ONCE UPON A MATTRESS



ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

Queen Agravain (Mezzo/Alto, 50+)

fast-talking, overbearing, dominant mother and wife who periodically sets off on vicious monologues

Queen Aggravain: Well then how can you say such a thing, I want you to get married, how many times have I said to you I want you to get married. Only this morning I was saying to your father: I said Sextimus, I want that boy to get married, it just isn't normal for a boy that age to stay single I said after all he is a prince, don't forget that, and he is next in line for the throne. I mean we're not exactly the oldest people in the world but on the other hand we're not going to live forever and I would just feel much better, much easier, and much more relaxed in my mind if I knew that that boy were married, settled and set and that's absolutely verbatim, exactly what I said to your father this morning. Of course he didn't say anything, he never does, but you know him just as well as I do and I don't have to tell you how impossible he is. If he makes me miserable and makes me suffer then I'll just have to put up with it, but I will not allow it to effect my son's attitude toward him or me. He may be a mean, stupid, dreadful, selfish, rotten man, but he is your father and I want you to respect him. After all there is only one person who really cares about you and really worries about your health, your happiness and your future and that's exactly what I'm talking about right now, your future and I want to make myself absolutely clear that I want you to get married, but I don't want you to marry just anyone. Marriage is a lifetime partnership and I wouldn't want my little boy to make the same mistake I did and wind up miserable the way I did. You are a prince, and you must marry someone suitable, someone who's good enough, smart enough, and fine enough for my good, nice, sweet, beautiful baby boy. And of course she has to be a princess, I mean a real princess. A genuine bonafide princess, just as I was. And that is what you want, isn't it? Someone like me? Of course you do. Oh God if I were only twenty years younger. Just remember this, you must trust me.

42ND STREET

Dorothy Brock (Alto, 40s)

tempermental, glamourous leading lady who is "getting too old". Stereotypical prima donna who softens over time.

DOROTHY: I've got something to say to Miss Sawyer.
So, you're going to take my place. And you think you know how tough it must be for me? Do you really? I'm not so sure. Ever since I was a tiny little girl and saw my first Julian Marsh show I've dreamed of the day when I might work with the King of Broadway. And, my day had finally come, and I was filled with pride, joy and humility. Not to mention my happiness at a contract with a limousine, a redecorated dressing room, a private maid, and quite a hefty salary. When I started out for the theatre this afternoon, I wanted to tear your heart out. I wanted to hate you, I wanted to see you fail. You, singing my songs, wearing my costumes, playing my role! But sitting there in that theatre and watching you rehearse, I found I couldn't hate you... Because... you're good. Maybe even better than I would have been. The public wants youth, freshness, beauty, and Peggy, that's what you've got. Only I'm getting something too.
For ten years the theatre has kept me from the only thing I've ever wanted. And it was a broken ankle that finally made me realize it. Pat Denning and I were married this morning! I have only one last wish for you, my dear. Get out there and be so swell you'll make me hate you.
Oh, and Sawyer, one more thing. I hope you won't mind, but it's about the next-to-closing number. You've got to take it easy, you've got to let the audience come to you.

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN Annie Oakley (Mezzo/belt, 20 - 30) A happy, endearing country girl who is an amazing markswoman. Illiterate, not very "lady-like". Strong singer-comedian who carries the show.

Annie: Shore, I'll talk to him. I'll say: "What do ye want here, ye big swollen-headed stiff? Git!" Then he'll say: "I jes' come out to meet you, honey." Then I'll say: "I don't want to git met by you- git away from me! Take yer hands off'n me! I hate you!" Then he'll say: "Now, honey..." Then I'll say: "Don't 'honey' me! You thought I double-crossed you- thought I was tryin' to show ye up!" Then I'll continue: "When ye did find out that I only done the trick to make ye love me, why didn't ye love me? Why did ye leave? Why didn't ye write?" Then he'll say: "'Cause I was 'shamed -'sides not writin' don't mean somebody don't love somebody!" [starts to soften]Then I'll say: "Jes' the same, ye could write." Then he'll say: "Honey, I been eatin' my heart out fer you. Cain't work, cain't sleep." [becomes softer] 'Course if'n he says that, I'm gonna hafter say: "I ain't slept much, too..." [slower- and hoping] Then, by rights he oughta say: "Annie, we both jes' gotta git some sleep... And I love ye so." Then I guess I won't be able to stop myself from sayin' "I love ye, too!" [now she is completely soft] Then there won't be nuthin' lef' her him to say but - "Annie!" Then I'll jes' say –

THE FANTASTICKS

Luisa (Soprano - B to high B, 16) romantic, an idealist.

Luisa: This morning a bird woke me up. It was a lark, or a peacock; something like that. So I said hello. And it vanished, flew away, the very moment I said hello! It was quite mysterious. So do you know what I did? I went to my mirror and brushed my hair two hundred times, without stopping. And as i was brushing it, my hair turned mauve. No, honestly! Mauve! Then red. then some sort of a deep blue when the sun hit it.... I'm sixteen years old, and every day something happens to me. i don't know what to make of it. When i get up in the morning and get dressed, I can tell...something's different. I like to touch my eyelids, because they're never quite the same. oh, oh, oh! I hug myself till my arms turn blue, then I close my eyes and cry and cry till the tears come down and I can taste them. I love to taste my tears. I am special. I am special! Please god, please, don't let me be normal!

