OK, I already know you arent supposed to get your monologue from a book…however…has anyone ever seen or looked through the couple offered on the Playscripts site? They seem to be good books and I wondered if they would be helpful or anyone has seen this book before? The one they offer is one for teens also and it lists the plays etc and access to reading the play through the playscripts site…
You’re not supposed to get monologues from books because they’re mostly stand-alone monologues (not from plays.) As long as it’s still from a published play, it should be fine. As for Playscripts, the scripts I’ve read on there have been sort of hit-or-miss.
Stand alone monologues are almost always very overdone and not interesting for the auditor. It just makes you seem lazy or like you took the easy route, neither good impressions to make.
I looked for specific play’s for a theme that I was trying to portray. Maybe if one of your songs is romantic and another classical. You can search maybe for plays with a strong feminist vibe or other political show (i.e. Educating Rita, or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Or perhaps if you haven’t shown much comic timing in your other selections search for very specific funny plays, like black comedy or satire (Heartbreak House). Go from there.
Of course you still need to really read the play and assure the character is fitting. So 4 out of 5 plays you check out won’t work but that’s just how it is, there’s no easy way to get quality monologues.
I don’t think my D wants an easy way to find a monologue, she just doesn’t know where to start sorta since it seems like they all end up on the overdone list. I know she should go to the library and read plays but it seems like that’s like a needle in a haystack . Seems like you need a starting point for reference. She is very singing oriented so spends a lot of time finding songs and has a voice teacher to help; but before we get a person to help with monologues in the spring, we need a few for summer program auditions.
@theaterwork - Theresa Rebeck writes some good plays with age appropriate female characters. I might recommend looking at some of her plays. another idea is to watch videos from the Young Arts winners the last few years and see what plays their monologues are from.
The guidance from college audition coaches is to read the entire play when choosing a monologue. Your D may get questions about the character and story line in her auditions. My D had several discussions with auditioners about the character in her monologue and the play it came from. She was even asked if she had read other plays from the same author. It will definitely take some research to find the right play, character and monologue, especially if you don’t have a coach.
Another good way to start could just be taking a playwright that wrote a monologue you like even if it’s overdone or not fitting. Then look up the playwrights other plays and works and it’ll be similar but you’ll avoid the problem with the first one.
For instance I love Pygmalion but none of the monologues there would work for me so I looked at some of George Bernard Shaw’s other plays and found something I really like and it’s unique. The other nicety is that even if the auditors have never heard of your obscure monologue they’ll recognize the author and there’s value in that.