A couple years ago, I was asked to participate in an experiment called Audition Armory, organized by the Pocket Theater, in which a small group of playwrights met up with a small group of actors, in order to write tailor-made audition monologues that these actors could choose from. I have no idea if any of mine ever got used by these actors, but since I do periodically get asked if any of my plays have good audition monologues (the answer is no), I thought I'd post these for posterity's sake.

The idea is the actors would tell us the kind of monologue or character they thought would showcase them the best, and we'd generate stuff along those lines. So some of these are serious, some are comedic, none of them have any context, and they were super fun to write. Please to enjoy! If you decide to use one of these monologues, you can say they're from the play Et Cetera Ever After by Scotto Moore.

#1
You’ve absolutely got to be kidding me. No, I just drove halfway across town to be here - just stop for a second, stop apologizing, I’m just saying - of course you’re sorry you forgot. I’m not accusing you of being heartless. But maybe a little thoughtless? You know? Maybe a lot thoughtless, like you live in a self-absorbed bubble and it just doesn’t occur to you that - people in your orbit get swept up and they tolerate basically anything to be around you, and I thought I was different somehow, like you actually noticed me. But you know something? I came over here to break up with you anyway. Because I found someone who doesn’t treat me like one of these art world groupies who lurks around trying to steal one of your napkins so they can sell it on eBay. And please don’t pretend you care in the slightest who is he or what he does or what he’s like. Even if you did care, it wouldn’t be important, because look - no one in this city can paint like you do, but I don’t climb into bed with a painting when I get lonely. The important thing about him is he’s actually got a soul. Just like me as it turns out. And just like some but definitely not all of your paintings, for what that’s worth.

#2
I was driving home from St. Louis to Waterloo one time in my shitty little Corolla, pouring down rain, and I was stuck behind this semi trailer for miles, and finally I decided, even though it was risky, I just needed to pass this truck. And the minute I got in front of it, it sped up and got right on my ass and just stayed there, like this was an evil sentient truck out of a Stephen King novel. That’s what it feels like trying to deal with you, do you understand? I did everything humanly possible to just move on and get ahead of you and just start living again, and suddenly you just charge up and start asserting yourself and climb into my trunk looking for the spare tire or whatever - this analogy is falling apart, I get it - and I’m like, maybe I should just pull over and let you pass again or turn around or flip myself over into the ditch to see if you even notice - the point is, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation, because we were never together in the first place. We were each just driving along and we wound up on the same stretch of highway completely by chance for a while, but… that road trip is over, buddy, and I’m not taking it again.

#3
Here’s how I got out of it. I started putting up disco lights all over my living room. Party lights, you know, flashing lights that respond to the music. I put LED light bulbs in all the fixtures so you get these color cycling glows all over the room. Lava lamps, glitter lamps, those lamps for kids that project constellations on the ceiling. The important thing is, try to have something in every corner of the room. Then I would come home from a day feeling worthless at the office and I would turn all these lights on, I didn’t even need music, I would just stand there, surrounded by flashing colors and feeling ridiculous and I would just start laughing, or usually dancing, like that saying “dance like nobody's watching” except I keep forgetting to put tape on my webcam so I’m really dancing like thousands of anonymous weirdos are watching, but whatever, that level of nuance is up to you. You can even, like I would watch “Grey’s Anatomy” and they’d be like, “sorry your mother died in surgery” and I’m just like, “well I’m sure that fictional character had a very good life” because with all those lights flashing in time to the soundtrack, nothing can faze me. I’ve been ordering new lights from Amazon every week. I’m afraid if I don’t add new lights to the system to keep it fresh, I’m going to overcorrect and snap so far back that I’ll go on a tri-state killing spree.

#4
She’s fine, she just had a scare. She and some friends were playing down by the creek, and they dared her to walk out onto the ice, and then it broke and she fell through. I mean, it’s a shallow creek, she wasn’t going to drown, they pulled her out and took her to the closest house and gave her some warm clothes. And then, the part I don’t understand, her friends went through her clothes and found some homework or something, because they were looking for her name. She hadn’t told them her name. She’s been playing with them ever since we moved to the neighborhood but she wouldn’t tell them who she was. And that’s because - she didn’t want to tell them who I was. She was - ashamed of me, ashamed that we ever had to come here, like she wished we were in witness protection or something because then at least we’d all have new identities and could pretend we had new lives, and I just… she walked home by herself because none of them would walk with her and she was too proud to call me, but when she got home, she broke down, and then I broke down… and now we’re going to Cheesecake Factory because I don’t have a better solution. You could meet us there. I’m not sure which one of us needs cheesecake more at the moment.

