Play 293: Unexpected

CHARACTERS
1, f
2, m

1
Sorry to interrupt.

2
It’s okay.

(Beat.)

2
What is it?

1
There’s something I need to tell you.

2
What?

(Beat.)

1
Nevermind.

2
What is it?

1
I can’t.

2
It’s okay, I think I already know what you’re going to say…

1
Really?

(Beat.)

2
Yeah.

(Beat.)

1
I love you.

(Beat.)

2
(Confused)
What?

1
I love you.

(Long pause.)

1
That’s not really how I expected that would go.

2
I’m sorry.

(Beat.)

1
It’s okay.

(Beat.)

That wasn’t what you thought I was going to say?

2
No.

(Beat.)

1
What did you think it was?

(Beat.)

2
I forget.

1
Oh.

(Pause.)

2
I’m sorry.

(Beat.)

1
It’s okay.

(Blackout.)

Play 292: She Saw You

CHARACTERS
JASON, late 20s
ANA, late 20s

ANA
You finished it fast enough.

JASON
I’m thirsty.

ANA
You’ve been drinking a lot tonight.

(Pause.)

JASON
I talked to Sarah yesterday.

ANA
Oh?

JASON
Yeah.

(Beat.)

ANA
And?

(Beat.)

JASON
What?

ANA
What about it?

(Beat.)

JASON
Nothing.

ANA
No, what is it?

(Beat.)

JASON
She said she saw you the other day.

ANA
Really?

JASON
Yeah.

ANA
I don’t remember talking to her.

JASON
You didn’t.

(Beat.)

JASON
She saw you at that Italian place near her office.

(Long pause.)

ANA
How is Sarah doing?

JASON
She’s fine.

ANA
That’s good.

(Pause.)

JASON
I’m going to go get another drink.

(Jason exits.)

(Blackout.)

Play 291: I’ll Take That As a Yes

CHARACTERS
BEN, 17
SCENE

BEN
I can’t.

SCENE
Please?

BEN
I’m too tired.

SCENE
You didn’t get that little sleep last night.

BEN
I didn’t get that much either.

(Beat.)

Or the night before, or any night this week.

SCENE
So what?

BEN
So I’m fucking tired.

SCENE
It won’t take too long.

BEN
If I think of an idea.

SCENE
You always do.

BEN
Not really.

SCENE
Even a cop out’ll do.

BEN
I don’t have the energy.

SCENE
Cop outs don’t take much energy.

BEN
I can’t even think, let alone write.

SCENE
You’re exaggerating.

BEN
I’m really not.

(Beat.)

I can barely even focus my eyes on the computer screen, and it’s hard to write when everything’s blurry.

(Beat.)

SCENE
Okay, that is pretty bad.

BEN
No shit.

(Beat.)

SCENE
So you’re really not going to write it?

BEN
Nope.

(Beat.)

SCENE
You will.

BEN
No I won’t.

SCENE
You know why you will?

BEN
Why?

SCENE
Because no matter how tired and fried out you are, you’re still pretty stubborn, and ridiculously obsessive.

(Pause.)

BEN
That’s cold.

SCENE
Because it’s true.

(Beat.)

BEN
I know.

(Beat.)

SCENE
So you admit I’m right?

BEN
Fuck you.

(Beat.)

SCENE
I’ll take that as a yes.

(Blackout.)

Play 290: The Stomach Rebellion

CHARACTERS
1
2

1
That’s not a good idea.

2
I know.

1
So you’re not going to do it?

2
No, I still will.

1
Why?

2
I can’t let it go to waste.

1
And eating it when you’re already full isn’t a waste?

(Beat.)

2
It’s not the same.

1
You’ve already eaten a lot.

2
It’s not that much more.

1
Yes it is.

(Beat.)

2
I guess.

(Beat.)

2
Here we go…

1
You’re going to regret it.

(Pause.)

2
Ugg…

1
Why don’t you stop?

2
Just a little left…

1
You really shouldn’t.

(Pause.)

1
Well, you did it.

2
Indeed.

(Beat.)

1
How does it feel?

2
Horrible.

1
I told you you shouldn’t.

2
I know.

(Beat.)

1
You definitely showed that burger though.

2
I only won the battle, not the war.

1
What?

2
It’s fighting me from the inside.

1
Ahh.

2
Ugg…my stomach is rebelling…

1
I told you you’d regret it.

2
It’s not going to forgive me for a long time…

1
Serves you right.

2
Shut up.

(Blackout.)

Play 289: You Can’t Wait Forever

CHARACTERS
OMAR, 17
CARLY, 17

CARLY
What did you do this weekend?

OMAR
Oh, not too much.

(Beat.)

CARLY
So you didn’t do anything?

OMAR
Nope.

(Beat.)

CARLY
You didn’t have a birthday party?

(Pause.)

OMAR
How did you hear?

CARLY
It doesn’t matter.

(Beat.)

OMAR
I’m sorry.

CARLY
Why didn’t you invite me?

OMAR
My parents wouldn’t let me invite many people.

CARLY
You think I’m going to buy that?

OMAR
It’s the truth.

CARLY
Even if it is, it still means you don’t think I’m a good enough friend to be one of the few.

OMAR
That’s not true.

CARLY
Then what does it mean?

(Pause.)

CARLY
Do I matter to you at all?

OMAR
Yes, you do.

CARLY
You have a funny way of showing it.

OMAR
Well so do you.

CARLY
What is that supposed to mean?

OMAR
It’s not like you care about me.

CARLY
Yes I do.

OMAR
If you’re such a good friend, then do you know when the last time you started a conversation with me?

(Beat.)

CARLY
I don’t remember specifically.

