30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Bonus Play "My Left Breast" by Susan Miller

 

Here is another bonus play for my "30 Plays in 30 Days" September reading challenge. My Left Breast by Susan Miller is a one-woman show that I found in a collection I have of The Best American Short Plays 1993-1994. The play originally premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in the 1994 Humana Festival where Miller performed the piece herself. 

A multi-layered monologue, My Left Breast tells the story of a "one-breasted, menopausal, Jewish bisexual lesbian Mom", from a diagnoses of breast cancer through a mastectomy, from raising her son, to a breakup of a long-term relationship, and a diagnoses of osteoporosis... and through it all, Miller tells the story in a very human way, with plenty of humor, insight and poignancy.  I found the descriptions in the aftermath of her breakup relatable, and one can feel the no-holds barred honesty as she approaches each subject with a kind of grace in her writing.

Susan Miller received an Obie and shared the 1994/1995 Blackburn Prize for the play. It is published by Playscripts, Inc., a very fine publishing house (they carry two of my plays), so if you are interested in reading the play or licensing it for performance, you can visit their website by CLICKING HERE.

If you know this play, have read it, seen it, or performed it, let me know your thoughts by commenting on this post. If you would like to learn more about my plays, you can do so by CLICKING HERE.

FREE MALE MONOLOGUE FOR AUDITION OR CLASSROOM PURPOSES

Yours truly, Bobby Keniston

Today I'm going to offer a free monologue to be used for auditions or classroom purposes.  It is a male monologue from my play, MY PROM DATE WAS A FELON, available from Brooklyn Publishers.  To read more, or order the play, you can CLICK HERE I offer this monologue here for educational purposes.  Just be sure that if you use this monologue for an audition or for the classroom, please make sure that everyone knows the title of the play and the author (yours truly, Bobby Keniston)

In this scene, NOAH, our hero, has declined his friends' invitation to tag along to the prom with them, and here, he explains why he got all dressed up to go to a fancy restaurant by himself.

NOAH: (sighs)

 

Seriously guys, I appreciate what you’re trying to do.

Really. But I don’t want to go to the prom and be a dateless wonder.

I can’t. The only reason I came here to the restaurant is because I

was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, trying to forget it was

prom night, trying to forget that all over town, guys were picking up

their dates in limos, and that proud parents were snapping photos of

these perfect little couples all dressed to the nines. But I couldn’t

forget. All I could think about was how I would never have that prom

photo of me standing next to my high school sweetheart, because I

don’t have a high school sweetheart. That I would never have a

prom story to tell. So I put on my best pants and jacket, and the

stupid cummerbund and bowtie that I have for jazz band, and I came

out to dinner, to confront what I was missing head-on. To look at

everyone else making these memories, good or bad, that I’ll never

have. And now I’ve confronted it, so I’m just going to eat my steak

and go home. And that will be the end of my prom story. I’m sure it

will disappoint my kids if I’m ever lucky enough to have any.
(End of Monologue)


So, thanks once again, and feel free to use this monologue for classroom purposes or for auditions.  If you want to read more of the play, My Prom Date Was a Felon, CLICK HERE!  And please, I'm happy to have you use this monologue, just remember to give me and the play credit!

Until next time, enjoy, and remember--- theater is a sport.
 

 

 

 

NOW AVAILABLE: A Salutatorian's Gratitude (how and why I wrote it)

Hello everyone, and welcome to Theater is a Sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and I like to talk about all things theater.  Why?  Because I love it oh-so-much.

Today I'm going to introduce you to a new script of mine that is now available and give you a little insight into how and why I wrote it.  I have always found it interesting to read about the "behind-the-scenes" of different writers, so I thought I would share a little of that with you, in hopes that you find it entertaining or informative. 

