TURNING POINTS – FREE AUDITION MONOLOGUES about key moments in the lives of women

Leave a comment August 28, 2023 janecafarella

*Liliana Bernal performs the monologue Flowers at an acting workshop directed by Carole Fenstermacher in Naples, Florida.*

Are you looking for FREE audition monologues relevant to women of all ages, including women over 40?

Look no further.

Turning Points is a suite of 42 contemporary audition monologues covering the key stages and decisions in women’s lives – available to actors, directors and drama students and teachers for FREE.

Choose ONE or SEVERAL – OR create your own Turning Points show

The lives of women are marked by difficult decisions.

Many of these decisions are unique to women – such as whether to have a child or an abortion. Many are made more difficult because of politics, religion and social mores.

There is no right decision. Each decision is determined by individual values and circumstances, which is why I have tried to present various perspectives on each topic, without judgement.

My aim is to give voice to these decisions by offering female actors a suite of monologues relevant to their own experiences.

Some of the monologues are based on my experiences as a woman. Others are inspired by the many women I met in my 30-plus years as a journalist, or on the stories of other women in my life.

Most are stand-alone monologues, so back story is up to you. Character names and ages are only for guidance.

Some have been previously published but are included here because they fitted the theme.

The individual monologues are made available for FREE as individual audition or performance pieces on the condition that I am fully credited, and that you let me know when, where and how they are performed, and provide feedback and photos where possible.

Alternatively, all or a selection may be presented together in a 60-90-minute show called Turning Points – Key Moments in the Lives of Women by JANE CAFARELLA, for a negotiated fee, depending on whether your group is amateur or professional. (Contact me at jane.cafarella@gmail.com)

Feedback is welcome. Tell me what resonates and what doesn’t, what works on the floor and in front of the camera and what doesn’t. Theatre is a collaborative art and I love to collaborate.

I wish you every success with your acting or directing journey, whether you are a beginner or a professional. As they say in the theatre: “Break a leg!”

Trigger warning: some of the themes may be confronting. Where possible, I’ve also tried to write some monologues that amuse, as a sense of humour is essential in this complex world – especially for women.

CHOOSE BY TOPIC

CHOOSE FOR WOMEN OVER 40

Popping the Question – 3 (Drama)
Something Different (Drama)
Advice to Young Lovers on Valentin e’s Day (Comedy)
T he Glad Goodbye (Drama)
T he Tidy Grave (Drama)
T he Gift (Comedy)
For When She Comes (Drama)
T he Last Minute (Short version – Drama)
T he Addict – 2 (Drama)
T he Lesson (Comedy)
Gon e (Drama)
Pe achy (Comedy)
T he Secret Sin (Drama)
Hung ry (Drama)
Foolish (Drama)
Un bearable (Drama)
Im perfect Match (Drama)
Th e Hardest Decision (Drama)
W orth It (Drama)
Inheritanc e (Drama)
T he Grassy Hill (Drama)
F ault Lines (Drama)
Sn apped! (Drama)

CHOOSE BY LENGTH

One minute

Imperfect Matc h (Drama)
Gone (Drama)
Peachy (Comedy)
Foolish (Drama)
The Last Time (Drama)
Quiet (Drama)

90 seconds

Popping the Question 2 (Drama)
The Addict 1 – (Comedy)
The Addict 2 (Drama)
The Gift (Comedy)
Becky’s Mum (Drama)
The Right to Choose (Drama)
The Hardest Decision (Drama)
Grateful (Drama)
Hungry (Drama)
Snapped! (Drama)
Unbearable (Drama)
The Secret Sin (Drama)

Two minutes

Popping the Question – 1 (Drama)
Popping the Question – 3 (Drama)
The Perfect Dress – (Comedy)
The Tidy Grave (Drama)
Fake Tears (Drama)
Later (Drama)
The Lesson (Comedy)
Ungrateful (Drama)
Not Too Late (Drama)
Worth It (Drama)
The Grassy Hill (Drama)
Fault Lines (Drama)
The First Time (Drama)

Three minutes

Advice to Young Lovers on Valentine’s Day (Comedy)
Soggy (Drama/Comedy)
The Glad Goodbye (Drama)
Perfect Match (Comedy)
Inheritance (Drama)
Something Different (Drama)
The Last Minute (Drama)

Four minutes

Mr Right (Comedy)
For When She Comes (Drama)

Below: Rachel Heslin, after performing The Tidy Grave at Big Bear Theatre in California.

