<p>I was curious to find out other members' process on finding the "perfect" song or monologue. I understand that each school may have different specific requirements on what material to do/not to do but I wanted to know how people have gone about finding them.</p>
<p>My process was very scattered and mad: I read every play I could get my hands on and flipped through every book with sheet music from Broadway musicals. I didn’t have a teacher to help me sort through the madness and I also didn’t have a very good understanding of “type” yet. The end result? A “perfect” contemporary monologue, a “reach” classical monologue, an overdone classic song and a miss on the contemporary song.</p>
<p>One of the challenges facing applicants to college programs is the requirement that material be “age appropriate.” There are relatively few dramatic roles for 17-year-old boys, for example, and any you can think of are probably well represented on the “overused” lists.</p>
<p>My advice as a starting place is to SEEK OUT those “overused” lists (ones that relate to college auditions, especially). They will clue you in about plays that have age-appropriate roles. Then read the whole play and try to find a monologue other than the usual one. You can craft one from shorter utterances. You can use the same technique with monologue books, if they are monologues from actual stage plays.</p>
<p>SongSearcher: Where did you end up going to school, if you did? where had you auditioned?
Prodesse: Thanks I will try that.</p>
<p>I auditioned for Ithaca, Purchase and Fredonia and ended up (happily!) at Fredonia, although I was not accepted into any BFA programs (and with good enough reason).</p>
<p>I am choosing my audition monologue from monologues in my school’s Speech and Debate cabinet, since they have tons of dramatic and humorous monologues suited for younger ages.
I know this because I am on the Speech and Debate team myself. ^ ^</p>
<p>You should get in touch with your school’s Speech team advisor and possibly inquire a good age-fitting monologue you can cut to a few minutes or less and have a powerful impact.</p>
<p>One of the monologue’s I’m picking is the one I am actually performing via competition.</p>
<p>The main problem I see with that thought is that most schools want monologues from works of established playwrights and original material is not accepted as far as most musical theater schools go.</p>
<p>A friend forwarded me a list of overdone monologues today - very interesting. Luckily, my D didn’t use any of these pieces but I know she certainly looked at a few in the beginning of the search.</p>
<p>Make sure that your monologue is from an actual play, not just from a “book of monologues for teens” or something like that. And read the whole play and research the playwright!!! The auditioners may ask questions about the play, the character or the writer.</p>
<p>Oh, and monologues should be from a play - not a musical.</p>
<p>This was a challenging process and the best advice we got was to pick material that suits your “castable type” – that includes personality, voice, age, etc. In other words, even if you were the most amazing Jean Valjean in your HS production of “Les Mis,” you probably shouldn’t sing “Bring Him Home” for your college audition, since that isn’t a part you’d be cast for as an 18-19 year old. For monologues, my sons read tons of plays and eventually picked age-appropriate monologues from a couple of recent works. They were probably a little more edgy than I would have picked, but they got good feedback on them. They each had a Shakespeare monologue in their pocket, but never used them as majority of their schools focused on contemporary monologues. As for songs, in hindsight, my sons probably could have used even more thought on this, since we kind of ran up against deadlines for prescreens and just picked material. I would say, pick a song you know you can nail vocally – even if it isn’t the one with the showiest notes – and that you can act well. If your song makes you nervous (will I hit that note in the room?), it’s probably not the right one. I know it’s hard for super fans of MT repertoire to pick that one perfect song, but you’ll be happy when commit to it. Also, have a “sick day” song in your book just in case – one you know you can nail in your range if you wake up with a little sniffle, etc. Break a leg!</p>