This year Smith and Kraus has decided to combine its annual best monologues and best scenes anthologies. The scenes included in this book are either for two women or for one man and one woman. The latter are scenes in which the female role is predominant.Here you will find a rich and varied selection of monologues and scenes from plays that were produced and/or published in the 2008-2009 theatrical season. Most are for younger performers (teens through thirties), but there are also some excellent pieces for women in their forties and fifties, and even a few for older performers. Some are comic (laughs), some are dramatic (generally, no laughs). Some are rather short, some are rather long. All represent the best in contemporary playwriting.Several of the monologues are by playwrights whose work may be familiar to you, such as Don Nigro, Sam Bobrick, Adam Rapp, Bill Cain, Jose Rivera, Stephen Belber, Keith Reddin, Naomi Iizuka, Michael Weller, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Richard Vetere, and Nicky Silver; others are by exciting up-and-comers like Steven Leigh Morris, Saviana Stanescu, Liz Flahive, Stephanie Allison Walker, Cheri Magid, Jennifer Maisel, Andrew Grosso, David Caudle, Nina Raine, John Kolvenbach, Sylvia Reed, and Lucy Thurber.The scenes are by master playwrights, such as Rivera, Gina Gionfriddo, Jeffrey Hatcher, A. R. Gurney, and Aguirre-Sacasa, and by exciting new playwrights, such as Vincent Delaney, Stanescu, Lydia Stryk, Grosso, and Larry Kunofsky.