Comedic Monologues for Women

Finding great comedic monologues for women can be quite tough. The perfect monologue can make or break your audition. If you’re going in to audition for a comedy role, it’s crucial that you choose a monologue that will accentuate your talent for comedy.

Deciding on a monologue is never easy, but it’s typical for performers to find that one monologue resonates with them over another. Spend some time before your audition reading through monologues, practicing the ones you’ve narrowed down, and picking one that works at both your talent and comfort level.

If you can’t seem to find the perfect monologue, we’ve put together a list of our favorites. Take a moment to read through and see what stands out for you! Here is our list of comedic monologues for women.

Dotty Otley from “Noises Off” – I Can’t Open the Sardines Can

“It’s no good you going on. I can’t open sardines and answer the phone. I’ve only got one pair of feet. Hello…. Yes, but there’s no one here, love…. No, Mr. Brent’s not here…He lives here, yes, but he don’t live here now because he lives in Spain… Mr. Philip Brent, that’s right…. The one who writes the plays, that’s him, only now he writes them in Spain… No, she’s in Spain, too, they’re all in Spain, there’s no one here… Am I in Spain? No, I’m not in Spain, dear. I look after the house for him, but I go home at one o’clock on Wednesday, only I’ve got a nice plate of sardines to put my feet up with, because it’s the royal what’s-it’s called on the telly — the royal you know — where’s the paper, then? And if it’s to do with letting the house then you’ll have to ring the house-agents, because they’re the agents for the house…. Squire Squire, Hackham and who’s the other one…? No, they’re not in Spain, they’re next to the phone in the study. Squire, Squire, Hackham, and hold on, I’ll go and look. Always the same, isn’t it. Soon as you take the weight off your feet, down it all comes on your head.”

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Mrs. Armstrong from “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” – Give Everyone a Chance

“[Let me]tell you again, Grace, how important it is to give everyone a chance. Here’s what I do — I always start with Mary and tell them we must choose our Mary carefully because Mary was the mother of Jesus… Yes, and then I tell them about Joseph, that he was God’s choice to be Jesus’ father. That’s how I explain that. Frankly, I don’t ever spend much time on Joseph because it’s always Elmer Hopkins, and he knows all about Mary and Joseph, but I do explain about the Wise Men and the shepherds and how important they are. And I tell them, there are no small parts, only small actors. Remind the angel choir not to stare at the audience, and don’t let them wear earrings and things like that. And don’t let them wear clunky shoes or high heels. I just hope you don’t have too many baby angels, Grace, because they’ll be your biggest problem. You’ll have to get someone to push the baby angels on, otherwise they get in each other’s way and bend their wings. Bob could do that, and he could keep an eye on the shepherds too. Oh, another thing about the angel choir. Don’t let them wear lipstick. They think because it’s a play that they have to wear lipstick, and it looks terrible. So tell them…. And, Grace, don’t use just anybody’s baby for Jesus… get a quiet one. Better yet, get two if you can… then if one turns out to be fussy, you can always switch them.”

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Lady Mary from “The Admirable Crichton” – A Herd Near Penguins Creek

“I sighted a herd near Penguin’s Creek, but had to creep round Silver Lake to get to windward of them. However, they spotted me and then the fun began. There was nothing for it but to try and run them down, so I singled out a fat buck and away we went down the shore of the lake, up the valley of rolling stones; he doubled into Brawling River and took to the water, but I swam after him; the river is only half a mile broad there, but it runs strong. He went spinning down the rapids, down I went in pursuit; he clambered ashore, I clambered ashore; away we tore helter-skelter up the hill and down again. I lost him in the marshes, got on his track again near Bread Fruit Wood, and brought him down with an arrow in Firefly Grove.”

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Sally Brown from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” – I Got a C

“A ‘C’? A ‘C’? I got a ‘C’ on my coathanger sculpture? How could anyone get a ‘C’ in coathanger sculpture? May I ask a question? Was I judged on the piece of sculpture itself? If so, is it not true that time alone can judge a work of art? Or was I judged on my talent? If so, is it fair that I be judged on a part of my life over which I have no control? If I was judged on my effort, then I was judged unfairly, for I tried as hard as I could! Was I judged on what I had learned about this project? If so, then were not you, my teacher, also being judged on your ability to transmit your knowledge to me? Are you willing to share my ‘C’? Perhaps I was being judged on the quality of coathanger itself out of which my creation was made…now is this not also unfair? Am I to be judged by the quality of coat hangers that are used by the drycleaning establishment that returns our garments? Is that not the responsibility of my parents? Should they not share my ‘C’?”

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Lucy from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” – What I Intend

“Do you know what I intend? I intend to be a queen. When I grow up I’m going to be the biggest queen there ever was, and I’ll live in a big palace and when I go out in my coach, all the people will wave and I will shout at them, and…and…in the summertime I will go to my summer palace and I’ll wear my crown in swimming and everything, and all the people will cheer and I will shout at them… What do you mean I can’t be queen? Nobody should be kept from being a queen if she wants to be one. It’s usually just a matter of knowing the right people.. ..well…. if I can’t be a queen, then I’ll be very rich then I will buy myself a queendom. Yes, I will buy myself a queendom and then I’ll kick out the old queen and take over the whole operation myself. I will be head queen.”

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Elaine Robinson from “The Graduate” – Nothing’s Perfect

“Well nothing’s perfect Benjamin. I wish my mother didn’t drink so much. I wish I’d never fallen out of that tree and broken my thumb because it so affects my fingering I’ll probably never play the violin as well as I’d love to but that’s about it for the bullshit, Benjamin. It’s only bullshit if you let it pile up. Heaven’s in the details. Someone said that. I think Robert Frost said that. I was in this diner with my roommate Diane? And this guy came along with a goat on a rope and it turns out the reason he’s got a little goat on a rope is that he was thrown out the day before for bringing in his dog? But the point is that Diane had stood up to leave when she saw the man walk in and she sat straight down again and said, well if there’s a goat I think I’ll have dessert. And that’s why I love Diane, because if you think like that you not only notice more little goats, you get more dessert.”

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Janet from “The West Wing” – Pigeons

“I’m sorry, but a good HALF of the United States hates pigeons. One third shoots them for game. I’m not the only bad guy here. You would have voted for an elephant if it had told you it could fix the economy. Which, by the way, is still not fixed. A giant goose egg. […] I’m sorry if I am offending you, but I find it more than a little offensive that I just walked my daughter past a portrait of a pigeon in the National Art Gallery before I came here.”

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Helena from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – Out of Breath

“O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;

For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:

If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.

No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

For beasts that meet me run away for fear:

Therefore no marvel though Demetrius

Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine

Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?

But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!

Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander if you live, good sir, awake”

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Kim from “Rather be a Man” – I’d Rather be a Man

“I don’t know what it is with me lately but I just get so UGH! when guys come up to me, with their cheesy lines, (imitating guy) “Hey, you have such a beautiful smile” or “Can I just tell you that you are so beautiful”.Ugh!It disgusts me.I mean, who the hell does this guy or that guy think he is to give me such compliments?What gives him the right?I don’t do anything to give off any kind of interest whatsoever, I completely look the other way when I see eye contact happening and they STILL come over thinking they’re so suave and it’s simply repulsive.You know what I’m saying??What does a girl have to do these days?Maybe if I just vomited on myself the guy would walk the other way but I bet even then, I’d get, “The way you vomit on yourself is just so, so delightful.”…All I want is to be left alone.I have a man, I love my man and I do my best to be polite but the irritation and the cheesy lines are getting to be too much.Guys are blind, they really are, OBLIVIOUS to when a girl is not interested.There are days when I rather be a man.”

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Rosalind from “As You Like It” – And Why, I Pray You

“And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,That you insult, exult, and all at once,Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,–As by my faith, I see no more in youThan without candle may go dark to bed,–Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?I see no more in you than in the ordinaryOf nature’s sale-work. Od’s my little life!I think she means to tangle my eyes too.No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:‘Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,That can entame my spirits to your worship.You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain?You are a thousand times a properer manThan she a woman: ‘tis such fools as youThat make the world full of ill-favour’d children:‘Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;And out of you she sees herself more properThan any of her lineaments can show her.But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love:For I must tell you friendly in your ear,Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.”

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Amanda Wingfield from “The Glass Menagerie” – That Old Trunk

“Possess your soul in patience – you will see!Something I’ve resurrected from that old trunk! Styles haven’t changed so terribly much after all.
[She parts the portières.]
Now just look at your mother ![She wears a girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash. She carries a bunch of jonquils – the legend of her youth is nearly revived.][Feverishly]: This is the dress in which I led the cotillion, won the cakewalk twice at Sunset Hill, wore one spring to the Governor’s ball in Jackson ! See how I sashayed around the ballroom, Laura?[She raises her skirt and does a mincing step around the room.] I wore it on Sundays for my gentlemen callers ! I had it on the day I met your father. I had malaria fever all that spring. The change of climate from East Tennessee to the Delta – weakened resistance I had a little temperature all the time – not enough to be serious – just enough to make me restless and giddy. Invitations poured in – parties all over the Delta! – ‘Stay in bed,’ said mother, ‘you have fever!’ – but I just wouldn’t. – I took quinine but kept on going, going ! Evenings, dances ! – Afternoons, long, long rides! Picnics. – lovely! – So lovely, that country in May. – All lacy with dogwood, literally flooded with jonquils! – That was the spring I had the craze for jonquils. Jonquils became an absolute obsession. Mother said, ‘Honey, there’s no more room for jonquils.’ And still I kept on bringing in more jonquils. Whenever, wherever I saw them, I’d say, “Stop ! Stop! I see jonquils ! I made the young men help me gather the jonquils ! It was a joke, Amanda and her jonquils ! Finally there were no more vases to hold them, every available space was filled with jonquils. No vases to hold them? All right, I’ll hold them myself – And then I – [She stops in front of the picture.] met your father ! Malaria fever and jonquils and then – this – boy…. [She switches on the rose-coloured lamp.] I hope they get here before it starts to rain.”

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Original Monologue by Joseph Arnone – Don’t Look at Me

“Don’t look at me.(points) You.Eh, eh, eh…when I address you, do not look at me.No eye contact.Is that understood?Look away.(beat)Okay, look at me now.(snaps her fingers) I told you not to look at me.Even if I tell you to look at me, do not look at me. Understood?Good, good darling.(she removes her gloves and hands them to her assistant)Oh!I have something in my eye, can you help me?(pointing) Looking, looking, looking!NO looking under all circumstances.You must raise up that attention span of yours.A fish could retain more darling.That is true.I have read it.Less attention span than a fish.Do not let that be you darling.”

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Sarah Brown from “Guys and Dolls” – The Devil

“Brothers and sisters, resist the Devil and he will flee from you. That is what the Bible tells us. And that is why I am standing here, in the Devil’s own city, on the Devil’s own street, prepared to do battle with the forces of evil. Hear me, you gamblers! With your dice, your cards, your horses! Pause and think before it is too late! You are in great danger! I am not speaking of the prison and the gallows, but of the greater punishment that awaits you! Repent before it is too late!Just around the corner is out little mission where you are always welcome to seek refuge from this jungle of sin. Come here and talk to me. Do not think of me as Sergeant Sarah Brown, but as Sarah Brown, your sister. Join me, Brothers and Sisters, in resisting the Devil, and we can put him to flight forever.”

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Eliza Dolittle from “My Fair Lady” – My Aunt Died of Influenza “

My aunt died of influenza, so they said. But it’s my belief they done the old woman in. Yes Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza when she come through diphtheria right enough the year before? Fairly blue with it she was. They all thought she was dead. But my father, he kept ladling gin down her throat. Then she come to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon. Now, what would you call a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza, and what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it, and what I say is, them that pinched it, done her in. Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let alone a hat. And as for father ladling the gin down her throat, it wouldn’t have killed her. Not her. Gin was as mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’s poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.”

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Gwendolyn Fairfax from “The Importance of Being Earnest” – It is Strange

“Oh! It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a ward. How secretive of him! He grows more interesting hourly. I am not sure, however, that the news inspires me with feelings of unmixed delight. [Rising and going to her.] I am very fond of you, Cecily; I have liked you ever since I met you! But I am bound to state that now that I know that you are Mr. Worthing’s ward, I cannot help expressing a wish you were—well, just a little older than you seem to be—and not quite so very alluring in appearance. In fact, if I may speak candidly— […] Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age. Ernest has a strong upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and honour. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable.”