I also have two full-length plays, e-baby (a two-hander about surrogacy) and d-baby, a four-hander about donor conception, available for license, and a selection of short plays available for FREE.

Two of my short Dickens-inspired plays, Oliver with a Twist and Greater Expectations were were produced by student directors at the Alliance Academic in Oregon City for a high school play festival.

Here’s what actors and directors are saying about my work:

I deeply appreciate the authenticity of “The Tidy Grave” as a monologue. I lost my own husband last year, and in a mere two-minute scene, you managed to capture the complex mixture of confusion, heartbreak, and love that carries on. It was perfect. – Rachel Heslin, Monologue Workshop, Big Bear Theatre Project, Big Bear, California.https://www.bigbeartheatreproject.org/

Absolutely amazed and delighted to wake up this morning to the news that I am a Clean Sweep Badge Winner in The World Monologue Games this year. Next stop Regional Finals. Huge thanks to Jane Cafarella for giving me permission to perform The Last Minute. – Clare Martin-Reed, Northhamptonshire, UK.

It was an honour to interpret “Flowers”, under the guidance of Carole.
I really loved it and had fun doing it! I am a total amateur and it was my first opportunity to act speaking English. My native language is Spanish. – Liliana Bernal, participant in the Acting Workshop directed by Carole Fenstermacher, Naples, Florida, USA.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The monologue is delicious. … I really cannot say enough about how much I enjoy your writing and sense of play. – Allison (Allie) Parlin, New Jersey, USA, re the bespoke monologue “Snapped”.

Thank you so much for these plays! I love Oliver With A Twist, because it is funny, and a clever story. – Greyson Neumayer, student director, Alliance Charter Academy, Oregon City, Oregon, USA.

And thank you, to the actors and directs who reach out to me. It’s so valuable to me as a writer and gratifying to be able to help actors and directors all over the world

I’m also happy to work with you to produce a personally tailored monologue or to tweak an existing one to suit. My aim is to engage with the acting community globally and to particularly encourage older women actors, amateur or professional, as well as students of all ages. Get in touch!

Why women struggle to say ‘no’

2 Comments June 28, 2023 janecafarella

Saying no can have serious consequences for women – don’t blame us if we struggle

Some years ago, my female friends and I were impressed by the six-year-old granddaughter of family friend, who when asked to do anything would first consider her options and more often than not, reply simply and politely: ‘No, fanks.’

She became our role model. “No, fanks,” we would laugh, play-acting difficult issues in our own lives, as we chatted over coffee.

But when the play acting stopped, most of us were tongue-tied.

For women of all ages, it’s not the c word that’s forbidden – it’s the n word: NO!

The result, for many, is sticking with a job we hate, a relationship we hate, a life we hate, and sometimes a self we hate.

There are many books and articles about this: about how we smile when we should frown, laugh when we should cry and agree when we should be disagreeable.

Just a few weeks ago, the ABC Radio National program Life Matters ran a segment titled The Cost of Being Good, interviewing Elise Loehnen, author of On Our Best Behaviour – the Price Women Pay to be Good.

The book examines how women strive to be good within the context of the seven deadly sins and how this has coerced us into denying our true selves.

The problem, Leohnen said, was that “women are coded for goodness and men are coded for power”.

“The problem is we’re so scared of conflict. It’s essential that women get in touch with their anger because it shows us what we need and where our needs aren’t being met,” she said.

In her book, she argues for a rebalancing of this expression of needs.