The script is a 10-minute comedic monologue called A Salutatorian's Gratitude, and it is available from Brooklyn Publishers.  Here is the description of it that you will find on their website:

After four years of hard work, graduation is finally here, and James (or Jamie) is about to give a Salutatorian speech that no one will ever forget! After discussing the importance of gratitude to his fellow graduates, he quickly begins to10-min drop the facade and let his true feelings come out, including jabs at the Valedictorian (who happens to be the Headmaster's son), his own father (who would have bought him a car had he been number one in his class), and about the "dinosaur" teachers who he feels should have retired long ago. Shakespeare once wrote "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Well, James is going to show the world that a serpent's tooth ain't got nothin' on him!

So, first things first:  why bother write ten minute monologues anyway?  Obviously the royalties are much lower, so what's the point?

Good question!  Here's the answer: 
There is a pretty wide market out there for speech and forensics clubs, not to mention acting classes that may purchase monologues for in-class scene work.  Writing the monologues or 10-minute duets is not only a great deal of fun, in truth, they take less time to write, and can really help get your name as a writer out in different markets.  Heck, even in different countries.  I got an e-mail from a girl in Australia who was working on one of my monologues for her acting class.  Australia!  That's pretty cool, while I'm sitting here in Maine writing my plays.

From a financial standpoint, for those truly interested in the business-side of things, my 10-minute duets and monologues account for MORE THAN 20% of the royalties I have earned this year from Brooklyn.  That is more than my full-length plays account for. 

So yeah, they're fun to write, and they help earn money.

So, why A Salutatorian's Gratitude?  How did you get the idea for such a bitter graduate?

Okay, here's the truth.  I was Salutatorian of my graduating class.  And yes, being Salutatorian is a great honor that demonstrates a student's commitment to hard work and academic achievement.

But I was still number 2.

You see, I didn't have a whole lot to be competitive about when I was in high school, so academics were very important to me at the time.  And, I was only 1/100 of a grade point less than the Valedictorian of my class.  Such a small margin made it all the more difficult for me.

Of course, now, as a rational adult, I can see how things like class rank really have no bearing on a person's potential for success.  After all, I'm a bit of a struggling writer without much to call my own, while many people behind me in the class have far more real-world financial success. 

Also... as human beings, especially still as teenagers, do we really need to pay attention to a "ranking"?

On the other hand, I think competition can be could, and striving for success in academics is important, and, still in my heart of hearts, I wanted to be number 1 in my class and feel like I actually deserved it (All AP classes and such).  While this feeling exists, I do realize how silly and funny it is to have it. 

Hence, this monologue was born.

And I happen to think it is quite funny, and hope that people will agree.  I also happen to think it is a great piece for a forensics (speech) competition, or a night of monologues and scenes. 

Thanks to you all for reading this.  If you want to read a free sample of A Salutatorian's Gratitude, just click right here!

Until next time, please remember that theater is not only an art form, craft, and business--- it is also a sport.

HOW TO WRITE A PLAY or HOW TO ENJOY REPEATEDLY BANGING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL, Lesson 2: Let's Write a Monologue!

Greetings, my theater friends!  Welcome to Theater is a Sport.  It's Tuesday, so you know what that means... it's playwriting tutorial day!  Or, as I like to call it:  How To Write a Play or How to Enjoy Repeatedly Banging Your Head Against the Wall.  Again, it's not really as bad as all that.  In fact, beating your head against the wall over and over again can be a beautiful thing!  

Today we are going to focus on writing a monologue.  I'm going to assume that you all read some plays over the week since our first lesson, and have also been checking out the structure of your favorite TV shows.  And while we will be discussing dramatic structure a great deal on this blog, we are going to focus today on how it all comes together in the creation of a monologue.

First off--- what is a monologue?  A monologue is a long speech given by a character in a play, sometimes to other characters onstage, sometimes directly to the audience.  A soliloquy is another example of a long speech, though usually given by an actor alone onstage.

For the purpose of our exercise, we are going to be writing monologues for a single character, and our monologues are going to be complete pieces in of themselves, with a beginning, middle, and end.  Yes, a monologue can be a play all by itself. 