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Bachelorette by Leslye Headland – Regan’s Monologue ‘CAN I SAY SOMETHING?!’

Scene Three
Thirty minutes later.
The suite is empty as it was. A disaster.

After a moment, Regan emerges from the bedroom. A bed sheet wrapped around her. She goes for the coffee and gulps a mug full. The coffee is ice cold so she instantly opens her mouth and coffee spills all over he chest.

REGAN: Shit. Fuck. (Her cell phone catches her eye. She looks at it.) Douchebag. (She makes a call. Into the phone. ) What?!… Why the fuck are you calling me a million times? … It was on vibrate …I’m at Becky’s thing. I told you we would be out late … You go out every fucking Saturday with your meathead friends and I go out once … ONCE in the last six months and you give me shit for it … Uh huh .. Yeah … Well, I don’t care … because you’re an idiot … Yeah … I TOLD you we’d be OUT late … (She see’s Joe’s bowl, She finds a lighter and takes a hit. Into the phone.) You don’t care anyway… your residency my ass-fuck-face … No, I’m not smoking … I’m NOT SMOKING … I Fucking quit three years ago .. for you .. and you don’t trust me … thats what this comes down to … You … you … CAN I SAY SOMETHING?! (Jeff enters from the bedroom. He’s practically dressed. He picks up a coffee as well. He spits it back into the cup. Into the phone) Can I say one thing at this juncture before you start acting like … LISTEN! If you can’t trust me, then I don’t know what the fucking point of me EVER leaving the house … I’ll just bake a casserole and then lie around with my legs open until you feel like … YOU ARE SUCH A BABY! … That’s stupid … Well, I think you’re stupid … I’ll be home when I feel like coming home … FINE! MAYBE I WILL! (She hangs up and tosses the cell phone away.)

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The Last of the Red Hot Lovers By Neil Simon – Elaine’s Monologue- ‘You Hypocrite!’

Elaine:You hypocrite! You soul-searching, finger-smelling, hypocritical son of a bitch! Who are you to tell anybody how to go through life? What would you have done if I came in here all fluttery and blushing and ‘Ooh, Mr Cashman, don’t put your hand there, I’m a married woman’? Were you going to tell me how much you respect me? You know damn well tomorrow you’d be back behind that counter opening clams and praying to Christ I’d never come back in your restaurant. And you know something? That’s the way it should be. Forgive me for the terrible, sinful thing I’m about to say but I happen to like the pure physical act of making love. It warms me, it stimulates me and it makes me feel like a woman – but that’s another ugly story. That’s what I came up here for and that’s what you were expecting. But don’t give me, ‘When I was nine years old my mother ran off with the butcher and I’ve been looking for someone to love me ever since.’ I don’t know your problems and I don’t care. Keep your savory swordfish succotash stories to yourself. No one really cares about anything or anyone in this world except himself, and there’s only one way to get through with your sanity. If you can’t taste it, touch it or smell it, forget it! If you want a copy of that speech, send fifty cents and self-addressed envelope –

It’s getting late … and I have to feed the lion at six..

Don’t waste your time. We’re incompatible. You need Joan Fontaine and I need a box of lozenges.

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THE CHERRY ORCHARD By Anton Chekhov- Lyuba Ranevsky Monologue, ‘Oh My Sins!’

“Oh, my sins…. I’ve always scattered money about without holding myself in, like a madwoman, and I married a man who made nothing but debts. My husband died of champagne—he drank terribly—and to my misfortune, I fell in love with another man and went off with him, and just at that time—it was my first punishment, a blow that hit me right on the head—here, in the river… my boy was drowned, and I went away, quite away, never to return, never to see this river again…I shut my eyes and ran without thinking, but he ran after me… without pity, without respect. I bought a villa near Mentone because he fell ill there, and for three years I knew no rest either by day or night; the sick man wore me out, and my soul dried up. And last year, when they had sold the villa to pay my debts, I went away to Paris, and there he robbed me of all I had and threw me over and went off with another woman. I tried to poison myself…. It was so silly, so shameful…. And suddenly I longed to be back in Russia, my own land, with my little girl…. [Wipes her tears] Lord, Lord be merciful to me, forgive me my sins! Punish me no more! [Takes a telegram out of her pocket] I had this to-day from Paris…. He begs my forgiveness, he implores me to return…. [Tears it up] Don’t I hear music? [Listens.]”

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WOMEN OF MANHATTAN by John Patrick Shanley – Judy Monologue ‘I Will Dream On!’

Judy: I will! I will dream on. Because that is exactly what I am talking about. My dreams. Which you do not know. And which you don’t think are important enough to know. Do you think this body is something? What a joke! Any great poet the last three thousand years will tell you what a joke that is! This stuff, this flesh, this heavy breathing … We have this aptitude in our hearts and brains and souls to arrive at something so rich and inflamed and unspeakable and sacred and New! Not this tired shit you want to foist on me. That’s not what I want. I won’t give up my standards! I know what I know. If I tried to live on the kind of things you’re offering me, I’d starve to death. You’ve got to dig for treasure, Duke! Not settle for the stuff just lying out on the ground. You could sleep with me if you weren’t so god damn lazy and narcissistic and were willing to exert yourself a little and show some interest in the actual core of another human being! But you will not sleep with me because I will not perform a stupid mechanical pantomime, like I was trying and failing to remember something fine, something from a better world, something alien and beautiful and lost! What, you look vacant, don’t you get it? I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. I’ll give it to you in basic modern American: I’m not interested in the hardware without the software. Look, let’s just let this fall apart, okay? Don’t hang around for the sake of neatness. I’ll get the check. It was worth that much to me to have my say.

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The Importance of Being Earnest – Lady Bracknell

Monologue Length 2 Mins

LADY BRACKNELL: Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice . . . as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. Well, Algernon, of course if you are obliged to be beside the bedside of Mr. Bunbury, I have nothing more to say. But I would be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.

A Matter of Husbands: The Famous Actress’ Monologue

Monologue Length 4 Minutes

FAMOUS ACTRESS: It happens to every actress who is moderately pretty and successful. It’s one of the oldest expedients in the world, and we actresses are such conspicuous targets for it! There is scarcely a man connected with the theater who doesn’t make use of us in that way some time or another–authors, composers, scene designers, lawyers, orchestra leaders, even the managers themselves. To regain a wife or sweetheart’s affections all they need to do is invent a love affair with one of us. The wife is always so ready to believe it. Usually we don’t know a thing about it. But even when it is brought to our notice we don’t mind so much. At least we have the consolation of knowing that we are the means of making many a marriage happy which might otherwise have ended in the divorce court. [With a gracious little laugh] There, dear, you mustn’t apologize. You couldn’t know, of course. It seems so plausible. You fancy your husband in an atmosphere of perpetual temptation, in a backstage world full of beautiful sirens without scruples or morals. One actress, you suppose, is more dangerous than a hundred ordinary women. You hate us and fear us. None understands that better than your husband, who is evidently a very cunning lawyer. And so he plays on your fear and jealousy to regain the love you deny him. He writes a letter and leaves it behind him on the desk. Trust a lawyer never to do that unintentionally. He orders flowers for me by telephone in the morning and probably cancels the order the moment he reaches his office. By the way, hasn’t he a lock of my hair? They bribe my hair-dresser to steal from me. It’s a wonder I have any hair left at all. And hasn’t he left any of my love letters lying around? Don’t be alarmed. I haven’t written him any. I might have if he had come to me frankly and said: “I say, Sara, will you do something for me? My wife and I aren’t getting on so well. Would you write me a passionate love letter that I can leave lying around at home where she may find it?” I should certainly have done it for him. I’d have written a letter that would have made you weep into your pillow for a fortnight. I wrote ten like that for a very eminent playwright once. But he had no luck with them. His wife was such a proper person she returned them all to him unread.

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Brilliant Traces by Cindy Lou Johnson

Rosanna Monologue ‘Why didn’t you answer the door?!’

Loud Knocking on the Door

Rosannaapproaches the cabin door wearing a tattered wedding dress

(from outside): ‘Hello! Is anyone there?? Let me in! Im in very serious trouble!’

Bursts through the door, notices Henry Harry standing inside his cabin, shocked.

Rosanna: ‘Why didn’t you answer the door?! I could’ve frozen to death! My death would have been on your hands had that been the case! It’s something like 200 degrees below out there with wind chill and I’ve been walking for over an hour. My car died, dead. I left it out there, its probably totally buried somewhere in the snow. Somewhere – do you mind if I have a drink?

Sighs, takes a drink.

‘Im nearly frozen and I also may be suffering from frostbite of the extremities like my toes and fingers but I was able to keep my fingers from falling off by sticking them in my armpits. I saw that on a TV Movie once. There was this guy and he was in a skiing accident, immobilized and they were taking forever to get him a stretcher or something and so he asks this beautiful nurse who conveniently happened to be there I mean she couldn’t do something because he was freezing to death but she stuck his fingers in his armpits. That’s how she saved him! He fell in love with her then and there and they married later in the show. You know this is always the story of my life. I have to play all the roles, I have to be the one in trouble and the nurse too, sticking my own fingers in my own armpits, saving myself. But the problem is you can’t stick your feet anywhere you know not if you want to keep walking.

Im sorry, do you mind if I just –

Takes another drink.

Sighs* Ohh, so – this is Alaska! Oh my lord, It is harder to believe than I can even say that I am so much as alive. When my car died I could just hear the wind, I could just hear it and the snow was falling so fast and it was covering the windshield instantly, instantly ! And it was getting colder in there by the second and I just thought, ‘Rosanna, this is it for you,’ you know I knew that if I stayed in the car I would fall asleep and I might freeze and die and I knew if I got out of the car with the wind and all that, then I would fall down and freeze and die. Freezing and dying was up there at the forefront of my brain of things to consider but I thought getting out, you know, walking, there’s a chance. I mean a slim chance anyway but a chance so I got out.

Interesting thing about being on the verge of death – you don’t think about the good points or the bad points of life, you just think live! And let there be someone, a light, some warmth that’s all I thought. And then I saw your light, and now, here I am.

*Pause, takes another drink, finishes the bottle.

I’ll pay for this. (small chuckle) You know Ive been on the road for days, and days and days. I don’t even know when I got in my car or where Ive been all I know is that every five hours, gas, that’s been my system. Gas, pee, eat a candy bar, drink a coke, like the engine’s inside me and the car, and (notices a bag of pretzels, starts eating them). Is it okay if I have some of these pretzels? Because it’s just about candy bar time for me and I do not see any candy bars plus its probably best I lay off the sugar. Ive had nothing to eat but sugar for quite some number of days its cheap energy but sooner or later you gotta pay the piper in case of sugar, which I’m doing now. See my hand tremble, that is a Mars bar tremble. Plus I haven’t slept in several days not that I didn’t try mind you, I was awake, with a capital W. Like lying awake was what it was like. The hours passed and the road kind of bleared behind me. So I’m tired, and I’m hungry and the fact of the matter is, Im very dirty. Let’s call is spade to spade, I am filthy and I’ve sweat too much and this dress is a very close fit even in the best of circumstances and the truth is Im in pain, just like terrible pain.

That’s the only reason why I would drink this so hard and fast and it’s not like my muscles but like inside my muscles, my dna, my genes. Ya, I think that must be it or my rna? Im not sure. I just…

Ohhh, (Lets out a sigh,) Im sorry, its this terrible pain in my dna. Im dreadfully sorry Im more sorry than I can say.

Takes a step forward, grabs the chair, faints to the ground.

Fade to black.

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Picking the Best Comedic Monologues

Try to go with a monologue that matches your personality, to an extent. Yes, you’re supposed to be acting, but to nail your audition, choose something you can really identify with. Any of these comedic monologues will slay in the audition room, no matter which you choose. Good luck!

MONOLOGUES FOR ACTORS

Comedic Monologues For Men

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Vancouver is a city that offers a plethora of opportunities for aspiring actors to hone their skills and pursue their dreams. With a vibrant arts and culture scene, Vancouver is a hub for the film and television industry, providing aspiring actors with a wealth of opportunities to gain exposure and experience.

Attending an acting school is one of the best ways for aspiring actors to develop their craft and learn the necessary skills to succeed in the competitive world of acting. Acting schools provide a structured curriculum, experienced faculty, and practical experience, all of which are vital to a successful acting career.

By attending an acting school in Vancouver, aspiring actors not only gain the skills and knowledge needed for a successful career, but they also have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the city’s rich culture and network with industry professionals.

