The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues

New Monologues Created During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The 24 Hour Plays

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781350187542
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350187566
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: American Drama

Since 1995 The 24 Hour Plays have been responding to theatre in the moment. As the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic brought an end to live theatre in the USA and Europe, the company sprang to work to keep the arts alive. Bringing together some of America's most prolific writers for the stage and screen, this unique and contemporary book of monologues collates the responses in dramatic fashion, making for an anthology of work that is timely, moving, irreverent and at its best, transcendent.

Featuring original monologues by writers such as David Lindsay-Abaire, Clare Barron, Hansol Jung, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Christoper Oscar Peña, Jesse Eisenberg and Monique Moses this is a rich collection that can be enjoyed by actors, writers and those looking for creative responses to the global COVID-19 crisis.

With over 50 monologues from the first three weeks of the project, edited by Howard Sherman, this is an important collection that documents an unprecedented moment in history whilst also offering practical resource for actors and performers.

1. Flimsy Machine

Will Arbery

Originally performed by Michael Shannon

DadBreathe . . .

Just

. . .

Yep

Breathe . . .

What am I saying? How are you supposed to breathe when you can’t breathe? That’s the whole point of the asthma. Sorry for my stupid genetics. My dad had it too apparently. But he smoked like a chimney and died of lung cancer when I was one, so . . . we’re doing better than that.

We’re renovating the genetic architecture.

Yeah this is just your same old seasonal thing, I promise. Cuz of the pollen. It’s not the—your coughs are too wet. We gotta wait at least four hours to get you on the nebulizer again. Hopefully we won’t need to though. Hopefully the albuterol’ll start working and then hopefully you can get back to sleep.

When I was a kid I used to get it even worse than you—well it’s not a competition but—it was pretty bad. My mom had no idea what to do. This was middle-of-nowhere Georgia. She used to boil a pot of water and put a rag over my head and made me sit with my head above the pot, breathing in the steam. It kinda helped I guess. When we finally got a dishwasher I’d stick my head in the dishwasher right after it’d been run and breathe in that steam. That steam tasted different. Kinda soapy. Anyway yeah my mom had these exact same kinda long panicky middle-of-the-nights with me a lot. She had a thing she’d say:

“Buddy, God just wanted you to appreciate your Being a little more.”

. . .

I don’t know if I appreciated my Being any more than the next kid. I think

I have a remarkable ability to forget that

I am.

. . .

Okay try this, try and take the biggest breath you can in through your nose—

He takes a deep breath in for about four seconds.

And then let it out real slow.

He purses his lips together and breathes out real slow, for at least eight seconds.

Purse your lips like so just the tiniest bit of air gets through.

Then he does the routine again.

Sorry, I know that it’s hard to do that right now.

I feel kinda worthless. Sorry. I’m just kinda delirious cuz it’s so late. The worst is that it messes with your experience of time. Feels like time will go on forever. Every second’s a battle.

Okay, bud. You’re doing a great job. It’s really the worst feeling in the world. On the one hand, you’re connected right to the source of everything—it’s like you’re learning, really learning, how flimsy and random the human machine is—you’re wiser than anyone in the goddamn world when you can’t breathe. And on the other hand, you don’t have any time to be wise because you’re just fucking trying to breathe.

. . . Sorry I cussed—whatever. You’re smiling. That’s good. Try to sleep.

Here I’ll tell you a boring story about football because I know football’s boring to you.

Once upon a time, Tom Brady left the Patriots in the middle of a global pandemic.

Why in the hell would someone make an announcement like that in the middle of a global pandemic? And I’m not even a Patriots guy—see and it worked, you’re falling asleep. That’s good. And look the wheezing’s not so bad right now. Alright.

. . .

Alright good.

. . .

Yeah, buddy, God just wanted you to appreciate your Being a little more.

. . .

Or who the hell knows, maybe it was my mom who was the one doing the appreciating. Who the hell knows. Not me.

He breathes in for four seconds, out for eight seconds.

2. Chain

Rachel Axler

Originally performed by christopher oscar peña

Fanboy sits on a bed. He’s wearing a Shawn Mendes hoodie. He holds a piece of paper with a bunch of writing on it. Maybe exactly as much as this would be, printed out.

Hey, troops. I know a lot of you in the Mendes Army are freaked out right now, so I just wanted to come on here and state a few facts:

Reading.

One: Shawn is bigger than the virus. Like, literally much bigger. He’s 6’2” and it’s microscopic, hello.

Two: He’s gonna keep giving us his soul in the form of music in the form of live video, because he’s the best thing to pop off the vine since effing grapes, so Calm-mila your little Cabellos.

Three: I’m no epidemiologist, but the virus doesn’t exist. Am I saying it’s a hoax? No. But riddle-you-this: If this “disease” wasn’t somehow created by George Soros to take down the president, then why’s Trump doing such a racist fuckbutt job controlling it? Also I saw a thing on Insta where someone was like “rona’s a hoax” and I have to say, she had killer nails.

He discards his message page, picks up another piece of paper. A letter.

Anyhoodie, I got a chain letter today. Not an email. Not a text. A chain LET-TER, which I received through the actual legit USPS Post Office. Check out this chain letter:

Reading.

“This is not a chain letter. This is a movement. In these solitary times, we all could use a little poetry.” Blah blah, send your favorite poem, etcetera, move person two to whatever, send to ten blah blah you get it.

Looking up.

So! What poetry to send, duh? We all know that in this and all lifetimes, there is no verse of this equal—recite it with me—

He recites from “Aftertaste” by Shawn Mendes.

Am I a huge fan? I wouldn’t say that. But he’s probably one of my top six philosopher-poets.