What’s changed? In the 90s, in my role as a journalist, I interviewed authors Claudia Bepko and Jo-Anne Krestan about their similar book, Too Good For Her Own Good – Breaking Free From the Burden of Female Responsibility.

In that book, the authors explored the “women’s code of goodness,” and why, despite all our efforts, we can never feel good enough.

They recommended moving to “a code of balance”, which included a checklist of ways we can change and improve ourselves.

Sigh.

While there are many insightful and useful tips in both books, both ignore one important thing.

It’s not because we are weak, desperate to be liked, programmed for empathy, not assertive enough, or not angry enough that we struggle to say no.

We are not the problem.

It’s because we have learned that saying no can have consequences – serious consequences – for ourselves and those we care about.

In fact and fiction, we are continually warned of these consequences.

The princess in the story of Rumpelstiltskin can’t bring herself to say, “No fanks!”, when Rumpelstiltskin demands that she spins straw into gold because if she fails to spin, the thing she most loves in the world – her child – will be snatched from her.

It’s a cautionary tale.

In reality, it might even be your own life that will be snatched away, as the statistics about family violence show.

They also show that women say no all the time on issues of consent – men just have trouble listening.

“Woman was packing her bags to leave abusive relationship before fatal bashing”, said one Guardian headline last week.

On the same day there was a similar headline in The Age: “ ‘You are evil’ – husband’s despicable murder of childhood sweetheart” – about another woman who paid with her life for trying to leave her violent husband.

Saying no is risky. Being agreeable has always been a survival mechanism for the economically, physically and socially powerless and that is the historical lesson we have learned.

But perhaps it’s time for some risk assessment?

There are times when we must say yes or die. But there are other times when the death is metaphorical and survivable, if uncomfortable – as I discovered recently when I said no – in roundabout way – to someone who wanted something I couldn’t give.

It wasn’t personal. For health reasons, I just couldn’t manage the task. But as soon as I said it, I wanted to offer an apology.

“Why?” my husband asked. “The person has accepted your decision. End of story. Forget it.”

But I couldn’t. I worried that the other person would think ill of me, and that I had hurt their feelings.

It took a few days, but eventually I accepted my own decision, recognising the risk was low and the reward was high – protecting my health.

I felt better. Freer.

Until a few days later, when I said yes to someone else when I should have said no.

It’s a life-long battle. Perhaps more so for older women like myself who were socialised more traditionally?

But struggling to say no doesn’t mean we are lacking. It’s simply a sane response to a historic and continuing gender-power imbalance.

Despite our many gains, as the 2022 UN Women Gender Snapshot shows, there is a disturbing backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive rights and violence against women remains high.

When we struggle to invoke the power of no, we don’t need checklists on how to improve ourselves.

We need courage and support to understand when saying no will risk our life – and when it will save it.

The grief of ageing

15 Comments June 2, 2023 janecafarella

Popular debates about identity seldom includes the identity crises of the aged.

Ageing is a popular topic right now. Mostly how not to.

We marvel (or cringe) as 81-year-old celebrity businesswoman Martha Stewart poses in a swimsuit for Sports Illustrated, and as 85-year-old Jane Fonda stars in her latest movie, dressed as a geriatric Barbie doll.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my 90-year-old mother-in-law stares into the mirror incredulously and declares loudly, “Ah ya ugly old bat!”

She hasn’t always been so feisty. “No one needs you anymore,” she said quietly, when she was widowed two decades ago.

Managing the ravages of age is the price of a long life.

The other price is loss and grief.

It is indeed a privilege to grow old, to see your children and grandchildren mature, but there is a price for everything, and the often unspoken price of ageing is grief caused by continual loss.

Loss of friends and family through death or misunderstanding, loss of opportunities, loss of health, loss of independence, loss of memory, loss of relevance, loss of optimism, and loss of confidence in our ability to cope in a changing world.

We grieve for our past lives. We grieve for the dreams and battles of our radical youth – many of which are now being reversed. We grieve for the world we grew up in, as we find ourselves marooned in a different world with a different lexicon, different social mores and different expectations.