In this article, we will explore the best acting schools in Vancouver, their unique features and programs, and how they can help shape an individual’s acting career. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced actor looking to further your career, Vancouver has something to offer.

Why Choose Vancouver for Acting Schools:

Vancouver is one of the most attractive cities for aspiring actors due to its thriving acting industry, vibrant arts and culture scene, and exceptional location.

The acting industry in Vancouver is robust, with numerous film and television productions being shot in the city every year. Productions such as “Riverdale”, “The Flash”, “Supernatural”, and “Arrow” have all been shot in Vancouver, and many more are in the pipeline. This makes Vancouver an ideal location for aspiring actors to gain practical experience and exposure to the industry.

Apart from its thriving acting industry, Vancouver boasts a vibrant arts and culture scene. From theatre productions to music festivals and art exhibitions, there’s always something happening in Vancouver. This scene provides a platform for aspiring actors to network and collaborate with other artists, which can be vital for a successful acting career.

In addition to its thriving industry and arts scene, Vancouver’s location is also an important factor in honing acting skills. The city is surrounded by stunning landscapes, providing a perfect backdrop for outdoor scenes. The diverse geography of Vancouver also means that actors can easily access a variety of locations for filming, including beaches, mountains, forests, and cityscapes.

Choosing Vancouver as the location for an acting school means gaining access to a wealth of resources and opportunities that can help aspiring actors succeed in the industry. With its thriving acting industry, vibrant arts and culture scene, and exceptional location, Vancouver is the perfect destination for anyone looking to pursue a career in acting.

The Best Acting Schools in Vancouver:

When it comes to choosing an acting school in Vancouver, there are several options to consider, each with its unique features, courses, and programs. Here is an overview of some of the best acting schools in Vancouver:

Vancouver Film School (VFS)

VFS is one of the most reputable acting schools in Vancouver, offering a comprehensive range of acting programs that prepare students for successful careers in the entertainment industry. The school offers programs in acting, writing, and directing for film, TV, and animation, among others. With experienced faculty, cutting-edge facilities, and practical exposure to the industry, VFS provides students with the tools they need to succeed.

VFS offers a range of acting programs, including Acting Essentials, Acting for Film & Television, and Acting for Video Game Performance. The school’s curriculum is designed to prepare students for successful careers in the entertainment industry, with a focus on practical training, industry exposure, and mentorship.

VFS uses a project-based learning approach, where students work on real-life film, TV, or video game projects, giving them practical experience in the industry. The school also provides students with opportunities to network with industry professionals, attend industry events and workshops, and participate in career development programs.

Alumni

Seth Rogen – Vancouver Film School (VFS):

Seth Rogen is a successful actor, writer, and producer who attended VFS’s comedy program. He credits his time at VFS for helping him develop his skills and giving him the necessary experience to succeed in the industry.

Tuition:

Art Essentials Program: $7,750 – $10,750

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Vancouver Acting School

Vancouver Acting School is another leading institution in Vancouver, providing intensive training in acting, auditioning, and voiceover. The school offers courses for beginners, intermediate, and advanced actors, with a focus on building a strong foundation in the craft. The school’s faculty comprises experienced professionals in the industry, ensuring that students get the best training possible.

The Vancouver Acting School offers a range of acting programs, including the Foundation Program, Advanced Program, and Actor’s Masterclass. The school’s curriculum is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the craft of acting, with a focus on practical training, industry exposure, and individualized attention.

The school’s faculty comprises experienced actors and directors, who provide personalized guidance and support to each student. The school also provides students with opportunities to participate in industry events, workshops, and showcases, giving them exposure to the industry.

Tuition:

Acting FTV Diploma: $11,400 – $13,400

Alumni:

Evangeline Lilly – Vancouver Acting School:

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William Davis Centre for Actors’ Study

January 1, 2008, signified a significant milestone for the William Davis Centre for Actors’ Study, one of the most established privately-owned actor training institutions in Vancouver. After 10 months of meticulous planning, the school was officially rebranded as the William Davis Centre for Actors’ Study at VanArts. This transition was marked by the finalization of an agreement between VanArts’ President Alan Phillips, and WDC owners Christine Willes and Greg Kean.

Established in 1989 by the renowned Canadian actor, teacher, and director William B. Davis, the WDC has been steadfast in its mission to offer top-tier actor training for students at all levels of their journey. Davis, famously known for his role as the Cigarette Smoking Man in the popular TV series, X-FILES, saw the institution he founded become a rewarding workplace for many instructors by the early nineties.

Among these instructors, several have made long-standing commitments to the school that endure to this day. Key figures include Christine Willes, the current department head for the Acting for Film and TV diploma program; Chilton Crane, an expert in Film and TV; Sarah Louise Turner, specializing in Voice and Speech; and Julie Howgate, who provides an introduction to Acting.

Tuition:

Location:

333 Terminal Avenue, Suite 700 Vancouver, BC Canada V6A 4C1

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Railtown Actors Studio

Railtown Actors Studio is a boutique acting school in Vancouver, offering classes and workshops in various aspects of acting, including scene study, audition technique, and script analysis. The school’s curriculum is tailored to each student’s unique needs, with a focus on building a strong foundation in the craft. The school’s faculty comprises experienced industry professionals, providing students with a wealth of knowledge and insights.

Location:

1037 Broadway W Unit 4, Vancouver, BC V6E 1M3, Canada

Tuition:

$540-$550 per class

Vancouver Academy for Dramatic Arts

Founded in 2000 by Simon Longmore, the Vancouver Academy of Dramatic Arts (VADA) has rapidly grown to become a leading center of excellence for acting training in Canada. Offering a wide array of acting classes, this full-blown academy with an entire faculty and studio is dedicated to helping aspiring actors achieve their professional goals.

VADA is not just renowned for its quality education but also for its impressive placement rate. Since its inception, it holds the highest actor/agency placement record in the country, boasting that an average of 80% of its students secure placement as professional actors on a talent agent’s roster within six months of graduation. This means VADA students can start attending auditions for paid professional jobs in a very short time.

Location:

900 Helmcken St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1B3, Canada

Tuition: LINK TO ALL VADA TUITION FEES

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LeBlanc School of Acting

The LeBlanc School of Acting is a distinguished international acting school that specializes in television and film acting, specifically for children and teens. Offering a unique and modern educational approach, the school embraces diversity and inclusion to cultivate a dynamic learning environment.

LeBlanc’s mission is to deliver professional youth acting training that fosters the exploration of individual abilities, honing of the craft, and personal empowerment. The school maintains a steadfast belief in equal opportunities for all students, regardless of whether they choose to focus on film or television as their preferred medium.

The LeBlanc School of Acting is a trailblazer in its approach, providing invaluable acting techniques such as crying on demand, eyelines in a scene, and improvisation. In addition to group classes, the school offers one-on-one coaching sessions for auditions, ensuring each student receives individualized attention and guidance.

In essence, the LeBlanc School of Acting is not just an acting school, but a platform that equips young talents with essential life and social skills while building a solid foundation for a successful acting career. For more in-depth information about the LeBlanc School of Acting, visit their official website at leblancschool.com.

Location:

196 W 3rd Ave #204, Vancouver, BC V5Y 1E9, Canada

Tuition: : Link To Tuition Info For All Classes

Each of these acting schools in Vancouver has its unique features and programs, making it essential to compare and contrast them to determine which one is right for you. Whether you’re looking for a comprehensive acting program, an intensive workshop, or personalized training, Vancouver has something to offer.

Tips and Advice for Prospective Students:

1. Do your research: Research the various acting schools in Vancouver and compare and contrast their features, programs, and alumni networks.
2. Visit the school: Visit the school and attend an open house or a class to get a feel for the environment and teaching methods.
3. Talk to alumni: Reach out to alumni of the school and ask them about their experience and how the school contributed to their success.
4. Consider your goals: Consider your career goals and interests and ensure that the school’s curriculum aligns with them.
5. Be committed: Pursuing a career in acting requires hard work, dedication, and perseverance. Be prepared to put in the effort required to succeed.

In conclusion, choosing the right acting school in Vancouver requires careful consideration of several factors. By considering the curriculum, faculty, cost, location, and alumni network, and following the tips and advice provided, prospective students can make an informed decision and pursue a successful career in the entertainment industry.

Other Resources

Best Acting Schools In Australia

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Former co-artistic director of New York City’s LAByrinth Theater Company, Stephen Adly Guirgis is a an actor and playwright who’s plays have been performed throughout the US and across 5 continents. In 2015 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Between Riverside and Crazy. The son of an Egyptian father and an Irish American mother, Guirgis grew up on New York’s Upper West Side. His plays are raw, ambitious with diverse characters exploring justice and morality. Stephen Adly Guirgis is one of our most admired contemporary playwrights and we have put together a list of his best plays. Below is a list we complied we hope you read, work on and enjoy of Stephen Adly Guirgis plays.

Best Stephen Adly Guirgis Plays

Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train

Directed by Philipp Seymour Hoffman this play premiered Off-Broadway at the East 13th Street Theatre in a production by LAByrinth Theater Company on November 29, 2000. The play takes place in a prison on Rikers Island in New York where Angel Cruz is facing murder charges for the death of a cult leader who “stole” his best friend.

The Motherfucker With The Hat

The Motherfucker with the Hat premiered at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on April 11, 2011. The play addresses struggles with addiction, friendship, love, and the challenges of adulthood. Jackie is out on parole and newly sober. He is determined to start a new life with his childhood sweetheart Veronica, but her coke addiction, his slick-talking AA sponsor, and the discovery of another man’s hat in his living room all threaten to derail his tenuous progress.

Between Riverside And Crazy

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2015, Between Riverside And Crazy tell the story of Walter “Pops” Washington (retired  New York City policeman) and his son Junior who has just been released from jail. Walter is pursuing a discrimination suit against the Police Department, because he was accidentally shot by another police officer. Pops, who is Black, has carried resentment about how they handled his disability compensation and the incident in general.

Our Lady Of 121st Street

A group of students return to their Harlem neighborhood to pay respects after the death of the beloved and feared teacher Sister Rose. When they arrive to the funeral home they realize—her dead body has been stolen. Stephen Adly Guirgis takes us on a rough and tumble ride, where the sacred and profane collide. Speaking to the universal themes of loss, regret, and recovery, Our Lady of 121st Street is a wonderfully funny and spiritual play.

The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot

 This play was first staged Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on March 2, 2005, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Last Days of Judas Iscariot tells the story of a court case over the ultimate fate of Judas Iscariot. The play uses flashbacks to an imagined childhood and lawyers who call for the testimonies of such witnesses as Mother Teresa, Caiaphas, Saint Monica, Sigmund Freud, and Satan.

In Arabia We’d All Be Kings

Set in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings follows the demise of a group of individuals who are out of work and strapped for money.The play deals primarily with issues of commercialism, hope, and friendship. The play premiered Off-Off-Broadway at Center Stage in a LAByrinth Theatre Company production on June 23, 1999.

There you have it, we hope this list of the best Stephen Adly Guirgis plays helps you with more material to read and work on!

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John Patrick Shanley is is one of the more prominent modern playwrights who’s work is worked on by actors in drama schools all over the world. For that reason we have compiled a list of John Patrick Shanley Monologues to help you with some material to work on in class.

Doubt: A Parable Monologues

Summary: Mrs. Mueller tells Sister Aloysius that her son needs a man in his life.

MRS. MULLER: You accept what you got to accept and you work with it. … Well he’s got to be somewhere, maybe he’s doin’ some good too … Well maybe some of them boys want to get caught. … That’s why his father beat him. Not the wine. … I’m talkin’ about the boy’s nature, nun. Not anything he’s done. You can’t hold a child responsible for what God gave him to be. … But then there’s the boy’s nature … Forget it then. Forcing people to say things. My boy came to your school ‘cause they were gonna kill him in the public schools. His father don’t like him. He come to your school, kids don’t like him. One man is good to him, this priest. And does a man have his reasons? Yes. Everybody does. You have your reasons but, do I ask the man why he’s good to my son? No. I don’t care why. My son needs some man to care about him. And to see him through the way he wants to go. And thank God this educated man, with some kindness in him, wants to do just that.

Age: 30s 40s
Gender: Monologues For Women
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

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FLYNN: It’s me that cares about that boy, not her. Has she ever reached out a hand to that child or any child in this school? She’s a block of ice! Children need warmth, kindness, understanding! What does she give them? Rules. That black boy needs a helping hand or he’s not going to make it here! But if she has her way, he’ll be left to his own undoing. Why do you think he was in the sacristy drinking wine that day? He’s in trouble! She sees me talk in a human way to these children and she immediately assumes there must be something wrong with it. Something dirty. Well, I’m not going to let her keep this parish in the Dark Ages! And I’m not going to let her destroy my spirit of compassion! 

