Day 22 - Write a Comedic Monologue

Date: January 28th, 2010

When I was in high school I used to write satirical pieces criticizing the news.  I never wrote something creative on demand and I never wrote something with the intention of seeing it performed by someone else.  As part of the "do new things" campaign, I'm trying to get a spot in something called "Kamikaze".  Its a 24-hour production put on by the RC Players at the University of Michigan.  Once a semester (about), they will take auditions for actors, writers and crew to completely produce a play from scratch in one day.

I've done Kamikaze before.  Twice, actually.  Both times I was acting in it.  The first time I played a megalomaniac bent on world domination through the use of zombifying drugs.  I was testing them on old people.  Then I got struck down by God.  That should give you a sense of how random these plays are.  They are a pure flexing of every creative muscle you have at the same time.

The next Kamikaze I was in had a bit more of a purpose.  With the permission of the other participants, several friends of ours got together and built the play around a marriage proposal.  My friends Lisa and Ben had been dating for, I want to say, about two years at that point and he was ready to propose.  We all got together to help him make it special and wrote the play around his character searching for a woman to share his kingdom with.  I was a vampire.  Its a long story.  The point is, anyone intending to propose to their girlfriends now has to beat this: "he produced a play that amounted to a forty minute long proposal in front of all my family and friends".  That's right.  Just give up now and hope she'll think eloping is romantic - you're never going to top it.

One of the things on my list from people is to write a play.  Its something I've thought about doing, but I've never been struck by the inspiration for it.  Largely because I'm an eleventh hour kinda gal and there's no deadline for such a thing.  Kamikaze presents a deadline for me.  Hopefully I will get a spot on the writing team.  The way to audition for a writing spot in Kamikaze (this year) is to submit a monologue a few days in advance of the audition so the people trying for acting spots can read it.

So that's what I did.  There are no pictures... because I was writing things.  However, you do get to take a gander at my monologue.  Fair warning for the more PG-rated people here - Kamikaze is not PG and therefore my monologue is not either.  Its pretty vanilla, but there are a couple of curses in it.  I wrote it with an eye to how it would be performed and given the audience, I felt the lines with swears in them would have better comedic effect the way they were written.  So... if the f*bomb offends you... I'd skip reading the monologue.

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The Perils of Being a Ninja

An off-duty ninja walks past a ninja-themed birthday party. He has reached his boiling point.

You think this job is easy? Oh yeah, it's all fun and games. 'Hey, look at the ninja, mommy! He's so cool. I wanna be like that when I grow up.' Well listen up kiddo. No. You. Don't. Ninjas don't get the respect we used to. Ever since e-Bay started auctioning off katanas to every Joe-money-bags looking for a 'conversation piece', my job's been hell on wheels. Ya know what? No. It's not even about the sword. All these little brats with their two-dollar Halloween costumes and misguided soccer moms - that's what this is about. Do you have three black belts? Do you move like the dead of night? Could you stalk a lion? I don't think so. I know how to stalk a fucking lion. It won't know what's coming. It's alive, being all 'I'm king of the jungle' and then BAM. DEAD. Can you do that? I didn't think so. But no. No one cares how hard this job is anymore. I mean, God... everything about being a ninja takes work. You think I get to have a cheetios and beer day? Hell no! This outfit's less forgiving than a Hooter's uniform. I have to constantly work on my body. No one respects a fat ninja. But you don't care about that, do you? No... you don't care at all. You just care about your stupid friends and your stupid cake and your stupid ninja birthday party. Enjoy your cake. Brat.

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So that's my monologue.  Hopefully it is amusing enough to get me a writing spot.  If not, I'll have to find another excuse to write a play.  Anyone proposing to their girlfriend any time soon?