Genre: Dramedy
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Luna, about 17 years old, stands alone on stage and speaks. While the character is female in the play, there's no reason a male couldn't perform this monologue.
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Pluto was officially discovered in 1930. It became the ninth planet, and the farthest from the sun. What a lot of people don't know—no, what pretty much everybody doesn't know, is that its orbit crosses Neptune's, the eighth planet, but the two planets don't ever come close to each other.
(Beat.)
So Pluto's always been this lonely little planet, and it's cold. Really, really cold. Like negative 230 degrees Celsius cold. People couldn't live there.
(Beat.)
I'm pretty sure most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about Pluto. Why would you? Pluto doesn't get you an A in English or pay your car insurance or keep your mom from aiming a half full coffee mug at your dad's head on the last night you pretended you had a functional family.
(Beat.)
But then it happened. In 2006. Pluto got demoted. One day it's a planet, and the next day it's not. They come up with this new category for it: a dwarf planet. Sure, Pluto, you're separate but equal. Right. And finally people take notice. Harvard students stage a sit-in at University Hall, in Berkeley they burn a revised map of the solar system and protestors take to the streets of Manhattan to stand up for Pluto.
(Beat.)
I made that last part up. Outside of a few astronomers, nobody really cared, and after a few weeks, people stopped talking about it. Nobody ever stands up for the Plutos of the universe. At least not in my universe.
(Beat.)
Our high school has a Pluto problem.