SISTER JAMES: I’m sure that’s not her intent.

FLYNN: I care about this congregation!

SISTER JAMES: I know you do.

FLYNN: Like you care about your class! You love them, don’t you?

SISTER JAMES: Yes.

FLYNN: That’s natural. How else would you relate to children? I can look at your face and know your philosophy: kindness.

SISTER JAMES: I don’t know. I mean, of course.

FLYNN: What is Sister Aloysius’ philosophy do you suppose?

SISTER JAMES: I don’t have to suppose. She’s told me. She discourages… warmth. She’s suggest I be more… formal.

FLYNN: There are people who go after your humanity, Sister James, who tell you the light in your heart is a weakness. That your soft feelings betray you. I don’t believe that. It’s an old tactic of the cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue. Don’t believe it. There’s nothing wrong with love.

SISTER JAMES: Of course not, but…  

FLYNN: Have you forgotten hat was the message of the Savior to us all? Love. Not suspicion, disapproval and judgement. Love of people. Have you found Sister Aloysius a positive inspiration?

Age: 30s 40s 50s 60s
Gender: Monologues For Men
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

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The Dreamer examines His Pillow Monologues

DONNA: Alright. [a long pause] Tommy an me … When he loves me. In bed. When he puts his arms around me, and I can feel his skin, his heart beating, his breath, and I smell him, it’s like Africa. It’s like, I get scared because all of my guts shake … Sometimes I press my hands against myself because I think things are coming loose inside. He just touches me, starts to barely touch me, and I’m so frightened because it’s so much, it’s so hot, it’s so close to losing my mind. It’s beyond pleasure. It’s … he takes me over. Like there’s a storm, I get caught in this storm with electricity and rain and noise and I’m blind I’m blind. I’m seeing things, but just wild, wild shapes flying by like white flyin rain and black shapes. I feel I feel this this rising thing like a yell a flame. My hair I can feel my hair like slowly going up on its toes on my skull my skull. Everything goes up through me from my belly and legs and feet to my head and all these tears come out but it can’t get out that way, so it goes down against my throat swells an through down to where it can get out GET OUT GET OUT. But it doesn’t go out, so I, I EXPAND. Like to an ocean. To hold the size of it. An then it’s maybe something you could speak of as pleasure, since then somehow I can hold it. I’m this ocean with a thousand moons and comets reflecting in me. And then I come back. Slowly. Slowly. From such a long way. And such a different size. And I’m wet. My body my hair. The bed is just soaked, torn up and soaked. There ain’t a muscle left in me. I’m all eyes. My eyes are the size of like two black pools of water in the middle of an endless night. And Tommy’s there. And he did it to me. He took me completely. I wasn’t me anymore. I was just a blast a light out in the stars. What could be better than that? What could be better? It’s like gettin to die, an get past death, to get to the universe, an then come back. In the world where we talk and fight and he fucks me over, it all just seems so unimportant after that. I don’t understand how he can do that for me an then turn around an be such a, well, smaller. It is a small world this world, in comparison to where we go in bed. And I guess we gotta be smaller in it.

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Monologues For Women
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

Download this Monologue Here

DONNA: An Mona. A really lousy picture, self-picture. But it scared me. I think more than anything that’s ever happened to me. I heard the fuckin Twilight Zone music. Cause here I am, goin along, thinkin things are one way, that I’m choosin an goin my own way, an maybe doin a terrible fuckin botch a that, but doin it. An then I see this picture. And I think, Do I really know what’s goin on in my life? Or am I just a complete molecule or some shit. If this guy Tommy is turnin into you, then I’m in some kinda car I don’t even know I’m in, and some guy inna scary mask is drivin, an he’s had the route the map since the doctor smacked my ass. Where am I? I’m in love with this guy Tommy. He’s drivin me crazy, yeah. He’s tearin my heart out an steppin on it, yes. The whole thing I’m doin looks to be a total fuckup, but I can deal with that I can live with that. But what I wanna know gotta know is IS THIS MY LIFE OR WHAT? Is this my pain? My love? Or if what’s goin on here like history? You treated my mother like shit. You cheated on her. You lied to her. You humiliated her in public. When you had money, you wouldn’t give her any. When she had money, you took it. You walked on her face with muddy shoes. When she was in the hospital, you didn’t visit her. And then finally she just fuckin died. Now I hate your fuckin guts for that, but I decided a long time since that I wasn’t gonna spend my whole life wishin you dead or different, cause I didn’t want my life bossed by your life. I even thought, Maybe she deserved it. I knew I didn’t know the whole story and never would an what was it my business anyway? But that was before. Today, I saw that picture on Tommy’s wall, an it was writin on the wall to me, an the writin said, Watch Out. You could be in the middle of somebody else’s life. So that’s why I’m here. Because before I thought I didn’t have to know about you to do my life, and now I see I better find out a few things. It’s like medical history.

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Monologues For Women
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

Download This Monologue Here

Savage In Limbo Monologues

(Tony Aronica describes why he’ll only date ugly girls from now on.)
Tony: I was in my car outside this place over the weekend. I hadda couple a drinks and I was a little fuzzy, so I was waitin till I cleared. It was dark. I was sittin there. And this unknown girl got in. She just got in the car. And she started talkin to me. She started rappin to me about the Soviet Union. Yeah. ’bout their economy. Housin. How they feel about China bein’ right there. Everything. Everything about the Soviet Union. She musta talked for two hours. Russian paranoia. Tass. The Gulag. I’m sittin there an’ I’m takin’ this in. The Trans-Siberian Railroad. hat kinda tanks they got in Eastern Europe. Why they need American wheat. And then she was finished. She’d told me everything she knew. So I took her in the back seat and I banged her. And do you know something? It was the best. It was the best I ever had. And it whadn’t cause she knew a lotta tricks or like that. It was ’cause she’d told me about the Soviet Union. And then she left. Now here’s the thing. She was very ugly. I don’t even wanna talk about how she looked. Mucho ugly. I didn’t think I could ever be with a woman like that. But it came about outta whatever, happpenstance, and I was. And it turned out to be better than what I went after. Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I’m comin’ towards? I always went for the girl like you. And what finally fuckin’ come to me, what finally fuckin’ penetrated the wall here, was that there was somethin’ else. Somethin’ I never even thought about, didn’t have a clue about. When I talked to you, I called it ugly girls. I don’t know what to call it. There’s other people. Like in science fiction. Another dimension right there but you can’t see it. I got into it for a minute by accident. Through a crack. I caught a flash. The dimension a ugly girls. I’m like one a those guys inna factory and they bring in all new machines. That’s what I feel like. Like I gotta retrain or I’m gonna lose my place. Some girls you look at some girls you don’t. I wanna see the things I didn’t see before an let the stuff I was lookin at go by. I’ve done the fuckin thing we’re in. Linda. I’ve been with you, I talked to you. I know what that is. That’s what I meant when I said you didn’t know nothin, but I whadn’t sayin it right. You look at what I look at. You know what I know. I wanna look at somethin else. I wanna know somethin else. I’m thirty-two years old. I wanna change.

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Monologues For Men
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

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SAVAGE: I feel strong. Like I’m wearin chains and I could snap ’em any time. I feel ready. I go to work and I feel like I could take over the company, but I just type. I go home and I see my mother in her chair and I feel like I could pick her up with one hand and chuck her out the window and roll up the rug and throw a big party. Everybody’s invited. I go to the library and I wanna take the books down off the shelves and open all the books on the tables and argue with everybody about ideas. I wanna think out loud. I wanna think out loud with other people. You know what’s wrong with everybody? Too smart. I know it sounds crazy. I know. But it’s true. Everybody’s too smart. It’s like everybody knows everything and everybody argued everything and everything got hashed out and settled the day before I was born. It’s not fair. They know about gravity so nobody talks about gravity. It’s a dead issue. Look at me. My feet are stuck to the fuckin floor. Fantastic. But no. That’s gravity. Forget it. It’s been done it’s been said it’s been thought, so fuck it. It’s not fair. I’ve been shut outta everything that mighta been good by a smartness around that won’t let me think one new thing. And it’s been like that with love, too. You’re a little girl and you see the movies and maybe you talk to your mother and you definitely talk to your friends and then you know, right? So you go ahead and you do love. And somethin a what somebody told ya inna movie or in your ear is what love is. And where the fuck are you then, that’s what I wanna know? Where the fuck are you when you’ve done love, and you can point to love, and you can name it, and love is the same as gravity the same as everything else, and everything else is a totally dead fuckin issue?

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Monologues For Women
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

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Danny And The Deep Blue Sea Monologue

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Monologues For Women
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

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Italian American Reconciliation Monologue

ALDO: So our fathers are dead. We can’t go on trying ta make our fathers love us or fightin our fathers or tryin ta kill our fathers. What’s the point of killing a dead man cause he won’t love you? A dead man don’t need killin and a dead man can’t love you at all. I know you’re crazy and just me talking ain’t gonna make you sane. But comon! We’re all crazy, that ain’t no excuse. You been treated me bad my whole life and enough already. I been nuts, too. I’m tryin to be well, too. Let’s drop this shitload, this weight of sorrow, these sandbags on our necks from a million years ago, and try to talk to each other about now. You can’t kill me Janice. You been trying your whole life, an I just won’t die. Even when you fire a gun at me, it explodes in your hand. Even if I die, I’ll still be jumping around inside your head. You know, this distance you are from me, this distance now, if we talk to each other, this could be the least distance there ever has been between us.

There’s somethin I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time but I never did. I’m sorry your marriage broke up.

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Monologues For Men
Type: Monologues From Plays
Genre: Drama

Download This Monologue Here

We hope you have enjoyed this list of John Patrick Shanley Monologues. Please see our other Shanley related article below.

John Patrick Shanley Plays

John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. He won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film Moonstruck.

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Eugene O’Neill plays, many of which explored everyday Americans living through desperate conditions, Eugene O’Neill won 4 Pulitzer Prizes (a still unmatched record for a playwright) and he, himself, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936.

Considered the father of American theater, Eugene O’Neill is recognized by many as the greatest American playwright paving the way for other renowned writers like Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.

Nearly all of O’Neills plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism. Perhaps his greatest work “Long days Journey Into Night” is widely considered to be his magnum opus and one of the finest American plays of the 20th century. This autobiographical play follows the Tyrone family, consisting of parents James and Mary and their sons Edmund and Jamie. The “Long Day” refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.

During the span of his career O’Neill penned more than fifty plays. We have compiled a list of the greatest Eugene O’neill plays for. you to enjoy reading and working on in class.

Greatest Eugene O’Neill Plays

Long Days Journey Into Night

This autobiographical play depicts one long, summer day in the life of the fictional Tyrone family, a dysfunctional household based on O’Neill’s actual family during his early life. This four act play was written between 1939-41 and considered to be the greatest American play of the twentieth century.

The Iceman Cometh

First published in 1946, about a group of drunks in a New York City bar in 1912. O’Neill tells the story of a number of alcoholic dead-enders who live together above a bar and what happens to them when the most successful of them embraces sobriety and reveals that he has been on the run after murdering his wife.

A Moon for the Misbegotten

The sequel to “Long Days Journey Into Night” that follows the life of an older Jamie Tyrone. O’Neill began writing this play in 1941 and finally completed it in 1943. This play was his final work and his failing health made it impossible for him to write.

Anna Christie

Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1922, Anna Christie tells the story of the title character separated from her father, reuniting with him in adulthood. Not knowing her daughter is now a prostitute her father becomes enraged when she tells him of her troubled past. Anna falls in love with a sailor who her father does not want her to marry.

Mourning Becomes Electra

Mourning Becomes Electra is divided into three plays with themes that correspond to the Oresteia trilogy. Published in 1931 the trilogy consists of Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. The plays are set during the American Civil War and the characters are modeled after the trilogy of Aeschylus.

The Hairy Ape

Produced in 1922, this expressionist play follows the unruly protagonist “Yank” as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. Angered that a rich mans daughter finds him beast like and repulsive, he starts to deteriorate mentally. As he searches for belonging we see the impact that wealth and social classes has on Yank.