We grieve for the fact that the wisdom we have accumulated is not valued. Technology has outrun us and time has consumed us. The world is different, and we have lost our place in it.

Add to this, the issue of money.

What the media doesn’t tell you is that how you feel about growing old depends on how much money you have and how much pain you’re in.

For too many, there is not enough of the former and too much of the latter.

Yet these issues of accumulated grief and loss, this identity crisis, is seldom acknowledged in all the advice about “healthy ageing”, where the focus is mainly diet and exercise.

The popular debate about identity seldom includes the identity crises of the aged.

We barely admit it ourselves, as we sit in cafes, sipping lattes or wine, recounting stories of our travels or showing photos of our grandchildren.

Instead, in search of our lost selves, we gobble up the world, or return to the dreams of our youth, and take up piano, or gardening or learn a language, or join a book club – posting our achievements with false humility on Instagram and Facebook while gushing over the achievements of others to prove that we are liked and likable, to prove that we are still here…still worthy…still relevant.

Sometimes this search for our lost selves can make us envious of youth, beauty, confidence and opportunity.

“What do they know of life!” we say, as the newly hatched talk about what is new for them and old for us. And as the words leave our lips we blush, as we hear the echoes of our parents’ voices, shrill with resentment and frustration.

This grief and loss can also make us petty. We grow old but we don’t always grow up. Sometimes, we lash out at those on whom we are dependent, or at those who don’t or can’t give us what we want, which is always, always the same – to be seen, to be loved, to be valued.

But still, as the days pass, each bringing new losses and new challenges, there are thoughts of what has been, what might have been, and what now will never be: the opportunities that have come and gone, and the people who no longer share our lives.

Ageing may be a time of fulfilment and gratitude, but there is a reckoning as we come to terms with what is, and what can never be again.

Six FREE audition monologues for older women – and four for younger women

21 Comments May 8, 2023 janecafarella

Here are six FREE monologues for women over 40 and four for younger women. The monologues range from one minute to four minutes in length.

They may be used by women anywhere, on the condition that you let me know when they are being used and in what context.

I’m always delighted to get any feedback and to hear from actors who are performing them.

Your feedback also helps inform and inspire me about what other topics might be useful for a monologue.

My aim is to fill a gap in the market, providing materials for women who are often under-represented in the theatre – particularly older women.

I also take commissions, so if you are an actor or a theatre company who would like me to write a monologue about a particular topic, please get in touch – jane.cafarella@gmail.com.

Also check out my FREE short plays, suitable for schools, community theatre or professional theatre groups. https://janecafarella.com.au/ten-minute-treats/

I wish you all the best in your acting endeavours and hope you enjoy performing my work. As we say in the Australian theatre scene: “Break a leg!”

Click on the links in the descriptions below to read each monologue.

ALSO, check out my Free Audition Monologues for Women over 40

These monologues are available for free. This is on the condition that you let me know you are using them, and in what context.

Hungry for more than cooking shows – revisited

December 6, 2022 janecafarella

This article, published in the Opinion section of The Age on 11 January 2011, was named one of the best articles in Australia by The Week magazine, in its 14 January edition of that year.

The Week is a UK magazine that describes itself as “a new and unique magazine that distils the most important news and comment from the world’s media into an essential weekend read”. An Australian edition was published from 2008-2012.

What’s changed? Do you agree?

HUNGRY FOR MORE THAN COOKING SHOWS

WHEN the ratings period starts again next month and TV programmers serve up a banquet of new cooking shows, spare a thought for the world’s hungry.

There are about a billion undernourished people in the world today, according to the website worldhunger.org, an online publication of the Washington-based private charity World Hunger Education Service.

While you digest that, I can also tell you that there are more than 1.1 billion overweight people and that in America, alone, nearly 70,000 tonnes of food is being wasted each day, while $140 billion is being spent on obesity-related diseases.