How do we write a monologue?  Well, first, you need to remember that all drama is about conflict.  When you have a single character, the conflict is within the character herself, or perhaps the character and some external limitation. 

Let's look at an example, shall we?   And if we're going to look at an example of a great monologue, let's look at a great example from one of my playwrights, Anton Chekhov.   Here is a link where you can read his monologue (which is its own play) called "On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco":  http://method.vtheatre.net/doc/tobacco.html

(Note:  This piece is in the public domain, and this is the only place I could find the full text online.  Aside from a few spelling errors, it is pretty close to the versions I'm familiar with.)

Now, I'm not expecting you to read this first and then come back and read the rest of my blog, but, if you do not, you will have to be ready for some spoilers coming. 

The reason I like to use this monologue as an example for writing monologues is, other than being quite funny, it is an excellent example of conflict.  Our character, Nykhin, informs us he is going to give us a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco.  However, the monologue is not about tobacco at all, is it?  We learn quickly that our lecturer is prone to digressions, and the very digressions are what make up the bulk of the monologue.  Hence, we have some conflict already:  we are told we are going to hear a lecture on tobacco, but what we really hear is our lecturer share his comically sad existence with us, ultimately purging himself, until the very end, when he entreats us to tell his wife he gave a very fine lecture on tobacco. 

Certainly, one does not need to mimic Chekhov in tone or subject when writing a monologue.  But there are lessons one can take from this piece when writing their own.  Here are some examples:

1.  Character:  right away from the first stage directions ("worn-out flock coat", "bows majestically to the audience"), we as an audience get an idea of who this guy is.   The spoken text that follows takes us on a journey with him.

2.  The Dramatic Arc:  Nyukhin tells us he is going to lecture on the harmfulness of tobacco even though "I myself smoke, but my wife told me to lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco, so what's to be done?"  In that small line in the beginning, we get the first indication that our lecturer might possibly be a bit hen-pecked.  As he continues with his lecture, and things seem to be moving in the right direction... "When I lecture I blink my right eye.  Take no notice.  It is simple nervousness.  I am a nervous man".  This digression gives the author permission to go into WHY he is a nervous man, and thus, the rest of the story builds... the boarding home, his daughters, his wife's nest egg, etc.  So this action continues to rise, with the character purging himself, until, near the end, we learn he is a broken man with broken dreams, who longs only for "peace".  Of course, Chekhov ends the piece with the Lecturer becoming aware his wife is looking at him from backstage, so he hastily concludes with a last remark about the harmful effects of tobacco.
This trajectory is very effective for a monologue.  We meet a character, get an initial first impression, the character reveals more about themselves and their life, the focus changes, grows to a climax and then... we are back  to the beginning, knowing our character will never change. 

3.  Stakes:  stakes are tremendously important in any dramatic writing, especially a monologue.  In order for us to remain engaged by one person talking to us from stage, the stakes to rise and rise and rise.... (if you don't like the word "stakes", you can also think of it as "complications"). 

So, what I would like to give you for an assignment is this:  read through the Chekhov monologue, noticing some of the things I have talked about.  Then, I would like you to try writing your own monologue.  Make sure it is about something that is interesting to you.  It's fine to draw things from your own life, but I would suggest that as a jumping off point, and then letting you creativity take the stakes higher.  Your first monologue needn't be as long as the example I've given you:  you can have a good monologue with a beginning, middle and end in one or one and a half pages, even.  And think about this as your write:

1.  The character should reveal something about themselves that perhaps they are not even aware of themselves, and
2.  A goo way to create conflict is to have a character start out believing one thing, but by the end realize they have shifted to the exact opposite belief. 

If you would like to share your monologue with me (I can't promise an immediate response, but I will try to read them as quickly as possible), you can e-mail them to me at theater.is.a.sport@gmail.com 

If you would like to become a fan of Theater is a Sport on Facebook, click here:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheaterIsASport

If you would like to read a sample of a monologue I wrote called "Falling (And Not Getting Up)", click here:  http://www.brookpub.com/default.aspx?pg=sd&st=FALLING+(AND+NOT+GETTING+UP)

Thank you for joining me today at Theater is a Sport.  I hope you enjoyed your second playwriting lesson!

