After you have registered, please select and prepare any monologue below. Auditions will be held in class on Monday, 3/29, with callbacks being held in class later in the week. PLEASE NOTE: for the sake of auditions, please consider these monologues to be gender neutral. Select whichever monologue you feel the strongest about performing.
ROMAINE PATTERSON – We never called him Matthew actually. Most of the time we called him “Choo-choo.” You know, because we used to call him Mattchew, and then we just called him Choo-choo. Whenever I think of Matthew, I always think of his incredible beaming smile. I mean, he’d walk in and he’d be like, (Demonstrates), you know, and he’d smile at everyone…he just made you feel great…and he – would like stare people down in the coffee shop…’cause he always wanted to sit on the end seat so that he could talk to me while I was working. And if someone was sitting in that seat, he would just sit there and stare at them. Until they left. And then he would claim his spot.
DR. CANTWAY – Your first thought is…well certainly you’d like to think that it’s somebody from out of town, that comes through and beats somebody. I mean, things like this happen, you know, and it happens in Laramie. But if there’s been somebody who has been beaten repeatedly, ah, certainly this is something that offends us. I think that’s a good word. It offends us! Now, the strange thing is, twenty minutes before Matthew came in, Aaron McKinney was brought in by his girlfriend. Now I guess he had gotten into a fight later on that night back in town, so I’m workin’ on Aaron and the ambulance comes in with Matthew. So there’s Aaron in one room of the ER and Matthew in another room two doors down.
REGGIE FLUTY – He was tied to the fence – his hands were thumbs out in what we call a cuffing position – the way we handcuff people. He was bound with a real thin white rope. It went around the bottom of the pole, about four inches up off the ground. His shoes were missing. He was tied extremely tight – so I used my boot knife and tried to slip it between the rope and his wrist – I had to be extremely careful not to harm Matthew any further. I finally got the knife through there – I’m sorry – we rolled him over to his left side – when we did that he quit breathing.
ZUBAIDA ULA – We went to the candle vigil. And it was so good to be with people who felt like crap. I kept feeling like I don’t deserve to feel this bad, you know? And someone got up there and said uh – he said um, blah blah blah blah blah and then he said, I’m saying it wrong, but basically he said, c’mon guys, let’s show the world that Laramie is not this kind of town. But it is that kind of town. If it wasn’t this kind of town, why did this happen here? I mean, you know what I mean, like – that’s a lie. Because it happened here. So how could it not be a town where this kind of thing happens?
JUDGE – Mr. Henderson, you drove the vehicle that took Matthew Shepard to his death. You bound him to that fence in order that he might be more savagely beaten and in order that he might not escape to tell his tale. You left him out there for eighteen hours, knowing full well that he was there. Perhaps having an opportunity to save his life, and you did nothing. Mr. Henderson, this Court does not believe that you really feel any true remorse for your part in this matter. And I wonder whether you fully realize the gravity of what you’ve done.
DENNIS SHEPARD – Matt officially died in a hospital in Ft. Collins, Colorado. He actually died on the outskirts of Laramie, tied to a fence. You Mr. McKinney with your friend Mr. Henderson left him out there by himself, but he wasn’t alone. There were his lifelong friends with him, friends that he had grown up with. You’re probably wondering who these friends were. First he had the beautiful night sky and the same stars and moon that we used to see through a telescope. Then he had the daylight and the sun to shine on him. And through it all he was breathing in the scent of pines from the snowy range. He heard the wind, the ever-present Wyoming wind, for the last time. He had one more friend with him. He had God. And I feel better knowing he wasn’t alone.
LUCY THOMPSON – As the grandmother and the person who raised Russell, along with my family, we have written the following statement: our hearts ache for the pain and suffering that the Shepards have went through. We have prayed for your family since the very beginning. Many times throughout the day I have thought about Matt. And you will continue to be in our thoughts and prayers, as we know that your pain will never go away. You have showed such mercy in allowing us to have this plea, and we are so grateful that you are giving us all the opportunity to live. Your Honor, for the Russell we know and love, we humbly plead, Your Honor, to not take Russell completely out of our lives forever.
JEDADIAH SCHULTZ – I didn’t for the longest time let myself become personally involved in the Matthew Shepard thing. It didn’t seem real. It just seemed way blown out of proportion. Matthew Shepard was just a name instead of an individual…I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s so weird, man. I just – I just feel bad. Just for all that stuff I told you, for the person I used to be. That’s why I want to hear those interviews from last year when I said all that that stuff. I don’t know. I just can’t believe I ever said that stuff about homosexuals. You know. How did I ever let that stuff make me think that you were different from me?
DOC O’CONNOR – I been up to that site in my limousine, okay? And I remembered to myself the night he and I drove around together, he said to me, “Laramie sparkles, doesn’t it?” And where he was up there, if you sit exactly where he was, up there, Laramie sparkles from there, with a low lying cloud…it’s the blue lights that’s bouncing off the clouds from the airport and it goes tst tst tst tst…right over the whole city. I mean it blows you away…Matt was right there in that spot, and I can just picture in his eyes, I can just picture what he was seeing. The last thing he saw on this earth was the sparkling lights.