More or less. It’s hard to put a final figure on it as stopthehunger.com features all these stats in real time, which means you can watch hunger grow before your very eyes.

Like you, I can do without lashings of guilt to add to the New Year’s diet plan, but today’s national obsession with cooking and eating does seem incongruous when you think that while half the world is cooking or watching cooking shows or reading cookbooks, a significant other part is starving.

It will be interesting to see whether predictions of food shortages and price rises resulting from the devastating Queensland floods will diminish our appetite for this feast of food shows.

While economists are predicting that the food shortages will have only a minor effect on the Australian economy, and that the ensuing rebuilding program will even boost our GDP, people in developing countries, where most of the world’s hungry live, are not so lucky.

As reported in this paper last week, the price of soft commodities such as sugar, grain and oilseed drove world food prices to a record last month, according to a monthly index published by the United Nations.

Increasing demand due to population increases, rising oil prices, a decline in agricultural investment, and the effects of war, drought, flood and earthquakes, have all contributed to the global food security crisis.

But while Rome burns, back in the kitchen we are fiddling around with our food processors.

A report by the Australia Institute in November 2009, titled What a Waste – an analysis of Australian expenditure on food, revealed that “Australians are throwing out more than $5 billion worth of food each year – more than we spend on digital equipment and more than it costs to run the Australian army”.

This is especially sobering when you consider that poor nutrition contributes to half the 10.9 million child deaths in the world each year. Most of these occur in developing countries, but before you dismiss this as “other”, it may surprise you to learn that in Australia, 12 per cent of children live in poverty.

Like most of the people not living in poverty, my resolution for the New Year is to buy less, eat less and give more. Again.

But it’s not just these stark contrasts that bother me. It’s the fact that the national focus is so firmly fixed on our stomachs.

Television is a prime example. It seems that every second show on TV revolves around food. These days, instead of Nana and Mum telling us how to cook, we have Nigella, Jamie, Poh, Hewie, Paul, Luke, Maggie and Simon, Guy, Anthony, Maeve and friends, not to mention George, Matt, Anna and Gary.

Cooking shows have been a staple diet of TV since its invention, but we are now pigging out on them. And we love it. When lawyer Adam Liaw won MasterChef last year, 3.9 million people tuned in.

Who can blame them? Food is irresistible when it’s on your 25-centimetre plate. How much more seductive is it when it’s on a 152-centimetre screen in all its high-definition glory?

Food competition shows are especially tempting: it’s sustenance, it’s entertainment, and it’s drama, with all the thrill of the chase that our hunter and gatherer ancestors knew, without even having to get up from our chairs.

But it’s also a symptom of how self-absorbed and over indulged we are. Cooking may have made us human as Richard Wrangham, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard, says, but a national obsession with cooking and eating is just making us fat and boring.

A friend once prefaced our luncheon meeting with the request that we only spend 10 minutes talking about our health and 10 minutes talking about our children. These days, I would like to add a request that we restrict our conversations about what we ate, or are going to eat, or regret that we ate, to just five minutes.

Perhaps we can spare a few minutes instead on what we can do to help solve the world food crisis? Luckily, there are almost as many hunger sites as cooking shows.

Not only would it make us more interesting, it would help make us part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/hungry-for-more-than-tv-cooking-shows-20110109-19jsb.html

What’s your view of cooking shows? Comment or write to me: jane.cafarella@gmail.com

Check out my other Opinion pieces on the toolbar above.

Author: janecafarella

Are you looking for FREE audition monologues relevant to women of all ages, including women over 40?

Look no further.

CHOOSE BY TOPIC

TO MARRY OR NOT?

MOTHERHOOD OR NOT?

THE DILEMMAS OF MOTHERHOOD

TO LEAVE OR STAY?

TO KEEP DATING OR USE A DONOR?

TO TERMINATE OR NOT?

TO REPORT AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP – OR NOT

CHOOSE FOR WOMEN OVER 40

CHOOSE BY LENGTH