Eugene O’Neills work will always be a a dominant force in American theater. His plays are still considered amongst the most difficult works for actors to tackle. It takes many actors years of dedication to the craft before attempting to tackle a Eugene O’neill play. Nevertheless, you should start working on the now! We hope you found this list of the greatest Eugene O’Neill plays helpful and resourceful!

More From Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill – A Portrait of the Artist

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Born in a hotel room in 1888 to the actor James O’Neill, and his wife Ella Quinlan, Eugene began his life immersed in a world that would go on to become the backdrop of his profession: the theater. Touring the country with his father’s stage company, the young O’Neill became exposed to the seamy underbelly of show business, specifically alcohol, before he was a teen. A bright student, O’Neill was later accepted into Princeton before dropping out after his first year to move from Connecticut to New York––where he spent most of his time drinking and carousing with his brother.

By 1910, he had married his first of three wives, Kathleen Jenkins, although the union was short-lived due to O’Neill’s penchant for traveling. While out on a solo trip to Latin America, wherein he caught malaria, O’Neill returned home to find Kathleen pregnant. Upon giving birth to a son, Eugene O’Neill, Jr., he––without seeing the boy––shipped off again. Kathleen filed for divorce soon after. It was after this return that O’Neill decided to be a playwright.

Over the next five years, O’Neill would write a series of mostly one-act plays, honing his craft as an observational writer by incorporating much of his own traveling experiences into titles like, Into the Zone(1917) and The Long Voyage Home (1917). In 1918, he married Agnes Boulton and the two would have children, Shane and Oona. Professionally, it wasn’t until 1920 that critics and audiences began to take note of O’Neill’s writing, with the publishing of Beyond the Horizon (1918)––which would win the first of four Pulitzer Prizes.

Following this, O’Neill experienced a period of prolific writing, many of these plays dealing with fractured families and general misfortunes. Such characters were fragile and nuanced––but ultimately resilient, including those featured in Anna Christie (1920), The Emperor Jones (1920), The Hairy Ape (1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), and Strange Interlude (1928)––the former and latter of which won him his second and third Pulitzer.

Despite professional success, O’Neill’s world was crashing down, what with the death of his mother, father, and brother, plus the dissolution of his marriage upon taking up with actress Carlotta Monterey (who we would marry less than one month after divorcing Boulton) in 1929.

The next decade saw the publishing of some of Eugene O’Neill’s best work, including Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and The Iceman Cometh (1939)––featuring further examples of contemplative characters struggling with tragedy. By this time, he had also all but abandoned his children.

In 1943, Eugene O’Neill became father-in-law to famed comedian and actor, Charlie Chaplin who married 18-year-old Oona (Chaplin was 54). Despite the mild controversy, their marriage produced 8 children (including actress Geraldine Chaplin) and lasted until Chaplin’s death in 1977.

Sadly, O’Neill’s final years were spent mostly estranged from his family, as well as from much of the literary community. His failing health, and by now reclusive nature, was a boon for creativity, however, he followed up by making a series of wild and erratic decisions––like, destroying many of his manuscripts (fearing that they would be altered after his death) and asserting that certain plays, like the autobiographical Long Day’s Journey Into Night, not be produced for the stage during his lifetime. Also, a severe Parkinsons-like tremor had developed in his hand, which all but prevented him from writing new material.

Eugene O’Neill died in his room at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on November 27, 1953. Though varying causes of death have been released over the years, it wasn’t until 2000 that it was discovered he died from a rare form of brain deterioration.

His final words, allegedly, were: “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room”.

Beyond the Horizon, 1918
A classic exploration of the bonds of loyalty, O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon tells the story of brothers Andrew and Robert––the former, a steely and determined farmer destined to inherit the family stead; and the latter, a writer recently recovered from illness and set to sail the world with an uncle. Before Robert’s leave, he falls in love with Ruth, a girl-next-door type whom both families thought would marry Andrew. Given this newfound romance, Robert stays behind to be with Ruth and tend to the land while Andrew sets sail. However, years pass, and Andrew returns to find the farm desolate, their father dead, and Ruth a bitter shell of her former pristine self.

Anna Christie, 1920
Eugene O’Neill won his second Pulitzer Prize in two years, Anna Christie blends humor with melodrama in this explorative four-act play about the testing of familial bonds. Chris Christopherson is an old sailor who has spent his life at sea––much to the chagrin of his family, including his daughter, Anna, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Following the death of his wife, Chris sends Anna to live with relatives on a farm. After experiencing a lifetime of abuse at the hands of the men on the farm, Anna, now working as a prostitute, writes to her father in the hopes that she can come to New York and live with him until she gets herself back on her feet. Anna escapes the life she hates, only to find new challenges while grappling with her history of abandonment until a handsome sailor––just like her father––enters the picture.

Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
One of Eugene O’Neill’s acclaimed masterpieces, Mourning Becomes Electra is a trilogy of tragic plays inspired by Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy––with a New England backdrop and an American Civil War timeline. The play follows the volatile Mannon family––Lavinia, who constantly fights with her mother, Christine, while waiting for the battlefield return of her father, General Ezra. All the while, as America attempts to return to a version of its former self, arrogance, hatred, and duplicity, along with dark secrets, threaten to fracture the Mannons to the point of murder. A study in psychological conflict, Mourning offers insight into family tragedy and its effect on the survivors.

The Iceman Cometh, 1939
Every night, the ramshackle saloon and rooming house owned by Harry Hope is teeming with a motley crew of New Yorkers from all walks of life, including two Boer War veterans, a once-wealthy gambler, and a former syndicalist anarchist. This ragtag team of drunken misfits has little in common other than the need for a stiff drink. It isn’t until a not-so-unexpected visit from their favorite, charming and newly sober traveling salesman, Theodore Hickman, that the members of this wily gang are forced to confront their habits and life choices and take a look at their sobering realities once and for all––while bearing the brunt of the consequences of such introspection.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, 1941
Easily one of O’Neill’s most closely associated acts, not to mention one of the most lauded and studied plays in the history of American theater, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a work so deeply personal (some say autobiographical) that the author himself insisted that it not be produced until twenty-five years after his death. Taking place over the course of a single day in the life of the tortured Tyrone family–– beginning in the morning, as the family gathers for breakfast, and concluding in the late evening––this four-act character study (James and Mary, along with their sons, Edmund and Jamie) is a daunting, yet seminal read for any fan of O’Neill.

Mary, subsumed by an addiction to morphine, watches helplessly as her family is overtaken by trauma––Edmund falls ill with consumption, while Jamie descends into a bitter, alcohol-fueled downfall––all the while James, a former successful actor, bemoans and dreams of the life he could have had. All of the Tyrones are haunted by their missteps and are eventually consumed by them.

A Moon for the Misbegotten, 1943
A Moon for the Misbegotten is the sequel to the events in Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night and centers around the elder Tyrone brother, Jamie Tyrone. Since he was last seen, Jim, as he is now known, is older and much more despondent, working as the landlord of the estate and spending most of his time drinking and socializing with his tenants. He is especially friendly with two renters: the hard-worn Irish ex-pat Phil Hogan and his domineering daughter, Josie, who has been secretly in love with Jim all the while. When Phil discovers that the stead is to be sold off, he concocts a plan for Josie to seduce a drunken Jim in an effort to thwart the sale. However, Jim, as Josie discovers, is haunted by the ghosts of his past, racked with misgivings and self-loathing torment, virtually incapable of love. A Moon for the Misbegotten is the story of a doomed man’s guilt and the woman who tries desperately to love him.

Eugene O’Neills Greatest Plays

Eugene O’Neill plays, many of which explored everyday Americans living through desperate conditions, Eugene O’Neill won 4 Pulitzer Prizes (a still unmatched record for a playwright) and he, himself, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936.

Eugene O’Neill Monologues

There can be no half way work when working on O’Neill and that is why it is important immerse yourself in his work as a young actor. In that spirit we have put together a list of Eugene O’Neill monologues for you to explore and work on.

The post Eugene O’Neill – A Portrait of the Artist appeared first on We Are Actors.

Shakespeare monologues are easy to come by since most, if not all, of the Bard’s plays, feature many monologues. The challenge is selecting the right Shakespeare monologue to rehearse acting techniques.

The best monologues for actors aren’t necessarily the most difficult but the most impactful to the arc of the tale.

Although he did receive patronage from the aristocracy, Shakespeare’s dialogue captured common men and women’s tone. The language of Elizabethan England, while explicitly formal, was also imbued with a wide variety of colloquialisms.

In that tradition, here are twenty Shakespeare monologues that aren’t worked on that often.

Shakespeare Monologues For Men

1. The Taming of the Shrew – Act III, Scene 2

Petruchio:

They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her;
to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead;
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.
But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own-
She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,
And here she stands; touch her whoever dare;
I’ll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;
Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.
Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;
I’ll buckler thee against a million.

2. Richard III – Act IV, Scene 6

King Richard:

As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt
Of hostile arms! myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceedings, if, with pure heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her, follows to this land and me,
To thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay:
It cannot be avoided but by this;
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, good mother,—I must can you so—
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve:
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish-fond in great designs.

3. Othello – Act III, Scene 3

Othello:

As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt
Of hostile arms! myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceedings, if, with pure heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her, follows to this land and me,
To thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay:
It cannot be avoided but by this;
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, good mother,—I must can you so—
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve:
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish-fond in great designs.

4. King Lear – Act II, Scene 4

Lear:

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need- Y
ou heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall- I will do such things-
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth! You think I’ll weep.
No, I’ll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

5. The Merchant of Venice – Act III, Scene 2

Bassanio:

O sweet Portia,
Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,
When I did first impart my love to you,
I freely told you, all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman;
And then I told you true: and yet, dear lady,
Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
How much I was a braggart. When I told you
My state was nothing, I should then have told you
That I was worse than nothing; for, indeed,
I have engaged myself to a dear friend,
Engaged my friend to his mere enemy,
To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady;
The paper as the body of my friend,
And every word in it a gaping wound,
Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?
Have all his ventures fail’d? What, not one hit?
From Tripolis, from Mexico and England,
From Lisbon, Barbary and India?
And not one vessel ‘scape the dreadful touch
Of merchant-marring rocks?

6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Act II, Scene 2

Puck:

Through the forest have I gone.
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Night and silence..Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.

7. Macbeth – Act II, Scene 1

Macbeth:

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings]
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

8. Troilus and Cressida – Act V, Scene 2

Troilus:

This she? no, this is Diomed’s Cressida:
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolved, and loosed;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

9. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will – Act IV, Scene 3

Sebastian:

This is the air; that is the glorious sun;
This pearl she gave me, I do feel’t and see’t;
And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
Yet ’tis not madness. Where’s Antonio, then?
I could not find him at the Elephant:
Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,
That he did range the town to seek me out.
His counsel now might do me golden service;
For though my soul disputes well with my sense,
That this may be some error, but no madness,
Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
That I am ready to distrust mine eyes
And wrangle with my reason that persuades me
To any other trust but that I am mad
Or else the lady’s mad; yet, if ’twere so,
She could not sway her house, command her followers,
Take and give back affairs and their dispatch
With such a smooth, discreet and stable bearing
As I perceive she does: there’s something in’t
That is deceiveable. But here the lady comes.

10. Julius Caesar – Act III, Scene 1

Antony:

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,—
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue—
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
\With carrion men, groaning for burial.
[Enter a Servant]
You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?

Any student of theatre would do well to rehearse from these monologues for men.

Shakespeare Monologues For Women

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Act III, Scene 2

Hermia:“O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment:
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so;
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! none of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.”

Age: 20s 30s Teens
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: No

Download This Monologue Here

2. The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 2

Portia: If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word ‘choose!’ I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: No

Download This Monologue Here

3. Troilus and Cressida – Act I, Scene 2

Cressida: Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungain’d, beseech:
Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: Yes

Download This Monologue Here

4. Macbeth – Act IV, Scene 3 (this one is popular but we love it)

Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

Age: 20s 30s 40s 50s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: No

Download This Monologue Here

5. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will – Act III, Scene 1 

Olivia: O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon.
Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth and every thing,
I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause,
But rather reason thus with reason fetter,
Love sought is good, but given unsought better.

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: Yes

Download This Monologue Here

6. King Lear – Act I, Scene 4 

Goneril: This admiration, sir, is much o’ th’ savour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d, and bold
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Make it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy. Be then desir’d
By her that else will take the thing she begs
A little to disquantity your train,
And the remainder that shall still depend
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves, and you.

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Male
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: No

Download This Monologue Here

7. Julius Caesar – Act II, Scene 2 

Calpurnia: Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.