To go directly to LESSON 3, simply click HERE

Until tomorrow, please remember:  theater is a sport (and, banging your head against the wall CAN be enjoyable)

HIGH SCHOOL IS KAFKAESQUE: How and Why I Wrote "Confession: Kafka in High School"

From a production of "Confession: Kafka In High School" by Aitkin High School

I love every play I have written.  They are all flawed, of couse, but each one is special to me.  However, if I was forced, absolutely life-dependent on an honest answer, I would have to say that, in my heart, I believe "Confession: Kafka in High School" to be my best published play so far. 

So, I was living in Dover-Foxcroft, and had finished directing and starring in a production of "Little Shop of Horros" at the Center Theatre (a production I'm very fond of).  I met a great deal of people who were interested in reading my plays and who began to encourage me to submit my work.  In truth, I hadn't finished a new play for quite some time, but, after fixing up my play RUMPLESTILSKIN THE R-DAWG, HIP-HOP MINSTREL and submitting it, I decided it was time for me to start working on another play.  After all, it had been at least two or three years since I had written a play.  But I had friends now, people who were genuinely interested, people I wanted to impress (which can be a great motivating factor), and a desire to really see if I could, after wasting so much time, actually pursue what I had studied at Bennington. 

So, one night in late December, after I had already submitted Rumplestilskin to a few places, I found myself with a bout of insomnia.  I had been hired to direct the one-act plays for Foxcroft Academy, where I had been a student once upon a time.  I started to think of my own life in high school and how, so often, I felt pretty much powerless, like just another cog in a machine I had no real control over.

I have insomnia intermittently, and often it is a terrible experience not being able to sleep.  But I am truly thankful for this particular bout of insomnia.  I opened up my laptop, opened up a new document, and made a title page:  CONFESSION, a one-act absurdist play by Bobby Keniston.  And then I wrote the play in about two and a half hours.  And then I slept pretty well afterwards.

"Confession" (the original title) poured out of me as a fully-formed idea, so I have to believe that aspects of the play had been forming in my subconscious for some time.  I know I wanted to write a play that could be used for high school one-act competitions.  But the story itself?  I had no idea it was waiting around in my brain, looking forward to being typed out.

Confession: Kafka in High School is about a young man named Connor K (huh... get it?) who wakes up in the conference room of his high school, still in his pajamas, sleeping on a table.  He is greeted by his Principal, the formidable Ms. Delisle (rhymes with Bell Isle), who offers him some breakfast before accusing him of a crime.  The problem is, Ms. Delisle will not tell poor Connor what crime he supposedly committed.  But it seems pretty serious.  Ms. Delisle makes it clear that Connor will be in very big trouble until he confesses.  Along the way, Connor is confronted by his parents (his mother a weeping mess, and his father only able to say the words "You.... you!"), a peer mediator, the gorilla-like assistant principal, and, finally, three representatives of the "Free Connor K" campaign. 

Connor, who had always kept his head down at school and avoided any kind of cofrontation, now appears to be the center of the high school universe, all because of some incredible act of rebellion he performed.  Only, he can't get anyone to tell him what he did, and is pretty sure he didn't do anything. 

I had a great deal of fun writing the play.  I am fond of the characters, and the absurd touches in the script.  I absolutely love Connor's father who only speaks in variations of "You...you!", and Mr. Demetri, Ms. Delilse's yes-man assistant (she literally makes him perform a gorilla dance and make sounds like an ape).  I giggled a great deal while writing it, but I also felt a genuine connection with Connor's predicament, and enjoyed watching him go from confused and scared and pass through a variety of emotions toward anger, and ending with a monologue that strengthens his resolve to confess nothing. 

