause | got brains! You know what | am ‘communicatin’ to you. Ever school | been has tole me | got brains and can make something outa myself if| gets me the chance! This here supposed to be it! Only nothing is happenin in my head except | is gittin’ more and more confuse about what | knows and what | don't know! So what | wanna “ax” you is: How ‘come you don't sit down with me and give me something | can "identify", and teach me how to git them big ideas down instead a givin me a “B" and Franklin a “B'. An Doreen a“B." What's that “B” standin for? ‘Cause it surely ain't standin’ for no piece of work!Alter Egos By John McGovern Whenever | think about you | feel halfway between Romeo and a big dork. | feel good or like Romeo when | think about how much | was in love with you. | mean we would be talking on the phone and we'd say goodbye and | go do something else and then I'd get this overwhelming feeling and I'd have to call you up again and tell you how much | was in love with You. But then | think about what you said and what you did and | feel like a big dork - because | imagine you hanging up with me and calling up some two-faced girfriend hotline... "Press 1 if your boyfriend loves you and you don't love him. Press 2 if he just made a fool of himself over you. Press 3 if you'd lke to chat with other two-faced girffiends." "Hey girl! Listen to what my boyfriend just did!" | know you say that's different but i's hard to believe. Yes. Yes. You say it wasn't that you didn't love me but that you realized you love me like a friend rather than ike a boyfriend... ‘What? Did you just discover one night that you liked me like a friend! Well that's certainly boosts my ego! It just makes me feel dumber because | did love you like that......do. Oh I hate this! | start to get all mushy and sound like some Boys II Men song and you know it just bounces off you! | just want to love you and you don't love me. You're beautiful, sensitive and talented and sweet and I'm just...vell... wait a minute. What am | saying? And I'm just. ‘What? Romeo the Dork? NO,! You know what? I'm not going to do this anymore. Romeo certainly wouldn't have killed himself if Juliet was "just a pal." And I'm certainly not going to be a dork the rest of my life - Loving you from afar... I'm good-looking and sensitive and stylish and I'm funnier than you... But regardless | deserve to have somebody who really loves me. Forget being the slacker Romeo wannabe in some sad indie film. I'm going to be King Lear in some big, glamorous, action-packed, 4 1/2 hour uncut Hollywood extravaganza! ‘And you know what? I'm not bitter... You know you can't say I'm not bitter without really sounding better... But i's the truth! Something clicked, maybe self-loathing overload or something... But | don't need you anymore. See you, Juliet... This time parting is just plain sweet. | can make it on my ownA RAISIN IN THE SUN by Lorraine Hansberry This monologue is Asagai’s, the young African student, explaining himself to Benethea, a black American girl ASAGAI: (Shouting over her) | live the answer! (Pause) In my village at home it is the exceptional man can even read the newspaper...or who ever sees a book at all. | will go home and much of what | will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village...But | will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all...and then again...the sudden and dramatic events which make history leap into the future ‘And then the quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And | even will have moments when | wonder if the quiet was better than all the death and hatred. But | will look about my village at the literacy and disease and ignorance and | will not wonder long. And perhaps...perhaps | will be a great man... mean perhaps | will hold on to the substance of truth and find my ways always with the right course...and perhaps for it | will be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of the empire... or perhaps | shall live to be a very old man respected and esteemed in my new nation...and perhaps | shall hold office and this is what I'm trying to tell you; perhaps the things | believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and | will not understand and do terrible things and have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women, not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen... to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there...that they always will be. ‘And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even...actually replenish me!From The Loman Family Picnic By Donald Margulies (Stewie retums home from his Hebrew classes he’s taking in preparation for his bar mitzvah and has an announcement for his mother.) STEWIE: I've had it. Cancel the bar mitzvah, Mr. Shlosh is a cretin. | don't care if he’s a rabbi, he's still a cretin. We're going over my Haftarah...| know almost all of it by heart. And I'm really singing it this time. Like Jerry Vale. Soft and sweet? It's so beautiful I'm embarrassing myself. | feel my cheeks getting hot. And I get through the whole thing perfectly. | sound just like the record, and he doesn't even compliment me! He's not human. | decided to have a conversation with him? Big mistake. | mean, I've been sitting in this room with the is guy with bad breath for years, reading the same stuff over and over, preparing me for the big day, right?...And he never even talked to me! | don't mean Talmudic dialogue. | mean your basic chat. | gave up my boyhood to him Ma! Hundreds of afternoons I'l never get back! | missed years of watching You Don't Say after school! That's irreplaceable, Ma, So | thought | was entitled to ask a question at least. | said to Shiosh, "Okay, so finally | can read all these little symbols right to left. Great. Now tel me what it means." Well the guy looks like he's gonna go berserk. Like ray Milland in X-The Man with X-Ray Eyes right before he plucks his own eyes out? "Tell me what I'm reading," | said, "tell me what the words mean?!" He looks at me like I'm not speaking any known language. "What does it mean?" | said. "What am I saying?" "What does it matter?, he says, "you can read it." "Yeah, but what does it mean?!" "It means you will be bar mitzvah,” he says. "But the words don't mean anything to me, they're just these funny, “chuchy" little sounds. "Those funny sounds,” he says, "are what make a boy different from a Jew!" "So?! You taught me how to read but you didn't teach me how to understand! What kind of Jew is that?!" This does not go over big. His lips are turning blue. | think he's going to have an angina attack (Beat) Allhe cares about is rolling out bar mitzvah boys to repopulate the earth. We look the part and we can sing, but we don't know what we're saying! | have had it!