Age: 20s 30s 40s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: Yes

Download This Monologue here

8. The Taming of the Shrew – Act IV, Scene 3 

Kate: The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars that come unto my father’s door
Upon entreaty have a present alms;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starv’d for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;
With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;
And that which spites me more than all these wants-
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,
‘Twere deadly sickness or else present death.
I prithee go and get me some repast;
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

Age: 20s 30s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: Yes

Download This Monologue Here

9. Othello – Act I, Scene 3 (This one too) 

Desdemona: That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,
And to his honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Age: 20s 30s 40s 50s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: Yes

Download This Monologue Here

10. Richard III – Act IV, Scene 4 

Margaret: Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead, that stabb’d my
Edward: Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
Young York he is but boot, because both they
Match not the high perfection of my loss:
Thy Clarence he is dead that kill’d my Edward;
And the beholders of this tragic play,
The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
Untimely smother’d in their dusky graves.
Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,
Only reserved their factor, to buy souls
And send them thither: but at hand, at hand,
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end:
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.
To have him suddenly convey’d away.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead!

Age: 20s 30s 40s 50s
Gender: Female
From: Monologues From Plays
Type: Classical
One minute monologue: No

Download This Monologue Here

Please check out more monologues for women here .

The post Shakespeare Monologues That Aren’t That Popular appeared first on We Are Actors.

Theater Roles For Men and Women In Their 20’s and 30’s.

FEMALE ROLES
1. Rosannah DeLuce in Brilliant Traces By Cindy Lou Johnson

This is a two hander so there is a lot of material to work on. “Brilliant Traces” follows distraught and on-the-run bride-to-be Rosannah DeLuce, who flees her wedding. Still dressed in her wedding gown, she hops in a car and makes her way from Arizona to Alaska, surviving on “candy bars and Coke” before bad weather and exhaustion prompted her to find sanctuary in a remote cabin belonging to Henry Harry. This role has tons of comedic moments that will force you to get creative and live outside your comfort zone. It also has moments of deep self reflection when Rosannah opens up to Henry Harry about the circumstances to lead her to his cabin.
This play is a farce and must be played with the utmost honesty in order for it to work. Many parts will come off surreal and they are, but you must play the truth.

2. Vanda Jordan in Venus and Fur By David Ives

The play begins with Novachek on the telephone lamenting the inadequacies of the actresses who have showed up that day to audition for the lead character, Wanda von Dunayev. Suddenly, at the last minute, a new actress called Vanda Jordan bursts in. At first it’s hard to imagine that she will please this very particular and exasperated writer/director: She’s brash, vulgar and unschooled. But she convinces him to let her audition for the part of Wanda, with the director/writer reading the part of Severin von Kushemski.

If you are shy or reserved and wanna work one being able to let go and be free on stage this is the role for you. It is very fun and will allow you to explore character work, physical choices and behavior.

3. Kayleen in Gruesome Playground Injuries By Rajiv Jospeh

Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.
First of all this is one of the sweetest most heartbreaking plays I have ever read and worked on. Also a two hander the scenes jump time going back and forth from when the characters are from ages eight to thirty eight. Because of this you will have to play the characters at every age which is a challenge everyone should take. This play will make you laugh make you cry and you will be a much better artist after working on it.

4. Hennie Berger in Awake and Sing By Clifford OdetsT

his 1935 play tells the story of a family influenced by communist and capitalistic ideals living in a tiny Bronx apartment. Bessie Berger, the lady of the house, is forced to arrange the marriage of her daughter, Hennie Berger, after she becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Bessie doesn’t like Sam, the man her daughter has to marry, because he is poor. However, she has no other choice since the man has rented part of their house and is the closest to the family.

This is a more dramatic role from a classic that you can work your way up to. Hennie is a Jew from the Bronx married to a man she doesn’t love during the Great Depression. She has to make the choice of staying where she is or running away to the unknown with an old lover (Moe Axelrod) to start a better life.
PS – Before you work on any Odets plays please read Stella Adler on America’s Master Playwrights. She breaks down all of Americas greatest playwrights so that you can better understand their work.

5. Nina from The Seagull By Anton Chekhov

Nina is a nineteen-year-old neighbor of Sorin’s estate who grew up in an estate bordering the same lake that acts as a backdrop for the play. She is one of the four protagonists of the play. Nina’s mother died when she was young and left her fortune to her husband, Nina’s father, without leaving any inheritance for Nina. Her father remarried and put all of the money in her stepmother’s name, contributing to Nina’s insecure future.

Act Four of The Seagull is probably the most difficult scene in theater history. Take your time, work on many other parts before you feel like tackling this. Read it and study it at anytime of course but don’t go into it blindly. This is a beautiful part and all young women should aspire to be able to do this role professionally. If you love the theater of course. Again before working on Chekhov, read Stellas book on him as well. You must have almost a scientific approach to his work that Stella breaks down for you with examples from scenes.

Here are a few more that you can look up that are also great.-Roberta in “Danny and The Deep Blue Sea” By John Patrick Shanley-Veronica in “Motherfucker With The Hat” By Steven Adler Guirgis-Laura in “The Glass Menagerie” By Tennessee Williams-Carol Cutrere in “Orpheus Descending” By Tennessee Williams-Maggie in “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” By Tennessee Williams

MALE ROLES
1. Jonathan in Snakebit By David Marshall Grant

The play centers on Jonathan and his wife, Jenifer, while they visit their oldest friend, Michael, at his home in Los Angeles. Jonathan, an actor, is in L.A. auditioning for a film—his first big break at stardom—and he’s dragged Jenifer with him for support. The play becomes deeper and forces us to see how ugly we can be when we look only at ourselves when we really should remember to look at others—especially those we love. This part will help an actor explore a range of emotions like anger, sadness, desperation, heartbreak and love. A great play to work on in class for any young actor.

2. Doug in Gruesome Playground Injuries By Rajiv Joseph

Yes, this play again. The male role is also fantastic and will be an exercise of the totality of your skills. I think I learned the most about where I was in my craft by working on this part. Really taught me that I had much more work to do. I struggled being able to play Doug in the many different ages we seem him throughout the play. Working on Doug both broke my heart and taught me so much about human beings. Doug loves Kayleen from the moment he meets her when they are eight and never stops loving her no matter how much time or what circumstances have befallen him. He reminded me of a wounded dog with unconditional love for those who cared about him.

3. Coleman OR Valene in The Lonesome West By Martin McDonagh

“The Lonesome West” features the persistently arguing brothers Coleman and Valene, whose father has just died in a shotgun ‘accident.’ Valene is only interested in his religious ornaments and drinking poteen. Coleman is only interested in eating, and attends funerals to collect free sausage rolls and vol au vents.
Challenging parts due to the truth needed to be brought to the horrifically dark comedic moments that make this play so good. Also you get to work on a Western Irish accent which is fun as hell.

4. Jamie OR Edmund in Long Days Journey Into Night By Eugene O’Neill

The play takes place on a single day in August 1912, from around 8:30 a.m. to midnight. The setting is the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones’ Monte Cristo Cottage. This play is semi-autobiographical about O’Neill’s own life dealing with a drug addicted mother, and his battle with tuberculosis. This play portrays a family in a ferociously negative light as the parents and two sons express accusations, blame, and resentments—qualities that are often paired with pathetic and self-defeating attempts at affection, encouragement, tenderness, and yearnings for things to be otherwise.

These two parts are among the toughest male parts to tackle so work your way up to them. This is one of my favorite plays and it will take everything you have emotionally to explore the depths of Jamie and Edmund. Beautiful parts in a beautiful play. Go to work.

5. Konstantin Treplev in The Seagull By Anton Chekhov

Back to this play because it’s a classic. Treplev is Arkadina’s only son. He struggles to find his voice as a writer in the shadow of his successful actress mother and her lover, the writer Trigorin, both of whom are members of the elite Russian intelligensia and artistic community. Treplev is impatient, self- defeating and childish. His need for love and approval torments him. He attempts to create new forms in dramatic writing and literature that reflect the new wave of symbolist writing that emerged in Russia during Chekhov’s time. His writing parodies Chekhov’s own work. Treplev is a dreamer and a compassionate soul who fills the void of affection in his life with self-doubt.
There are many great scenes of Treplev in this play. I would start from the top and work your way down throughout the whole play.

Here are a few more that you can look up that are also great.Henry Harry –“Brilliant Traces” By Cindy Lou JohnsonMoe Axelrod –“Awake and Sing” by Clifford OdetsValentine Xavier –“Orpheus Descending” By Tennessee WilliamsTom – “The Glass Menagerie” By Tennessee WilliamsStanley Kowalski –“Street Car Named Desire” By Tennessee Williams

Hope this was of help to you guys. Again you might be the right casting for all of these but they are still great parts to work on.

The post Theater Roles For Men and Women In Their 20’s and 30’s. appeared first on We Are Actors.

50 Great Monologues For Auditions

Are you an actor searching for the perfect audition monologue? Look no further! In this article, we’ll explore the essential qualities of a good audition monologue and how to choose the one that’s right for you. Here we break down the key elements that will make your monologue stand out in any audition.

1. Emotional Arc: A compelling monologue tells a story and takes the audience on an emotional journey. Look for monologues that showcase a character’s emotional arc, which will allow you to demonstrate your ability to convey a range of emotions and connect with the audience.
2. Demonstrates Your Range: Choose a monologue that highlights your versatility as an actor. The piece should showcase your strengths and allow you to display a wide range of acting skills, from subtle moments to dramatic intensity.
3. Suits the Project and Character: A great audition monologue should be tailored to the project and character you’re auditioning for. Consider the tone, style, and genre of the production, and select a monologue that aligns with the specific role.
4. Appropriate Length: Keep your monologue brief and concise. Audition monologues should generally be no longer than two minutes, allowing you to showcase your acting skills without overwhelming the casting director.
5. Originality: Stand out from the crowd by choosing a unique, lesser-known monologue. Avoid overused, clichéd pieces, and opt for a monologue that will leave a lasting impression on the casting director.

If you’re preparing for a college audition, you found the right page.

A good audition monologue should demonstrate your emotional range, versatility, and connection to the character. By choosing a piece that is tailored to the project and role, you’ll increase your chances of making a lasting impression on the casting director or college you are seeking admission into.

The right monologue can make or break your college audition, and depending on the program, you may need to memorize up to four monologues. Finding the right monologue can be tricky, but if you’re looking for inspiration, below are fifty great monologues for auditions.

How To Find A Good Monologue That Works

Before you explore the audition monologues below please watch this video from John Windsor-Cunningham for tips on finding monologues that work.

John Windsor-Cunningham trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and with Sanford Meisner in New York, where he now lives, acts and works as a Skype acting coach for Films, TV, Theatre and some drama school auditions.

When you are doing a monologue for an audition there are other people auditioning, quite a few of them usually. Someone has to sit through and watch them all. It can be incredibly boring sitting through watching lots of people doing a monologue. One time I watched 35 monologues and every single one was exactly the same. Imagine it, thirty five people doing a monologue and its exactly the damn same, of course I was bored. THEN one person came on and he did his monologue and it seemed to be about him. You’ve got to make the monologue about you. You’ve got to know how to make the lines about you. 

John Windsor-Cunningham

Female Comedic Monologues For Auditions

All from published plays, here are some of our favorite comedic monologues for females:

Alcott By Adam Szymkowicz

Erin was writing a play for Prague to direct. During this time, an uneasy love triangle emerged between Erin, her roommate Jessie, and Prague. Meanwhile, Jessie and Erin, who now live together, are discussing the possibility of having a baby. However, the plot becomes more complex as it is unclear whether everything seen in the first act of the play is actually the play Erin wrote. There is a sword fight, and a character named Violet insists on being called Elizabeth.

VIOLET: My name’s not Violet. My name has never been Violet. I always introduce myself as Elizabeth. It’s my name. It’s always been my name. Meredith called me Shrinking Violet once during my freshman year and ever since then, everyone thinks my name is Violet. My name is not Violet. It’s been fourteen years. Stop fucking calling me Violet!

(PRAGUE: Relax, Honey.)

I will not relax. You know, I’ve expended so much energy over the years trying to get you to notice me. All of you. Why do I care what you think? How is it I think about you when you aren’t there? Still. All the time. All of you? You’re not that special. You never were. No one cares about you. No one knows who you are. You’ve built this wind tunnel around you that celebrates your cult. It’s not a real thing. Theater isn’t even a real thing. My mother thinks I open curtains during Lion King. And you! All the things you do are insignificant. You are selfish and you are oblivious and you are all terrible people.