OMAR
I do.

(Beat.)

CARLY
When?

OMAR
When you asked me for money for lunch a week ago.

CARLY
That’s not the only time I’ve started a conversation with you in the last week.

OMAR
Name another.

(Beat.)

CARLY
I can’t think of any, but I’m sure I have at least a few times.

OMAR
You haven’t.

CARLY
You’re probably just forgetting.

OMAR
You know me, I notice these kinds of things.

(Pause.)

OMAR
I say hi to you every day in class you know.

CARLY
No you don’t.

OMAR
You never notice.

CARLY
I probably just don’t hear you.

OMAR
You haven’t heard me every single day?

(Beat.)

CARLY
You don’t talk too loud a lot of the time.

OMAR
It’s not like I’m whispering.

(Beat.)

And you always say hi to everyone else.

CARLY
That’s not true.

OMAR
You talk to them for minutes at a time and don’t give me the time of day. And then you turn around and tell me I’m one of your best friends?

(Pause.)

CARLY
I’m sorry.

(Pause.)

OMAR
You were right.

CARLY
What?

OMAR
I don’t care about you.

CARLY
But you said—

OMAR
I used to.

(Beat.)

I really did. Even when you treated me like I didn’t exist most of the time, I still did. I kept telling myself that you just didn’t hear me or something, and what you did wasn’t what mattered. I mean, if you kept telling me I was one of your best friends, then I was. But every time you didn’t say hi to me in the hallways, every time you walked off in the middle of my sentence, every time you put people you said you didn’t even care about before me, it killed me. And you know what? I got sick of it. So I don’t care anymore. If you don’t care, you can’t get let down.

(Long pause.)

CARLY
I’m really sorry.

(Beat.)

OMAR
I know.

CARLY
I didn’t mean to do any of it.

OMAR
I know you didn’t.

(Beat.)

You did though.

CARLY
You should’ve told me earlier, I would’ve stopped. I would’ve paid more attention to what I did to you. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I would’ve changed.

(Beat.)

I will change.

OMAR
You’re just saying that because you feel guilty.

CARLY
No I’m not. I care about you.

OMAR
You’d just be doing it because you wanted to not feel bad about making me feel bad. You wouldn’t be doing it because you thought it was the right thing.

CARLY
So what?

OMAR
So it doesn’t mean anything.

CARLY
It has the same effect.

OMAR
It’s not the same.

(Beat.)

CARLY
Omar, I feel terrible.

OMAR
I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to do that to you.

CARLY
No, don’t feel bad. This is all my fault.

(Beat.)

Please, just give me another chance? I promise, I’ll be a better friend.

(Pause.)

CARLY
Omar?

(Beat.)

OMAR
It’s too late.

CARLY
Why?

OMAR
I want to believe you, I really do.

CARLY
So do.

(Beat.)

OMAR
I can’t.

CARLY
Why?

OMAR
If you had done this a year ago, a few months ago even, it might’ve worked out.

CARLY
Why can’t it now?

OMAR
I couldn’t keep waiting for it to happen.

(Beat.)

I’ve moved on.

CARLY
You don’t have to believe me now. How could you? But give me time. I’ll prove myself to you.

(Beat.)

OMAR
No.

CARLY
Why?

OMAR
You had your chance. It’s gone now.

CARLY
But I didn’t know how you felt then.

OMAR
You could’ve asked.

(Pause.)

CARLY
I’m sorry.

OMAR
I know.

(Beat.)

I am too.

(Blackout.)

Play 288: The Usual

CHARACTERS
1
2

1
What’d you do over the weekend?

2
Nothing.

1
Really?

2
Yeah.

1
Absolutely nothing?

2
Yeah.

(Beat.)

1
You sure?

2
(Irritated)
Yes.

(Beat.)

2
How about you?

1
Oh, just the usual, you know.

2
Meaning?

1
A few dozen hookers and a cubic foot of blow.

(Pause.)

2
So nothing?

1
Yup.

(Beat.)

1
The other way sounds better though.

2
Yeah.

1
More interesting.

2
Got a nice ring to it too.

1
Indeed it does.

(Beat.)

You just can’t beat hookers and blow.

2
Nope, you certainly can’t.

1
Indeed.

(Beat.)

2
We’re very strange people.

1
Indeed.

(Blackout.)

Play 287: Hell If I Know

CHARACTERS
VINCENT, 17

VINCENT
I can’t think when I’m feeling like this. It’s kind of funny how they always talk about depressed writers and artists. These tortured souls pouring out their emotions on the page. Their misery propelling their art to a new plane of existence.

(He laughs.)

It’s all bullshit. When I feel like this, I can’t write at all. I can’t think. I try to, and nothing happens. I keep screaming at myself to think of something, but it doesn’t do anything. Just gets lost in this haze in my head. This dull gray haze.

(Beat.)

The only thing remotely creative I can do in moods like this is think of different metaphors and analogies to explain how I feel. None of them really capture it at all, they just sound kind of clever. A cute little image of a part of it, more made to sound pretty than to actually capture anything.

(He shakes his head.)

None of it really means anything. All it is is words. No matter how nice they sound, that’s all they are.

(Beat.)

(He laughs.)

Depression doesn’t help create anything. Thinking that's just romanticized bullshit. It’s like saying if you cut off a writers hands and repeatedly stabbed him with needles while he wrote that he’d be a better writer because he’d know true pain.

(He laughs.)

Fuck that, he’d be a better writer if he could focus without the needles and had his goddamn hands.

(Pause.)

What am I trying to say with all this? With all this ranting and these bizarre stretched metaphors?

(He laughs.)

Hell if I know.

(Beat.)

You figure it out.

(Blackout.)