<p>Blah, the title sounds sorta funny, haha, but I was wondering if I could do monologues for the opposite gender. Do I have to stick to the same gender, or can I use the monologue, regardless of the gender, as long as it works for me?</p>
<p>My gut reaction would be that someone may question WHY you chose that monologue, and whether you knew its context to know it was not the right gender, but I'd say let's see if one of the college reps actually responds to this one - any of the rest of us would be just guessing.</p>
<p>While my gut reaction also would be to pick monologues written for your gender, I will point out that there are no hard and fast rules. I can just say this from first hand experience. I have a daughter who attends a BFA program and got into many others. I recall her dramatic contemporary monologue was a male character. I recall her comedic classic monologue was also a male character. Her other monologues were not. She was successful with these monologues. By coincidence, just yesterday my D mentioned an email she received (she has finished two years so far of a BFA program). It was from someone who was a directing graduate student two years ago at one of the BFA programs where she auditioned and was accepted (but not where she attends). He had sat in on the audition panel when she auditioned there. Two and a half years later (he is no longer a graduate student), he was contacting her (found her on facebook) because he is writing a book on auditioning and he remembered one of her particular monologues (the dramatic contemporary one in which she portrayed a male character) and said it was the best rendition he had seen of that particular monologue and he wants to write about her audition in the book and was getting her permission. So, I guess this monologue worked. This particular character truly could be any gender and it doesn't really affect the monologue. So, while my tendency would be to pick monologues from your own gender, it seems that in this case, my D's monologues worked well in her BFA auditions, enough to be accepted. So, while there are guidelines for audition choices, they are just guidelines and not hard and fast rules.</p>
<p>Last fall I had someone tell me that an audition they experienced that has always stuck with them was a baritone singing "I Feel Pretty".</p>
<p>That said, unless you have an approach that is guaranteed to win someone over, I personally think you would be raising the bar higher than necessary.</p>
<p>I am not saying this is true across the boards - but most folks I know would rather hear a monologue whose gender is that of the auditioner. Good luck with your eventual choice.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that some schools very specifically request that you choose monologues (and songs) representing a character that you could realistically play. In those cases, I think it would be a mistake to go with the cross-gender options.</p>