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Good People By David Lindsay-Abaire

In this scene, Margaret takes a cigarette break during work and converses with her younger supervisor, who happens to be the child of her deceased friend, Suzie. She is characterized by her outgoing and sharp-witted nature, frequently employing humor to deal with her difficult life circumstances. In this adapted passage, Margaret shares an amusing anecdote to sidestep a serious discussion with her boss about arriving late for her shift. In the source material, Margaret skillfully navigates or evades her boss’s interruptions, which is a crucial element to emphasize in this portrayal

MARGARET: Did I ever tell you the turkey story? Up at Flanagan’s? When I worked up there and she came in? She never told you that turkey story? Huh. She was pregnant with you. No, Jimmy actually – she was pregnant with Jimmy – because it was near Christmas, and your father was locked up in Walpole again, so she didn’t have any money for anything. She had nothing. So your mother comes into Flanagan’s, and she’s out to here. (Indicates belly.) When’s Jimmy’s birthday? January. Right, so she’s out to here, and in this big coat. Remember that blue coat she always wore? And she’s walking up and down the aisles, slipping things in the pockets – potatoes, and cans of cranberry sauce, cookies, because you guys gotta eat, right? So she comes waddling up to my register. And I’m like, “Hey Suzie, how are the kids?” And she doesn’t wanna talk obviously, she’s just trying to push through the line, “Oh they’re good, I was just looking for something, but you don’t have it, so I’m gonna try someplace else.” And then there turkey falls out of her coat. It hits the floor right between her legs. A turkey. Boom. And I swear to god, she didn’t miss a beat. She looks up, real mad, and yells, “Who threw that bird at me?!” (Really laughing now). Oh we died. Everybody there. Ya had to laugh. “Who threw that bird at me?!” She was a funny sonofabitch. Pardon my French. God she was funny. I think about her all the time. Your mother was a good lady. It’s a lesson though. You’re lucky you don’t smoke. Too young, your mother.

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My Fair Lady By George Bernard Shaw

This monologue is from the book by Alan Jay Lerner (Based on the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

ELIZA DOLITTLE: “My aunt died of influenza, so they said. But it’s my belief they done the old woman in. Yes Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza when she come through diphtheria right enough the year before? Fairly blue with it she was. They all thought she was dead. But my father, he kept ladling gin down her throat. Then she come to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon. Now, what would you call a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza, and what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it, and what I say is, them that pinched it, done her in. Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let al one a hat. And as for father ladling the gin down her throat, it wouldn’t have killed her. Not her. Gin was as mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’s poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.”

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The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

One of Amanda Winfield’s monologues from The Glass Menagerie

AMANDA: “Possess your soul in patience – you will see! Something I’ve resurrected from that old trunk! Styles haven’t changed so terribly much after all. [She parts the portières.] Now just look at your mother ! [She wears a girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash. She carries a bunch of jonquils – the legend of her youth is nearly revived.] [Feverishly]: This is the dress in which I led the cotillion, won the cakewalk twice at Sunset Hill, wore one spring to the Governor’s ball in Jackson ! See how I sashayed around the ballroom, Laura? [She raises her skirt and does a mincing step around the room.] I wore it on Sundays for my gentlemen callers ! I had it on the day I met your father. I had malaria fever all that spring. The change of climate from East Tennessee to the Delta – weakened resistance I had a little temperature all the time – not enough to be serious – just enough to make me restless and giddy. Invitations poured in – parties all over the Delta! – ‘Stay in bed,’ said mother, ‘you have fever!’ – but I just wouldn’t. – I took quinine but kept on going, going ! Evenings, dances ! – Afternoons, long, long rides! Picnics. – lovely! – So lovely, that country in May. – All lacy with dogwood, literally flooded with jonquils! – That was the spring I had the craze for jonquils. Jonquils became an absolute obsession. Mother said, ‘Honey, there’s no more room for jonquils.’ And still I kept on bringing in more jonquils. Whenever, wherever I saw them, I’d say, “Stop ! Stop! I see jonquils ! I made the young men help me gather the jonquils ! It was a joke, Amanda and her jonquils ! Finally there were no more vases to hold them, every available space was filled with jonquils. No vases to hold them? All right, I’ll hold them myself – And then I – [She stops in front of the picture.] met your father ! Malaria fever and jonquils and then – this – boy…. [She switches on the rose-coloured lamp.] I hope they get here before it starts to rain.”

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Noises Off By Michael Frayn

DOTTY OTLEY: “It’s no good you going on. I can’t open sardines and answer the phone. I’ve only got one pair of feet. Hello…. Yes, but there’s no one here, love…. No, Mr. Brent’s not here…He lives here, yes, but he don’t live here now because he lives in Spain… Mr. Philip Brent, that’s right…. The one who writes the plays, that’s him, only now he writes them in Spain… No, she’s in Spain, too, they’re all in Spain, there’s no one here… Am I in Spain? No, I’m not in Spain, dear. I look after the house for him, but I go home at one o’clock on Wednesday, only I’ve got a nice plate of sardines to put my feet up with, because it’s the royal what’s-it’s called on the telly — the royal you know — where’s the paper, then? And if it’s to do with letting the house then you’ll have to ring the house-agents, because they’re the agents for the house…. Squire Squire, Hackham and who’s the other one…? No, they’re not in Spain, they’re next to the phone in the study. Squire, Squire, Hackham, and hold on, I’ll go and look. Always the same, isn’t it. Soon as you take the weight off your feet, down it all comes on your head.”

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The Importance of Being Earnest

LADY BRACKNELL: Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion- has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now- but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society. I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over. You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter- a girl brought up with the utmost care- to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

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The Cherry Orchard By Anton Chekov

LUBOV: What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn’t it because you’re young, because you haven’t had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn’t it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me. I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather too, I love this house. I couldn’t understand my life without that cherry orchard, and if it really must be sold, sell me with it! My son was drowned here…. Have pity on me, good, kind man.

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Original Monologue by Joseph Arnone

“Don’t look at me. (points) You. Eh, eh, eh…when I address you, do not look at me. No eye contact. Is that understood? Look away. (beat) Okay, look at me now. (snaps her fingers) I told you not to look at me. Even if I tell you to look at me, do not look at me. Understood? Good, good darling. (she removes her gloves and hands them to her assistant) Oh! I have something in my eye, can you help me? (pointing) Looking, looking, looking! NO looking under all circumstances. You must raise up that attention span of yours. A fish could retain more darling. That is true. I have read it. Less attention span than a fish. Do not let that be you darling.”

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The Admirable Crichton

LADY MARY: “I sighted a herd near Penguin’s Creek, but had to creep round Silver Lake to get to windward of them. However, they spotted me and then the fun began. There was nothing for it but to try and run them down, so I singled out a fat buck and away we went down the shore of the lake, up the valley of rolling stones; he doubled into Brawling River and took to the water, but I swam after him; the river is only half a mile broad there, but it runs strong. He went spinning down the rapids, down I went in pursuit; he clambered ashore, I clambered ashore; away we tore helter-skelter up the hill and down again. I lost him in the marshes, got on his track again near Bread Fruit Wood, and brought him down with an arrow in Firefly Grove.”

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You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

SALLY BROWN: “A ‘C’? A ‘C’? I got a ‘C’ on my coathanger sculpture? How could anyone get a ‘C’ in coathanger sculpture? May I ask a question? Was I judged on the piece of sculpture itself? If so, is it not true that time alone can judge a work of art? Or was I judged on my talent? If so, is it fair that I be judged on a part of my life over which I have no control? If I was judged on my effort, then I was judged unfairly, for I tried as hard as I could! Was I judged on what I had learned about this project? If so, then were not you, my teacher, also being judged on your ability to transmit your knowledge to me? Are you willing to share my ‘C’? Perhaps I was being judged on the quality of coathanger itself out of which my creation was made…now is this not also unfair? Am I to be judged by the quality of coat hangers that are used by the drycleaning establishment that returns our garments? Is that not the responsibility of my parents? Should they not share my ‘C’?”

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A Midsummer Night Dream

HELENA: “O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;For beasts that meet me run away for fear:Therefore no marvel though Demetrius Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.What wicked and dissembling glass of mineMade me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.Lysander if you live, good sir, awake”

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Female Dramatic Monologues For Auditions

Here are some more contemporary monologues for women that are more dramatic:

Anna Christie By Eugene O’Neill

ANNA: I s’pose if I tried to tell you I wasn’t- that- no more you’d believe me, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would! And if I told you that yust getting out in this barge, and being on the sea had changed me and made me feel different about things,’s if all I’d been through wasn’t me and didn’t count and was yust like it never happened- you’d laugh, wouldn’t you? And you’d die laughing sure if I said that meeting you that funny way that night in the fog, and afterwards seeing that you was straight goods stuck on me, had got me to thinking for the first time, and I sized you up as a different kind of man- a sea man as different from the ones on land as water is from mud- and that was why I got stuck on you, too. I wanted to marry you and fool you, but I couldn’t. Don’t you see how I’d changed? I couldn’t marry you with you believing a lie- and I was shamed to tell you the truth- till the both of you forced my hand, and I seen you was the same as all the rest. And now, give me a bawling out and beat it, like I can tell you’re going to. Will you believe it if I tell you that loving you has made me- clean? It’s the straight goods, honest! Like hell you will! You’re like all the rest!

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A Dolls House By Henrik Ibsen

NORA: You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you–I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which–I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman–just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

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Ivanov By Anton Chekov

SASHA: What can you possibly have to tell me? That you are a man of honour? The whole world knows it. You had better tell me on your honour whether you understand what you have done or not. You have come in here as a man of honour and have insulted him so terribly that you have nearly killed me. When you used to follow him like a shadow and almost keep him from living, you were convinced that you were doing your duty and that you were acting like a man of honour. When you interfered in his private affairs, maligned him and criticised him; when you sent me and whomever else you could, anonymous letters, you imagined yourself to be an honourable man! And, thinking that that too was honourable, you, a doctor, did not even spare his dying wife or give her a moment’s peace from your suspicions. And no matter what violence, what cruel wrong you committed, you still imagined yourself to be an unusually honourable and clear-sighted man.

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Lungs By Duncan MacMillan

WOMAN: Look. Alright. Listen, you have to understand, alright, I’m thinking out loud here so please just let me talk, just let me think it through out loud. Please, alright, don’t just jump in if I say something wrong or stupid, just let me think, okay. Because I’ve always wanted – alright – and I’m talking in the abstract, I’ve always wanted, I’ve always had a sense or an idea of myself, always defined myself, okay, as a person who would. That my purpose in life, that my function on this planet would be to. And not that I ever thought about it like that. It’s only now because you’re asking – or not asking but mentioning. Starting the conversation. Only because of that, that I’m now even thinking about it. But it’s always been sort of a given for me, an assumption ever since I was a little girl playing with dolls. I mean long, long before I met you. It’s never been what I guess it should be which is a a a a a a an extension of an expression of, you know, fucking love or whatever. A coming together of two people. It’s always been this, alright – and this will sound stupid and naive. But it’s always been an image, I guess, of myself with a bump and glowing in that motherly – or pushing a pram or a cot, or a mobile above it or singing to it. Reading Beatrix Potter or Dr Seuss. I don’t care, never cared about it being a boy or a girl. Just small and soft and adorable and with that milky head smell and the tiny socks and giggles and, yes, vomit even. It’s all part of it. Looking after it. Caring for it. That’s, I think, the impulse. And there’s always been a father in the picture but sort of a blurring background generic man. I’m sorry, it’s just this picture of my life I’ve always had since I was able to think and I’ve never questioned it. Never.

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In The Boom Boom Room By David Rabe

CHRISSY: Shut up! I think I said for you to shut up! Did I not say I am not in the mood? I am not in the mood! I got stuff to do I want it to be alone I do it. I gotta be makin’ some resolutions about my stupid life. I can’t not bite my fingernails. I can’t not do it. I can’t keep ‘em long and red, because I’m a person and I’m a nervous person, and I diet and diet I might as well eat a barrel a marshmallows. My voice is not sexy or appealing. I try to raise it. I try to lower it. I got a list a good things to say to a man in bed, I say stupid stuff made up out outa my head. My hands are too big. My stockings bag all the time. Nothin’ keeps me a man I want anyway. I mean, how’m I gonna look like that? (Seizing a glamour magazine and thrusting the cover in Guy’s face.) I can’t do it. Not ever. And then maybe I finally get it right and my nails are long and red, I got on a new pretty dress, and I go out–I got earrings and perfume, new shiny shoes and rings all aglittery on my fingers, and they bring me back here and strip me down and a hunk of meat is all I am. Goddamn that rotten stinking Al and let him run off the end a the earth with that weird Ralphie!

