<p>If you keep reading this board, you will find that we are aprehensive about suggesting material to students we have never met.
I hope you understand.
It's not that we don't want to help you.
Read lots of plays, go to the theatre.
Good luck to you!
xxx,Mary Anna</p>
<p>Tripletreat,
I'm sympathetic to your plight. But I don't know enough to be helpful. I'm grateful that my son stumbled into a voice teacher with a broad knowledge of theater. She was able to suggest authors/plays he might consider. Location and teachers/coaches can make such a difference in access to materials and ideas. Local libraries/bookstore may have few plays to choose from, and, if you are selecting them at random, you could read extensively without finding a compatible character from whom you could squeeze a monologue.
One listing of monologues I've encountered is on the NYSSSA Theater site (perhaps you could google it). This would be a place to begin in terms of plays with female characters who are close to your age. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>I appreciate your honesty, but since I'm new to this whole thing, why is that? Totally just out of curiosity, I'm not intending to be rude.</p>
<p>Tripletreat23
It is impossible to pick a song or monologue for someone you don't know. The person performing has to be comfortable and feel the piece that he or she is performing.</p>
<p>But - if you want to work backwards, there are a couple of ways to do it. There is an extensive list of plays with monologues in them on the Depaul University website. You can start with that list to help give you ideas for plays to read. Also, on the NFAA (arts awards) website there is a list of monologues that have been used by past winners. That could be another way to get ideas on plays to read.</p>
<p>I hope I'm not bringing up something we've covered that I have missed. Do the colleges expect the student to have indepth knowledge of the musical a song comes from? I understand that the student must have thorough knowledge of the plays monologues come from. But what about when one uses a song from a short-lived musical that has no book published? How would one go about finding the plot, etc, other than what shows up in the few reviews available?</p>
<p>If it is that obscure, the chances of the auditors knowing the material well is unlikely.</p>
<p>If it is available, then yes, you should understand the context of the song: character, who they are singing to, relationship, objective - all are the same dramatically, whether or not music is involved.</p>
<p>I suggest researching online. Google the title in quotations and the boolean "+ plot"</p>
<p>eve</p>
<p>Eve,
Thanks so much for your help! I sent you an email.</p>
<p>So, I'm looking for a monologue. I need it STAT, as my first audition is in exactly one month. I've been looking for about...three years.
So, my question is: I'm a girl, and I've been looking at everything. I've found two that I like. Both are from movies, and one is from Ferris Bueller...it's said by a guy, but he never says anything to show that it's male. Could I pull off a monolgue from a movie? And if I can, can I pull off a monologue from a movie said by a guy?
Please help. I'm getting pretty desperate. In about 10 minutes, I'm gonna write my own monologue. Hey, at least it'll be unique-no one else will be able to use my monologue. =D</p>
<p>I would strongly recommend you not use a monologue from a movie for a college theatre audition.</p>
<p>Keep looking, and good luck to you.</p>
<p>xxx,Mary Anna</p>
<p>also...id extremely highly definatley reccommend NOT writing your own...go get a monologue book if you have to...but dont write one yourself...some colleges will probably just throw you out before you say anything, i know some (most likely most of them) request that they are from plays or musicals...so for your own sake...dont write one</p>
<p>This is a theater audition. It needs to be from a real play....not a book, not a movie, not your own creation. If you don't follow this basic rule, you will not be considered. </p>
<p>You should be able to find a monologue amongst the many plays out there or from one of the lists of suggested monologues for young adults. There are books with monologues from plays. When you peruse those, one should pop out at you and then obtain and read that entire play. Also, you may want to find a drama/acting coach to help you select and prepare for these monologue auditions....even if only for a few sessions. </p>
<p>While you should portray a girl, I must admit that of the four monologues my D used for college auditions, two were written for males but she felt these particular ones were quite unisex in nature. One of these was contemporary and one was Shakespeare. She seemed to do well so I guess it was all right. I guess it goes against conventional wisdom but in some of these areas, there are not hard and fast rules. But one rule you should keep to is to do a monologue from a PLAY.
Susan</p>
<p>Craig Slaight's monologue books for young actors (see amazon) are great. He's at ACT, he works in the Young Conservatory and I believe with the MFA program sometimes as well. He makes type-specific books (muticultural, young, short plays...etc). I believe he's also coming out with a third volume soonish.
link:
<a href="http://actactortraining.org/index.cfm?s_id=&pid=con_yco_bks%5B/url%5D">http://actactortraining.org/index.cfm?s_id=&pid=con_yco_bks</a></p>
<p>The monologue books by Craig Slaight and others include monologues from sources other than plays. Most colleges specify they want to hear monologues from PLAYS. There has been a lot of conversation on CC about monologues, and this has been emphasized often. </p>
<p>The gold standard is to read a ton of plays and choose a monologue that way. You can also supplement this approach by reading more obscure monologue books, finding a monologue you like, and checking the plays by that playwright out of the library and finding another monologue (or cutting one) from one of his/her plays.</p>
<p>hyperleo03,</p>
<p>If you want to use a monologue that no one else has used, you can contact a local acting company or repertory theatre. They get submissions for original plays and workshop them. They, in turn will put you in touch with the playwright. A good friend of mine is a published playwright, but many of her lesser known work is either unpublished or done by small theatre companies all across the USA.</p>
<p>That being said, I wouldn't waste too much time trying to find the most obscure monologue. Some kids are admitted to good BFA programs because the auditor recognized uncommon ability (sheer talent) that lay beneath their "common" material choice.</p>
<p>If you only have a month to refine your audition piece, try to find someone who can help you choose. Pick five from the reject pile and show those to your drama english teacher or a local director. Three years is a very long time to spend searching for the "right" piece. A good actor can take a "wrong" monologue and make it work. I'm certain that you'll make a good choice.</p>
<p>I'm loving being a little older than most of the other auditioners, because I can actually do monologues that mention pregancy (other than the teen variety), marriage, and alcohol without looking like I'm shooting way over my age range. :) Yay! It's good to be 22 and have a 21-28 age range sometimes. It opens up a whole new world of monologue options.</p>
<p>Samia--It's also probably refreshing for the auditioners, so that's a good thing for you!!</p>
<p>That's exactly what I was thinking. :) Ain't nobody else gonna be doing a monologue that starts with "I'm drinking scotch. Yes, I'm drinking scotch." and ends with "I'm pregnant." Mwahahahahahahaha! :)</p>
<p>(Sorry, I'm doing intense character development on a really gritty urban female character for one of my monologues, so I'm starting to say stuff like "ain't nobody else gonna be doing" and such. I am intelligent, I promise! ;) )</p>
<p>actually Craig said that most are from plays...so you don't have to worry about that...</p>
<p>I have a monologue I've worked on in acting class, which is from a play, but the play was written based on a movie. Granted, the movie was an Acadamy award winner and such, and my acting prof didn't have a problem with it, is it if-y to do something like that?
I'm weary of posting the play/movie just to keep what I'm doing private, but if you send a PM I could tell you.
I'm not too worried, but I didn't know if anyone who has sat in at auditions has seen a monologue like that done and thought it was a bad idea.</p>
<p>I think it is fine because it IS from a play. It doesn't matter if the play or movie came first.</p>