Jennifer O’Grady’s plays have been produced by theaters in the U.S. and U.K. and have won the Henley Rose Award and other honors. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Best Ten-Minute Plays, Thirty New Ten-Minute Plays, Best Women’s Stage Monologues, Best Contemporary Monologues for Women and Stage It 3. She is also an award-winning poet and author of the poetry books White (Mid-List First Series Award) and Exclusions & Limitations (2018). Her poems appear in numerous places including Harper’s, The New Republic, The Writers Almanac, Poetry and BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family near New York City. (www.jenniferogrady.net)

Tomorrow Or Next Year

Characters:

MACKENZIE: A high-school student. A doer.  CAROLINE: A classmate of MACKENZIE’s. ​

PLACE and TIME:

A high school in the U.S. The near future. 

SYNOPSIS:

Mackenzie wants to help. Caroline wants to forget. A play about growing up in today’s United States.

A classroom, after school. MACKENZIE and CAROLINE  are sitting at a table. Boxes of postcards are on the table.   MACKENZIE is counting postcards and writing on them. In front of CAROLINE are blank postcards and a pen. She isn’t moving.​​

MACKENZIE
Okay I’ve got seventy-nine. With Anthony’s and Bailey’s it’s . . .a hundred and four. Did you finish yours?

CAROLINE
What?

MACKENZIE
Arkansas and Wyoming. Did you finish yours?

CAROLINE looks away.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
I have a big Spanish test tomorrow.

CAROLINE
So?

MACKENZIE
So I kind of don’t wanna be here all afternoon.

Silence.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
Wanna go get something from the vending machine?

CAROLINE
The vending machine sucks.

MACKENZIE
At least they fixed it. And that window.

Long pause.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
You know what? Why don’t I…?

MACKENZIE reaches for CAROLINE’s postcards. CAROLINE shoves them away hard. They scatter.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
What’s wrong with you?

CAROLINE
What’s the point of this?

MACKENZIE
You know what the point is. It’s to show them we understand.

CAROLINE
By writing them stupid postcards.

MACKENZIE
They aren’t stupid and we all agreed.

CAROLINE
You mean Mackenzie agreed.

MACKENZIE
It wasn’t just me, we all—

CAROLINE
I don’t even want to be here!

MACKENZIE
But -- you said…

CAROLINE
You trapped me. You cornered me in Geometry and I couldn’t get out until you made me say yes.

MACKENZIE
I thought you wanted to—

CAROLINE
I didn’t! You trapped me!

MACKENZIE
I didn’t—

CAROLINE
YOU TRAPPED ME YOU TRAPPER!

MACKENZIE
What’s wrong with you today?

CAROLINE
These are just really stupid!

MACKENZIE
They aren’t We got postcards like these.

CAROLINE
Well that’s stupid.

MACKENZIE
When I got notes likes this, I felt like I wasn’t…

CAROLINE
What? Dead?

MACKENZIE
Alone. I felt like I wasn’t alone and that’s the point.

CAROLINE
Those postcard-people don’t know us.

MACKENZIE
It doesn’t matter.

CAROLINE
They don’t know us and they don’t care.

MACKENZIE
But Caroline—

CAROLINE
They don’t care and you know why? Because they’re terrified, just like we are!

A beat.

MACKENZIE
Were.

Pause.

CAROLINE
What if there was someone else?

MACKENZIE
There wasn’t.

CAROLINE
How do you know?

MACKENZIE
My uncle’s a cop. They know these things.

CAROLINE
What if there’s someone else out there?

MACKENZIE
There isn’t.

CAROLINE
But how do you…?

MACKENZIE
The police are everywhere now. They’re on top of it.

CAROLINE
What about tomorrow, or next week or next year or…?

MACKENZIE
Caroline. You need to calm down.

CAROLINE
LIKE THAT’S EASY NOW?

MACKENZIE
I know it isn’t. Will it ever stop? I don’t know. Will Jackson ever stop wetting his bed? I don’t know that either.

CAROLINE
Your brother’s wetting the bed?

MACKENZIE
He wasn’t even here. Will Delia stop getting eczema? Will Anthony or Bailey stop needing therapy? Will Mason come back to school? Will Maddie get off her Zoloft, will

CAROLINE
I don’t wanna be like them.

Beat.

MACKENZIE
I’m on Zoloft now too.

CAROLINE
I don’t mean them or you. I mean them.

MACKENZIE
I know. But my cousin’s cousin died of leukemia.

CAROLINE
That sucks. But it isn’t the same.

MACKENZIE
My grandpa died of a stroke, my aunt had ovarian cancer…

CAROLINE
They aren’t the same thing.

MACKENZIE
I know, I get that. But if we all just sit around, thinking all these (bad thoughts)…then it’s like we’re all stuck in this huge ugly cloud. I don’t want my life or what’s left of it to suck.

CAROLINE
Okay, but…

MACKENZIE
That isn’t all. Because we were here too. And if we don’t remember who will?

Pause.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
So could you please do Arkansas and Wyoming now?

CAROLINE
What do I tell them?

MACKENZIE
Just say that we understand. Tell them how many people here, that we were here too when it happened and we understand.

CAROLINE
“When it happened.” You mean when he did it?

MACKENZIE
When he did it, we were here. Just tell them that.

Beat. Then CAROLINE takes a postcard and pen.

MACKENZIE (CONT)
Caroline…you don’t really think there was someone else, or will be?

Beat.

CAROLINE
Uh-uh.

A beat. And then they write.

END OF PLAY