#5
Oh, I’m a great singer, yeah. I’m a tenor, you know, a “rock tenor,” somebody who really rocks the tenor range, kind of like, if you ever heard of, uh well he’s dead now but this dude Freddie Mercury? People say we sound very similar, you know. For instance, just like Freddie I have a five octave vocal range, just like Freddie I have an amazing falsetto, and just like Freddie I look awesome in a sparkly gold unitard riding on the shoulders of a guy in a Darth Vader costume. Which, my point is, you try singing five octaves under those conditions and you’ll see, what level of, the kind of skill we’re, uh well don’t spend a lot of time on that image because I don’t actually have a unitard any more because, uh look I used to gamble a lot. Anyway. This one time Freddie turned down a baritone solo with an opera because he said his fans would only accept him as a rock singer. And that’s kind of how I feel right now, with your request, to sing whatever it is, that song, at your kid’s party. I am not going to track down a new unitard just to sing at your kid’s party.

#6
Some dude thought my grandfather was sleeping with his wife, so he showed up at the hotel where my grandfather worked, and he shot my grandfather point blank in the chest. I realize this is a strange way to introduce polyamory into our relationship, but look, grandfather survived, and so will we. I know how you’re feeling, but imagine you’re my grandfather and you open the door to your office and suddenly you’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun. I imagine that’s a lot worse than learning I made out with Jerry at a work party. Which, you’ve met Jerry before and you said you liked him, so please, no coming to the office and shooting him, okay? I just need to stretch my wings a little. You’re glorious, you’re wonderful, and I want to spend an indefinite period of time with you that equals no less than the precise amount of time we continue to make each other happy - so we got that going for us - but for me, that’s going to have to include some extracurricular activity outside the strict confines of how we’ve defined our relationship so far, which, let’s be clear, I have ambitions beyond making out with Jerry, or I should say, making out with people when I’m so drunk that I only know it happened because we took a selfie with Jerry’s lips connected to the side of my face like a barnacle.

#7
I used to empathize too much with the White Witch in the Narnia books when I was a kid. Whenever I read those books, I was always angry that these four punk kids showed up out of nowhere and suddenly got to be kings and queens for no apparent reason. Meanwhile the White Witch, who has been alive for thousands of years accumulating knowledge and power is suddenly swept aside, just because she has a thing for snow, it’s like - is that the message we should be sending to our children, that powerful women who rule with confidence deserve to lose their kingdoms just because - well, in this case, because they made one simple mistake and killed the wrong talking lion - anyway, talking animals in general are obviously not the biggest threat to powerful women in the world, but when you’re a child, you don’t know that yet, you just don’t know that yet. Then I got older and understood the books a little better. Did you know that the White Witch killed every human being on the planet Charn before she lost her magic and came to Narnia to start over as a witch? Tell me again how four snotty British kids who literally got lost in a closet deserve the Narnian monarchy instead of her?

#8
I need you to know something about me, in case this wasn’t already clear for one reason or another. I’m a deeply pacifist human being. I don’t believe in violence for any reason. And god knows I don’t have revenge fantasies and I don’t hold grudges and I live my life with a good heart, you know? I get involved in my community, I volunteer, I found my way into a job where I get to contribute to the city, I still teach people how to play trumpet at that music school over by Marla’s house. My point is, my record is clean, I’m a good human being and I’m proud of it. Sure I’m not perfect. I make mistakes just like anybody. Maybe I’m too arrogant, too self-satisfied, too myopic, I don’t know because I don’t linger on it. But I can tell you this much - I will be thrilled to make the mistake of pounding you into a gory mess of blood on the pavement if I hear that you ever get near that school again. I won’t notify your parole officer, I won’t call the police, I’ll just - protect my community, you understand? I’ll contribute to the city, and I won’t linger on it.

#9
I just lost the ability to tell jokes altogether. I’d stand there, and say, “Two guys walk into a bar,” and then I’d freeze, because I started wondering, well where were they before that, and how did they meet the first time, were they married, did their wives know each other, or were they married to each other, all these questions cascaded, and it got worse if it was like, “A rabbi and a priest are trapped on a boat” or whatever because, why on fucking god’s green earth do people get trapped on boats in this day and age, would they not have junior rabbis and junior priests to kind of step up and say, “hey there fellas, maybe just stick to the bus system” or whatever. Anyway, I understand intellectually that you can’t unpack the entire history of every character in a joke in order for a joke to be effective, I get that. But emotionally - these jokes are little snapshots into how we view people, and to the extent that these people are poorly drawn caricatures, we’re doing our own humanity a disservice, we’re laughing at the lowest common denominator instead of somebody specific, and that will always mean laughing at those less privileged and more disadvantaged than us, and I just can’t abide that, you know? So that’s when I started taking anti-anxiety medication and now I don’t worry about it so much.

[originally written in 2017; posted in 2019]