Certainly I was inspired by Kafka while writing the play, but there were so many more of my favorites who kept creeping into my mind--- Edward Albee, Ionesco, Pinter--- just to name a few.  As I read it now, I am proud of creating a work that I think helps take the absurdity of those writers, often with their existential themes, and makes them relatable to high school students. 

A production of "Confession: Kafka in High School" performed by Wellington Heights Secondary School

Why is it my favorite?  Well, there's the gorilla dance of course.  But aside from that, I think I'm so fond of "Confession: Kafka in High School" because it says a lot of what I feel about education (both from the student and administrator's perspective).  I think the character of Ms. Delilse is one of the finest parts I have ever written for an actress.  She truly has some lines that still surprise me when I read them over, such as, "No, Connor, my favorite thing about your generation is how easy it is to separate your from your ideals.  My generation didn't give up our ideals until the world crushed us down, or we grew tired of sharing apartments with twelve other people who couldn't pay rent because there was no market for their free verse protests.  Your generation loses its ideals with the next commercial break."

By the way, I had a lovely fourth grade teacher named Miss Belisle, and my Ms. Delilse is in no way based on the kind teacher I was fortunate to be instructed by in her reading class. 

I think the reason it truly shines through as my favorite of my own is because, of all my published plays so far, I think it has the most palpable dramatic arc (something I'll be talking about in my playwriting tutorial), and is just the right length.  Nothing seems gratuitous to me.  I think the structure works, absurdity or not. 

After that night of insomnia, a very dear friend read the script out loud with me.  She loved it, too.  I changed exactly one line, and then submitted it. 

Incidentally, the day after Rumplestilskin was accepted for publication by Brooklyn Publishers, Confession was accepted for publication by the good folks at Playscripts, Inc.  Talk about a great couple of days!  To have the first two scripts I submitted in quite some time picked up by two different publishers was pretty amazing.  Playscripts is a great company, and were very kind about my script.  They did ask me to change the title to something like Kafka in High School or something along those lines.  I compromised by making that the subtitle, but now, looking back, I wonder if perhaps they hadn't been right.  Maybe I should have thought of something like High School is Kafkaesque or Kafka for the High School Experience, but at the time, "confession" just seemed so vital to me.  Of course, I'll never know if it would have sold better otherwise, so I guess it's not important. 

Along thse lines, while I am grateful for every production the show has received, I do feel perhaps it is a bit of an underutilized gem (though I have absolutely no complaints at the many ways Playscripts has helped to promote it, and, it has received more than one production every year it's been in print, something I can't say for all of my plays).  I don't know--- in a way, I thought it had some of the same interesting humor that a play like "This is a Test" used to great success. 

I'm a little worried that this post is coming off as a bit self-congratulating, but I'm really not trying to.  In a way, because of the manner in which the play is written, I sort of still feel surprised that I wrote the thing whenever I take a look at it.  I can almost read it like I would read a friend's play and say, 'Wow.  Great job."  Considering how critical I am of most of the stuff I write, I can't feel too guilty about really liking this one a great deal.

If you have any other questions about Confession:  Kafka in High School, feel free to comment below or contact me at theater.is.a.sport@gmail.com  If you would like to read a script preview or order a copy, please visit this link:  http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=2076

Also, I was quite proud to learn that Playscripts chose to include Connor's monologue from the play in their collection Actor's Choice:  Monologues for Teens, Vol. II.  I don't feel bad plugging this book, becaue it contains wonderful monologues by so many talented writers.  I was truly surprised and honored to be included in the volume with them.  You can take a look at that book here:  http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=2495

Okay, thanks for reading this edition of Theater is a Sport!  If you would like to learn more about who I am, you can visit my facebook playwright page--- https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Bobby-Keniston-Playwright-Page/148232788536601  And if you want to become a fan of Theater is a Sport on facebook, click here:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheaterIsASport

Thanks again for reading.  See you tomorrow with a blog post about whatever I desire...

Until then, remember:  theater is a sport.