The Ex
Rom-com, over the canapés
- Romantic comedy
- Two-hander
- 3 min
- Female role
- Adult
- Beginner
Casting
8 lines- LUI Male role, Adult
- ELLE Female role, Adult your role
Full text
(A wedding buffet. Two exes come face to face over the tray of canapés.)
LUI
Well. You.
ELLE
Me. What a coincidence, at a wedding where our two best friends are getting married. Totally unforeseeable.
LUI
Are you well? You look… very well. It’s annoying.
ELLE
You look well too. That’s annoying as well. We’re two annoying people who are doing fine.
(They each reach for the same canapé. Their hands brush.)
LUI
We said we’d stay polite.
ELLE
We said a lot of things. “Forever,” for instance. We were chatty, back then.
(A beat.)
LUI
…Opening dance in ten minutes. Purely strategic: if we dance together, we don’t have to talk.
ELLE
Terrible logic. I accept. Solely so I don’t have to talk to you.
What you can do with it
Original text written for Acto. Read it, print it, work on it in class, perform it at an audition or on a self-tape: that is what it is for, and you need no permission. For a public performance or any commercial use, write to us at contact@acto.re.
In these selections
The same text, elsewhere
Close to this one
-
The Balcony Scene
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
-
The Last Copy
I was here first. My hand got here first. I have witnesses.
-
The Breakdown
“Technical incident.” It’s been an incident for forty minutes. At what point does it become a life? I’ve missed my connection. And the wedding at the end of it. I was a bridesmaid.