Tommy monologue from The Normal Heart

Tommy’s monologue

Tommy

I have this tradition. It’s something I do now when a friend dies. I save his Rolodex card. What am I supposed to do, throw it away in the trash can? I won’t do that. No, I won’t. It’s too final. Last year I had five cards. Now I have fifty. A collection of cardboard tombstones bound together with a rubber band. I hate these fucking funerals, I really do.

And you know what else I hate? I hate the memorials. That’s our social life now, going to these things. Nick was a choreographer; not many of you knew that. He was just starting out, he didn’t tell a lot of people. He was waiting to invite you to his big debut at Carnegie Hall or some shit so we could all be proud of him. But he was so good. He had such promise.

We’re losing an entire generation. Young men, at the beginning, just gone. Choreographers, playwrights, dancers, actors. All those plays that won’t get written now. All those dances, never to be danced. In closing, I’m just gonna say I’m mad. I’m fucking mad. I keep screaming inside, “why are they letting us die? Why is no one helping us?” And here’s the truth, here’s the answer: They just don’t like us.

Excerpt for study and audition practice. Read the full play for context.