One Acts and Monologues for Women

These three haunting pieces have always been one of the most popular titles from Broadway Play Publishing. THE WOMAN WITH 27 CHILDREN and BELLE OF THE BIJOU are monologues. LATE/LATE...COMPUTER DATE is a one-act for two women. All three plays call for simple interior sets. THE WOMAN WITH 27 CHILDREN: Angel lives alone in the house on the hill, built by her now-deceased husband, Vernon, the love of her life. She is utterly lost without him to guide her. He carved so many beautiful things, but the most treasured, were the exquisite lifelike wooden dolls. He presented her with one each Christmas (because she could not have children). Eventually there were twenty-seven dolls treated as real children. Confused and disoriented, Angel sits recalling their life, speaking to the last-carved child as if he were Vernon, telling of the plight taking place the tax people coming to take their home, and the only solution is to sell the priceless dolls to the museum, which tears her apart, because 'you can't sell your own children!' Ultimately, she believes Vernon is back with her, and all his statues are standing once more in the magic circle, and it s time to retire. In the morning, "We'll take all but one child to the museum." LATE/LATE...COMPUTER DATE: Isobel and Veronica, spinster sisters, live alone in genteel clutter. Both are retired from the candy factory, where they spent years as candy dippers. Mama and Daddy died in a car accident, and the insurance money has been metered out over years to give reluctant Veronica the niceties of life ballet lessons, tours, and trips. The last of the money is now financing a computer date for Veronica, who has never had a date, and Isobel feels she should have one date before she dies. On the evening of this first date, all is in a dither. Time passes and shy Veronica returns from her date her computer match never showed up, but she did dance with someone else. This alarms Isobel, who is even more alarmed to hear that the stranger gave Veronica his phone number and wants to take her out. There is a struggle of wills. After Veronica retires, Isobel destroys the card bearing the man's phone number, a final desperate act to keep control of their lives. BELLE OF THE BIJOU: Tonight Belle has come to clean out her movie memorabilia accumulated over the years in the ticket taker booth in the now closed Bijou Theatre. The process reveals her bleak life, dominated by her obsession with the movies and her even bleaker future, with plans to move to Hollywood, taking along her life-size cardboard cutout of Clark Gable. Fear about leaving her ticket booth, her only true reality, overwhelms her.