BYE BYE BIRDIE

Mae Peterson (Non-Singing, Comedic, 55-75) Albert's overbearing, controlling mother. Strong acting and good comic timing.

Mae Peterson: "...So it's come at last! At last it's come! The day I knew would come at least has come at last! My sonnyboy doesn't need me anymore. Well, what are you waiting for? Get rid of me!
Put me out with the garbage! Just throw me out with the used grapefruits and the empty cans from the Bumble-Bee salmon. Never mind putting a lid on. Leave it open so a hundred thousand pussycats can walk all over a Mother. And by the way, sweetheart darling, I got some good news for you. I got the report from the hospital. It's absolutely definite. I got a condition. And the one thing doctors can't cure is a condition. I don't want you to worry though. Fancy funerals are for rich people. I don't want you to spend a cent. Just wait til Mothers' Day, wrap me in a flag, and dump me in the river!
Well. I feel better now. Everything is as it should be. A mother is lying on top of a sanitation truck bound for the City Dump, and a son is running around in saloons with a Mexicali Rose who came over for the fruit picking season and stayed to ruin an American woman's life!!"
 

I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE (You should prepare a three minute [or less] selection from the following monologue.)

(VIDEO OPERATOR exits. ROSE speaks into the camera.)

ROSE: Hello. I'm Rose Carboni. No! Ritz! Rose Ritz! That's it. Rose Ritz. Yes. Carboni was my husband's name. But he's dead. Whoops! Actually, he's not really dead, we're divorced. I just prefer to think of him as dead, cheers me right up. Oh my gosh, did I just do that?! Here I am, making my very first dating video -- that's right, this is the very first dating video of Rose Ritz! -- and I'm already telling all you potential -- Mr. Video Men-Of-My-Dreams out there-telling all you Video Men that I'm divorced. Good move, Rosie!

But yes, I'm divorced. I love you forever -- not! Divorced, divorced, divorced! But actually, can we not even talk about my divorce. My divorce was like -- like open heart surgery without anesthesia. My insides were just ripped out, my guts on the floor, and no one bothered to sedate me! Well, wasn't that attractive of me to share with you. Okay. I bet my phone is ringing off the hook already!

Now about myself -- well, I've just had to re-enter the workforce as a telemarketer. Basically I call people up, try to sell them something and they hang up on me. It's very fulfilling.

Oh, and I just enrolled in a magic class at the high school adult school. It was either magic or a step aerobics class, and quite frankly, magic seemed less exhausting. And to be even more frank, I thought it'd be a more likely place to meet men. Unfortunately, the class consists entirely of divorced women, all hoping to meet men. Yes, seven divorced women learning how to pull a coin from a child's ear, while next door twenty-five single men do step aerobics. Well, at least I'm back in the game!

Oh, I almost forgot -- I've got children! Well isn't that attractive. So Mr. Video Man, I hope you don't hate children. Though I do. Oh, I don't hate my children, of course! I hate the concept of having to raise children all by yourself after your dead husband walks out on your fortieth birthday! Oh my God! I just told you he left me, not visa versa! DAMAGED GOODS ALERT! Why would her dead husband dump her and run off with an older woman? That's right, he had a mid-life crisis and he didn't even have the decency to leave me for someone young and pretty and firm! He left me for a size eighteen with a grandchild and a bad hip! So now you're really wondering what is wrong with Rose Ritz!

Well you know what? I don't care, Mr. Video Man! 'Cause I've stayed up many a late night with nothing to comfort me except my thirty-two inch television and sent away for all those tapes from all those late-night infomercial things -- Tony Robbins, Richard Simmons, all those nuts who think they're psychic -- and now I believe in myself! Stop the insanity! Deal a meal! I'm okay!

And now, after fifteen years of waking up next to the same balding lump of deadwood, Rose Ritz is ready and in control and had to stop the car three times to throw up on the way to this humiliating video dating session just on the thousand-to-one chance that maybe she'll meet a decent guy so she doesn't have to be alone for the rest of her life 'cause her dead husband left her for a limping grandmother!

(A beat) No warning. "I love someone more." Then he just left. And then it just stopped. My life. For three days, I laid in bed, and just stopped. And somehow, here I am -- on the six month anniversary of the collapse of my life -- I got myself here -- to make the very first dating video of

Rose Ritz. So choose me. Mr. Video Man. Please.

BYE BYE BIRDIE

Mr. Harry MacAfee (Baritone, Comedy, 40-55)

A typical old fashioned, grumpy father, frustrated with the behavior of "teenagers today". A comedic role. Singing is required but is not difficult.