Anyshawn, because everything is effing closed, here’s what I start thinking:

Like, just one person started this letter, right? One person. But then, if they pass it on to ten people each, that gets real huge, real fast. Like: boom, we’re covered in Shawn Mendes’ poetry. But also, if even one person throws this away, or there’s an old address and someone doesn’t get it, or someone’s like: oh that’s a cool idea, but then forgets it because they’re watching the Tiger show, that decreases the number of people infected by the joy of verse, by like SO MANY.

He flops down onto the bed, and only now do we notice his Shawn Mendes blanket.

I guess what I’m saying is, in the words of Shawn Mendes, “I wish I could pretend I didn’t need ya, but every touch is ooh la la la.” You know?

And look—I don’t know how many people have it, now. Nobody knows. Like, sometimes you get a letter and just let it sit, unopened, for weeks, and like—it’s THERE, but you’d never know it.

So, I think what I need to do is send out fifty letters, instead of ten. Just in case someone else is slacking. Even just one person breaking the chain could stop thousands, maybe millions of others from getting this . . .

A pause. Is he . . . putting something together? . . . No.

Mendyway! Gotta go print these out. Stay strong, stay Shawn, and if anyone wants a close, sustained hug, I’ll be at the post office, breathing on everything with every piece of my skin.

3. A Man and His Dog

Clare Barron

Originally performed by Christopher Mintz-Plasse

A man sits in a robe with a dog.

Beside him is a Lego VW bus, half-made, and a thousand Legos.

I haven’t had sex in six months and twelve days. The reason I can tell you that is because the last time I had sex was September 11. I had jury duty. And my wife and I had separated, or we made the decision “to separate” the night before, and I went and did my service anyway . . . And I wish I could tell you that I held it together, or kept my head up high, or something, but the truth is . . . I just cried. Tears sneaking out my eyes all day. Everybody looking at me like who is this crazy person, until one of the lawyers finally said: “September 11. A very emotional day for many of us. Mr. Buchanan. I can see that you are particularly emotional today. Let’s just all take a moment and remember that there are people among us who were personally affected by this tragedy.” And I just said: “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” And smiled and nodded. And everybody looked at me like I was a hero.

Anyway, I took a break from “dating” for a while. And then I thought I might be polyamorous but I couldn’t get invited to any of the parties. So it wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface: So Help Me God, I Have An Idea Howard Sherman
• About The 24 Hour Plays
• Introduction: I Made What I Could With What I Had Mark Armstrong
• 1. Will Arbery, Flimsy Machine
• 2. Rachel Axler, Chain
• 3. Clare Barron, A Man and His Dog
• 4. Serena Berman, Welcome to Hillthorpe Jesuit Preparatory Boys Academy
• 5. Hilary Bettis, Day One
• 6. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, Invincible
• 7. Eric Bogosian, Injustice
• 8. Bekah Brunstetter, Grandma Taught Me How To Kiss
• 9. sam chanse, Higher Order Configurations
• 10. Mario Correa, Might As Well Get Back Together
• 11. David Cross, Day 53
• 12. Sarah DeLappe, Audition for an Indie Movie, 2005
• 13. Lydia R. Diamond, Face Timing 101
• 14. Kristoffer Diaz, I Got the Hat
• 15. Joseph Dougherty, Favorite Episode
• 16. Jesse Eisenberg, An Immodest Proposal
• 17. Shara Feit, Secret Agent Amy Hargreaves’ Application for the Super-Secret Society of Secret Agents!!! (As Filmed by Amy’s Assistant Agent Fred)
• 18. Sarah Gancher, Toilet Paper Kayak
• 19. Gracie Gardner, Entertaining
• 20. Craig muMs Grant, this fucking guy
• 21. Ken Greller, A Kick
• 22. Jason Grote, Elizabeth in the Barn
• 23. Stephen Adly Guirgis, L.A. Yoga Motherfuckers
• 24. Kathleen Hale, A Little About Me
• 25. J. Holtham, Introduction
• 26. Jess Honovich, Aladdin Sane
• 27. Lily Houghton, The Dragon
• 28. Elizabeth Irwin, Making Lemons
• 29. Hansol Jung, Cocktail Class
• 30. Nora Kirkpatrick, In Case of Emergency
• 31. Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, tips to get fit
• 32. Aaron W. Levy, Punch Card Blues
• 33. David Lindsay-Abaire, Digging to China
• 34. Tim J. Lord, The Time Machine
• 35. Donald Margulies, Wow
• 36. Gabe McKinley, State
• 37. Cat Miller, Slip Slidin’ Away
• 38. Monique Moses, Simon: A Real Estate Guy
• 39. Dan O’Brien, Unknown Caller
• 40. Charlie O’Leary, This Trip
• 41. Ife Olujobi, RUN ME OVER
• 42. Liliana Padilla, the woods are a good place to pick me up
• 43. christopher oscar peña, we were dazzling once
• 44. Max Posner, Happy
• 45. Simon Rich, Possession
• 46. Anya Richkind, Mr. Davy’s Second Period Advanced Theater Now on Zoom
• 47. Harrison David Rivers, I’m Just Saying
• 48. Howard Sherman, The Hardest Part
• 49. Jonathan Marc Sherman, The Conversationalist
• 50. Charly Evon Simpson, Ready for Battle
• 51. Alena Smith, Okay Hi Everyone
• 52. Jenny Rachel Weiner, Live, Laugh, Life
• 53. Tracey Scott Wilson, I Just Wanted to Say
• 54. Zhu Yi, Thank You for Visiting Me
• Playwright Biographies
• Copyright and Agent Information
• eCopyright