10-MINUTE MONOLOGUES
DON’T CLOSE THE DOORS
A thriller monologue
by Tara Meddaugh
Abigail, a ghost in Stephanie’s closet, is sorry she must use her limited powers to freeze Stephanie in place, but what she must share with Stephanie is so dire that sometimes these things must be done. While at first, it appears Abigail’s ominous presence is a threat to Stephanie, as Abigail relays the tragedies which have left her paralyzed in Stephanie’s closet, we realize it is Abigail who desperately needs Stephanie’s help to end her heartbreaking torture.
DETAILS:
Genre: Thriller/drama
Age range: 20s-40s
Cast: Female
Time period: Contemporary
Setting: A bedroom closet in an old house/apartment building
Running time: Approximately 10 minutes
Good for: Scary monologue, competitions, conferences, festivals, monologue slams, spooky, creepy, Halloween theater, twist in expectations, ghost, dramatic story, characters dealing with loss, loneliness, grief, desperation, pleading, needing help, stuck.
To read a free excerpt of Don’t Close the Doors, click here.
CLICK below for a complete digital copy of Don’t Close the Doors by Tara Meddaugh
FIND ME
A one-woman thriller play/monologue
Yearning for her deceased husband, Elizabeth embarks on a chilling quest to bring him closer to her…
DETAILS
Genre: Spooky/thriller/drama
Cast: Female
Age range: Late teen/20s/30s
Running time: around 5-10 minutes, depending on performance and staging
Setting: Outdoors, in the deep of the night, a private burial site at a family estate in Sing Sing, NY
Time Period: 1850s
Great for/tags: Halloween theater, spooky, creepy, grief, longing, love, monologue, one-woman show, outdoor theater
“In the 1850s, when Dale Cemetery opened, many local graveyards at churches and estates dug up their dead and moved them to Dale for reburial. It was quite a gruesome sight.”
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EXCERPT
SETTING: The private family burial site at an estate in Sing Sing, NY, 1850s. Deep into the night. ELIZABETH, a woman in her 20s-30s, has been digging up the coffin and corpse of her deceased husband. She has a shovel and continues to dig on and off. The CORPSE/COFFIN may or may not be visible.
ELIZABETH
Grandmother says moving the dead will release their souls to the air… (Looking down to the COFFIN) Is that true? (Digging with a shovel) She says they will wander and search, and wander and search, like fireflies lighting up the summer night sky. I asked her, this morning, while we were quilting, what they would be searching for. “A place to settle,” she told me. I thought you were already settled in your bodies, but Grandmother says bodies, corpses, they’re only vessels. She says the earth, your grave, this is your home. So when you’re moved, you’re disturbed. And you must search for a new home. Mama does not like Grandmother to talk in this manner. Mama is a woman of Science and Facts, as you know, while Grandmother is open to everything that lies between. So Mama says you’ll have a new home in your new grave. She says Dale Cemetery will be beautiful and peaceful. She doesn’t want to live in a plague spot anymore, and when the bodies are moved, she says it will be safer and better for all of us, especially the baby in my growing womb. Mama took a firm breath after this and walked off to the kitchen. She thought making tea would put a stop to our conversation, but neither Grandmother nor I wished to cease our talk about…the dead… (Looking down to the COFFIN/CORPSE) You… (Pause) While Mama was in the kitchen, Grandmother turned to me. “Mmmmmm,” she warned. “It will not be better for all of us. Do not be here when they move the bodies. They are not all good people buried there. And those who were good, beyond the grave…can go bad.” —END OF EXCERPT
CLICK BELOW for the complete one-woman thriller play/monologue, FIND ME.
Grace is a Catholic widow who takes in a Jewish refugee child in the 1940s. She knows very little of his experience, culture, or language and strives to find a way to connect.
DETAILS
Genre: Drama, 1940s, monologue
Running time: Approximately 5-6 minutes
Cast: Female, 40s-60s
Setting: a home, a public library
Great for: Showcases, performances, festivals, monologue competitions, forensics, dramatic interpretation, Toastmasters performance, 5-minute solo pieces, 10-minute solo pieces, one-woman play, strong female role, a play about an historical issue
Click here for more information on this monologue.
*This monologue stands alone as its own piece, but it also comes from the collection of shorts in the full-length play, Victory Gardens.
Click for a free excerpt to His First English Words.
Click below for a complete digital copy of His First English Words (once purchased, you will be given a link to download the script)-
For The Victory Garden Plays, the collection of shorts from which His First English Words comes, please click below:
While soldiers fight abroad in WW2, those remaining in Westchester County strive to make a difference on the Homefront by creating Victory Gardens, supplementing limited food supply. But the pressures on the homefront extend much further than simply growing produce. A child worries her failing rooftop garden is an omen of misfortune for her father’s return from a POW camp. An infertile woman throws her purpose into feeding neighborhood families. A wealthy man whose chemical plant is commissioned by the government for war purposes struggles with how to leave a meaningful legacy not tainted with warfare. These stories, and more, are given light in The Victory Garden Plays, a series of vignettes chronicling people’s journeys with their new realities of love, growth, life and death.
Marsopa is the lone mermaid of her sea, but enjoys the company of her best friend and water-sister, a dolphin named Stone. But when Stone considers starting her own family, Marsopa faces the idea of being truly alone. That is - until she makes eyes with an intriguing fisherman... Now Marsopa must call into question the truth of mermaid and human legends, and decide what she is willing to risk for the possibility of creating her own fate.
Details: drama, female, any time period, teenage through adult, approximately 10 minutes