Monologue suggestions from veteran students, parents and others

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

<p>I thought it might be nice for students coming up in this process if we started a thread with good monologue suggestions. I know current applicants probably wouldn't want to share their material, but those of us who have nothing to gain or lose could help students who are desperately searching for ideas.</p>

<p>My daughter says the whole process seems so backwards - in one semester of her BFA she has had access to 100 times the material she could find when she was searching for college audition material.</p>

<p>So maybe we can start a list - perhaps format it based on gender, type of character, dramatic/comedic, etc.? Age isn't relevant, since they're all looking for 15-25-year-old characters. We don't have to list the Act/Scene, since students should read the whole play anyway, but the pieces listed should have noticeable monologue possibilities of the proper length. I will start with something I was reading today:</p>

<p>Male, dramatic, insecure/innocent type: Nate, in The Water's Edge, by Theresa Rebeck.</p>

2

<p>Much agreed! It’s incredible the material I find now (and that I’m on the verge of being too old to use too):</p>

<p>Less than Human Club by Timothy Mason has a lot of characters and material, all teenagers. I’ve used this in script in class before, playing Kirsten. </p>

<p>Davis, the has-it-all king of guy who’s in the closet
Julie, a girl dating Clinton
Clinton, a young black man in 1968
Melissa, Clinton’s younger sister
Harley, described as “a rebel with a cause”
Dan, a student who becomes the target of the school coach’s brutality
Kirsten, a naive girl who struggles with romance
Amanda, a girl struggling to forge her own identity</p>

3

<p>this would be great- Can anyone suggest a 1-2 min. comedic monologue for a female?</p>

4

<p>Split, by Michael Weller - good comedic, quirky monologue in the character of Margie - the “Stevie Wonder” monologue ([The</a> Books: ?Split? (Michael Weller) | The Sheila Variations](<a href=“The Books: “Split” (Michael Weller) | The Sheila Variations”>The Books: “Split” (Michael Weller) | The Sheila Variations)). Note - tends to be classified as overused, though I haven’t seen it very often. </p>

<p>Avoid at all costs anything from the Star Spangled Banner and the infamous “tuna fish” monologue! I’ll see if I can recall anything else.</p>

5

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<p>British theatre director Simon Dunmore has a great list of less obvious [playwrights worth exploring for audition material](<a href=“http://www.btinternet.com/~simon.dunmore/”>http://www.btinternet.com/~simon.dunmore/&lt;/a&gt;) on his website. There was also a thread right here on CC emphasizing the more well known playwrights entitled [Plays You Should Have Read by Now](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/691366-plays-you-should-have-read-now.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/691366-plays-you-should-have-read-now.html&lt;/a&gt;? ) that’s definitely worth a look. </p>

<p>Also, it seems like a lot of kids haven’t been taught how to cut contemporary monologues from dialogue and there’s a book available entitled [The</a> Perfect Monologue](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Monologue-Find-Perform-That/dp/0879103000/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324560944&sr=8-1][u]The”>http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Monologue-Find-Perform-That/dp/0879103000/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324560944&sr=8-1) by Ginger Howard Friedman that will teach you how. Once you know how to do that, finding a good, active piece shouldn’t be any more difficult than paying a visit to your local library. If not, another method would be to get on Google looking for characters with which you might identify in synopses of plays by different playwrights and work from there.</p>

<p>Merry Christmas! :)</p>