Mr. MacAfee: "...I have tried to run this house on a democratic basis. I have extended the privilege of self-determination to both the woman I have married, and the children I have sired...The vote has been denied no one for reason of age, sex, or political affiliation. There has been no taxation without representation, and open covenants have been openly arrived at!
Last night I gave up my room to a guest who repeatedly referred to me as 'Fats'. Telephone calls were made on my phone to New York, Chicago, Fairbanks Alaska, and Hong Kong. I slept in a camp cot with my feet in the fireplace and my head in an ashtray. Ourside my window three harpies shrieked 'We Love You Conrad' four thousand seven hundred and twenty-three times!...I have just lost two fried eggs.
...Gentlemen, the democracy is over! Parliament has been dissolved; the Magna Carta is revoked, and Nero is back in town. And you don't offer an emperor a warm Seven-Up!!"

THE PRODUCERS Leo Bloom a nerdy, timid accountant

Bloom: I would like to say something your honor, not on my behalf, but in reference to my partner, Mr. Bialystock....your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Max Bialystock is the most selfish man I ever met in my life...Not only is he liar, and a cheat and a scoundrel, and a crook, who has taken money from little old ladies, he has also talked people into doing things, especially me, that they would never in a thousand years had dreamed of doing. But, your honor, as I understand it the law was created to protect people from being wronged. Your honor, whom has Max Bialystock wronged? I mean, whom has he really hurt? Not me. Not me. I was.... this man.... no one ever called me Leo before. I mean, I know it's not a big legal point, but even in kindergarten they used to call me Bloom. I never sang a song before. I mean with someone else, I never sang a song with someone else before. This man.... this man... this is a wonderful man. He made me what I am today...he did. And what of the dear ladies? What would their lives have been without Max Bialystock? Max Bialystock, who made them feel young, and attractive, and wanted again. That's all I have to say.

YOU’RE A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN

Schroeder (High Baritone/Tenor, 20 - 35)

Lucy's reluctant boyfriend, a sensitive musician

Schroeder: I'm sorry to have to say it to your face, Lucy, but it's true. You're a very crabby person. I know your crabbiness has probably become so natural to you now that you're not even aware when you're being crabby, but it's true just the same. You're a very crabby person and you're crabby to just about everyone you meet. Now I hope you don't mind my saying this, Lucy, and I hope you're take it in the spirit that it's meant. I think we should be very open to any opportunity to learn more about ourselves. I think Socrates was very right when he said that one of the first rules for anyone in life is 'Know Thyself'. Well, I guess I've said about enough. I hope I haven't offended you or anything. (awkward exit)

MAN OF LA MANCHA

Miguel de Cervantes: I shall impersonate a man. His name is Alonso Quijana, a country squire no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night and morn again, and all he reads oppresses him; fills him with indignation at man's murderous ways toward man. He ponders the problem of how to make better a world where evil brings profit and virtue none at all; where fraud and deceit are mingled with truth and sincerity. He broods and broods and broods and broods and finally his brains dry up. He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined---to become a knight-errant, and sally forth into the world in search of adventures; to mount a crusade; to raise up the weak and those in need. He persuades his neighbor, one Sancho Panza, a country laborer, and an honest man, if the poor may be called honest, for he was poor indeed to become his squire. He selects an ancient carthorse called Rocinante, to be the steed and the safeguard of his master's will. These preparations made, he seizes his lance! No longer will he be plain Alonso Quijana, but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha!

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Seymour Krelbourn (tenor / high baritone, 20s, Low A - high G) Insecure, naive florist clerk. Sweet and well-meaning. Secretly in love with Audrey.

SEYMOUR: I know you think Mr. Mushnik's too hard on me. But, I don't mind. After all, I owe him everything. He took me out of the Skid Row Home for Boys when I was just a little tyke. Gave me a warm place to sleep, under the counter. Nice things to eat like meatloaf and water. Floors to sweep and toilets to clean and every other Sunday off. A lotta garden clubs have been calling - asking me to give lectures - imagine me, giving lectures. I never even finished grade school. And, I know I need new clothes, Audrey, but I'm a very bad shopper. I don't have good taste like you.

GUYS AND DOLLS

Sky Masterson: When I was a young man about to go out into the world, my father says to me a very valuable thing. He says to me like this, "Son," the old guy says, "I am sorry that I am not able to bankroll you to a very large start, but not having any potatoes to give you I am now going to stake you to some very valuable advice. One of these days in your travels a guy is going to come to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you stand there you are going to wind up with an earful of cider.

Nathan is not a gambler, he is a facilitator of gambling. He is famous for running the "oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York." The Billmore Garage, the site he has selected for the next game, wants $1,000 dollars, which is perfect except he doesn't have the cash... But Sky Masterson does.

NATHAN: Sky Masterson! There is the highest player of them all! Higher than anybody. Why do you think they call him Sky? That's how high he bets. I once saw him bet five thousand dollars on a cockroach. And another time he was sick, and he wouldn't take penicillin on account he had bet ten C's that his temperature would go to 102. He's so lucky it went to 106. Good old Sky. With him a thousand dollars ain't lending money - it's betting money. So why don't I bet him? Why don't I bet him a thousand on something? I ain't scared. I am perfectly willing to take the risk, providing I can figure out a bet on which there is no chance of losing...

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download