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Proof By David Auburn

CATHERINE: I lived with him. I spent my life with him. I fed him. Talked to him. Tried to listen when he talked. Talked to people who weren’t there … Watched him shuffling around like a ghost. A very smelly ghost. He was filthy. I had to make sure he bathed. My own father. After my mother died it was just me here. I tried to keep him happy no matter what idiotic project he was doing. He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I took them out of the library by the carload. We had hundreds upstairs. Then I realized he wasn’t reading: he believed aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He was trying to work out the code. Beautiful mathematics. The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music … Plus fashion tips, knock-knock jokes – I mean it was nuts, OK? Later the writing phase: scribbling nineteen, twenty hours a day … I ordered him a case of notebooks and he used every one. I dropped out of school … I’m glad he’s dead.

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Chapter Two By Neil Simon

JENNIE: You know what you want better than me, George… I don’t know what you expect to find out there, except a larger audience for your two shows a day of suffering… I know I’m not as smart as you. Maybe I can’t analyse and theorise and speculate on why we behave as we do and react as we do and suffer guilt and love and hate. You read all those books, not me… But there’s one thing I do know. I know how I feel. I know I can stand here watching you try to destroy everything I’ve ever wanted in my life, wanting to smash your face with my fists because you won’t even make the slightest effort to opt for happiness- and still know that I love you. That’s always so clear to me. It’s the one place I get all my strength from… You mean so much to me that I am willing to take all your abuse and insults and insensitivity- because that’s what you need to do to prove I’m not going to leave you. I can’t promise I’m not going to die, George. That’s asking too much. But if you want to test me, go ahead and test me. You want to leave, leave! But I’m not the one who’s going to walk away. I don’t know if I can take it forever, but I can take it for tonight and I can take it next week. Next month I may be a little shaky… But I’ll tell you something, George. No matter what you say about me, I feel so good about myself- better than I felt when I ran from Cleveland and was frightened to death of New York. Better than I felt when Gus was coming home at two o’ clock in the morning just to change his clothes. Better than I felt when I thought there was no one in the world out there for me, and better than I felt the night before we got married and I thought that I wasn’t good enough for you. Well, I am! I’m wonderful! I’m nuts about me! And if you’re stupid enough to throw someone sensational like me aside, then you don’t deserve as good as you’ve got! I am sick and tired of running from places and people and relationships… And don’t tell me what I want because I’ll tell you want I want. I want a home and I want a family- and I want a career, too. And I want a dog and I want a cat and I want three goldfish. I want everything! There’s no harm in wanting it, George, because there’s not a chance in hell we’re going to get it all anyway. But if you don’t want it you’ve got even less chance than that… Everyone’s out there looking for easy answers. And if you don’t find it at home, hop into another bed and maybe you’ll come up lucky. Maybe! You’d be just as surprised as me at some of the “maybe’s” I’ve seen out there lately. Well, none of that for me, George. You want me, then fight for me, because I’m fighting like hell for you. I think we’re both worth it.

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Cat On A Hot Tin Roof By Tennessee Williams

MAGGIE: Brick, y’know I’ve been so God damn disgustingly poor all my life!- That’s the truth, Brick! Always had to suck up to people I couldn’t stand because they had money and I was poor as Job’s turkey. You don’t know what it’s like. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s like you would feel a thousand miles away from Echo Spring!- And had to get back to it on that broken ankle… without a crutch! That’s how it feels to be as poor as Job’s turkey and have to suck up to relatives that you hated because they had money and all you had was a bunch of hand-me-down clothes and a few old moldy three per cent government bonds. My daddy loved his liquor, he fell in love with his liquor the same way you’ve fallen in love with Echo Spring!- And my poor Mama, having to maintain some semblance of social position, to keep appearances up, on an income of one hundred and fifty dollars a month on those old government bonds! When I came out, the year I made my debut, I had just two evening dresses! One Mother made me from a pattern in Vogue, the other a hand-me-down from a snotty rich cousin I hated! -The dress that I married you in was my grandmother’s weddin’ gown… So that’s why I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof! You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it. You’ve got to be old with money because to be old without it is just too awful, you’ve got to be one or the other, either young or with money, you can’t be old and without it.- That’s the truth, Brick…

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Bull By Mike Bartlett

ISOBEL: When she hears you’re out of work, her low estimation of you will drop even further. It will. I promise. She won’t be surprised. She won’t be like “oh my god he lost his job!” – she’ll be like “of course he lost his job, the fucking retard. Good job I got out when I could. Wouldn’t want Harry to see too much of him though. Better not let Harry to grow up into this distorted, disabled, fucking image of his fucking drip of a father.” I expect that’s what she’ll think. It’s tough isn’t it? Life. Is it a lot more difficult than what you’d thought it would be? I mean, I’m sure you thought it was going to be difficult but that through sheer hard work and practice and training and inspiration – and in your case perspiration – that you would come through and in the end succeed. Because you thought, y’know, in this country at least, it was, at the end of the day, a meritocracy. And that fair play and honest, transparent work behaviour would be rewarded in the end. That bad people like me would fall by the wayside. And good people like you would triumph. Is that what you thought? Oops.

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Male Dramatic Monologues For Auditions

Here are some male dramatic monologues that are sure to wow the school of your choice:

The Seagull By Anton Chekhov

TREPLEV: She loves me – she loves me not…She loves me – she loves me not… Loves me, loves me not. (laughs) There you are – she doesn’t love me. Well, of course she doesn’t. She wants to live and love and dress in light colours, and there am I, twenty-five years old, perpetually reminding her that she’s stopped being young. When I’m not there she’s thirty-two – when I am she’s forty-three; and that’s why she hates me. Then again I don’t acknowledge the theatre. She loves the theatre – she thinks she’s serving humanity and the sacred cause of art, whereas in my view the modern theatre is an anthology of stereotypes and received ideas. When the curtain goes up, and there, in a room with three walls lit by artificial lighting because it’s always evening, these great artists, these high priests in the temple of art, demonstrate how people eat and drink, how they love and walk about and wear their suits; when out of these banal scenes and trite words they attempt to extract a moral – some small and simple moral with a hundred household uses; when under a thousand different disguises they keep serving me up the same old thing, the same old thing, the same old thing – then I run and don’t stop running, just as Maupassant ran from the sight of the Eiffel Tower, that weighed on his brain with its sheer vulgarity. What we need are new artistic forms. And if we don’t get new forms it would be better if we had nothing at all.

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Mercy By Adam Szymkowicz

IAN: I feel like such a fucking idiot. You come over looking for a friend and I’m . . . I guess I thought . . . I’ve always had this problem. It’s not just you. Sometimes you see the signals you want to see instead of the signals that are actually there. I used to ask. I used to say, ‚Äúcan I kiss you now‚Äù but it’s so unromantic. So unspontaneous. I just thought . . . But yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I needed you to want that whether or not you did. I guess I just really need something right now. This whole thing has been really fucked up. Not just being sober, but . . . I was a whole different person. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who — It’s been really hard to get through the day. I stopped drinking because I had to. I couldn’t keep going that way but now I’m trying to figure out how to keep living, you know? I’m running out of reasons to stay alive. Not that — I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem. You don’t want to hear this. Right? Ted? Are you still there?

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Wink By Phoebe Eclair-Powell

MARK: When dad died he had this shit blog he was really proud of – before Tumblr was even a thing and you would’ve thought he had just invented space travel cos he was beaming for days, going upstairs to put another post on – “gotta keep my views up, son,” and he would look at me like “see, we understand each other” but I told him that no fucker in their right mind wanted to know about middle-aged running clubs and he said “that’s where you’re wrong, son, that’s where you are so very wrong.” He would say that a lot, and try not to let me get to him, because for some reason I used to like to undermine him even though I loved him. When he signed up for the London Marathon he linked it to his JustGiving page and it was like he had landed on the moon. Mum said it was unfair that a man that fit should just drop down dead and her friend said – “it’s always the ones you least suspect.” And I told her to go fuck herself in my head but not out loud because everyone looks at you really hard when it’s your father’s funeral. Shannon did a lot of fainting which was annoying, and Mum kept holding my hand saying “thank you for keeping it together – we need you to keep us all together” and so I decided that I wasn’t going to be what they needed. Online there are people who create Facebook pages for dead people, loved ones, relatives, pets. My mum wanted me to make a page on his blog to tell people what had happened – “they need to know” she said, “they’re not pen pals, Mum, that’s not how it works, they’ll just think he gave up blogging for a bit” and I rolled my eyes at her for a full stop. Sometimes I did check it, just to see if he’d had any more views, but then I realised I was the one making the counter go up.

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Cock By Mike Bartlett

JOHN: I’m sorry I’m not speaking, I’m sorry, I know it’s weird but I’m trying to work out how to handle this who to be because I’m two different people with the two of you when you’re separate and now I’m in the middle and no one. I have absolutely no idea who I am. Everyone else seems to have a personality, a character but I’ve never, I’ve never – I used to do voices, I remember this, and I don’t think anyone can really understand it when I say it but I remember one moment when I couldn’t think what was my own voice, I’d been doing high voices and northern voices and men’s voices and impressions of the teachers and my dad, and people on the telly and everyone was laughing and I tried to go back to my own voice but I couldn’t remember what it is. And I always stand in front of the mirror for ages, every day I never know what to wear, when I go shopping for clothes I bring him and he says it’s up to you, what do you like, and I think I don’t know I don’t have a fucking clue just choose something that isn’t too strange, that means I don’t look like a fucking idiot.

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The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

TOM: I didn’t go to the moon. I went much further–for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoebox. I left St. Louis. I descended the steps of the fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly coloured but torn away from their branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of coloured glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colours, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger–anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura – and so goodbye…

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Orpheus Descending By Tennessee Williams

VAL: You know they’s a kind of bird that don’t have legs so it can’t light on nothing but has to stay all its life on its wing in the sky? That’s true. I seen one once, it had died and fallen to earth and it was light blue colored and its body was tiny as your little finger, that’s the truth, it had a body as tiny as your little finger and so light on the palm of your hand it didn’t weigh more than a feather, but its wings spread out this wide but they was transparent, the color of the sky and you could see through them. That’s what they call protection coloring. You can’t tell those birds from the sky and that’s why the hawks don’t catch them, don’t see them up there in the high blue sky near the sun! But those little birds they don’t have no legs at all and they live their whole lives on the wing, and they sleep on the wind, that’s how they sleep at night, they just spread their wings and go to sleep on the wind like other birds fold their wings and go to sleep on a tree…. They sleep on the wind and… (His eyes grow soft and vague.) Never light on this earth but one time when they die!

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A View From The Bridge By Arthur Miller

ALFIERI: You wouldn’t have known it, but something amusing has just happened. You see how uneasily they nod to me? That’s because I am a lawyer. In this neighborhood to meet a lawyer or a priest on the street is unlucky. We’re only thought of in connection with disasters, and they’d rather not get too close. I often think that behind that suspicious little nod of theirs lie three thousand years of distrust. A lawyer means the law, and in Sicily, from where their fathers came, the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten. I am inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy . . . I only came here when I was twenty-five. In those days, Al Capone, the greatest Carthaginian of all, was learning his trade on these pavements, and Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in half by a machine gun on the corner of Union Street, two blocks away. Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men. Justice is very important here. But this is Red Hook, not Sicily. This is the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge. This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world. And now we are quite civilized, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better. I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet. And my practice is entirely unromantic. My wife has warned me, so have my friends; they tell me the people in this neighborhood lack elegance, glamour. After all, who have I dealt with in my life? Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers, compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles – the petty troubles of the poor – and yet . . . every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is, the flat air in my office suddenly washes in with the green scent of the sea, the dust in this air is blown away and the thought comes that in some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse, another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course.

Burn This By Lanford Wilson

PALE: Well, see, fine, you got these little social phrases and politenesses–all they show me is this–like–giganticness of unconcern with your “I’m sorrys,” man. The fuckin’ world is going down the fuckin’ toilet on “I’m sorrys.” I’m sorry is this roll of toilet paper–they’re growing whole forests, for people to wipe their asses on with their “I’m sorrys.” Be a tree. For one day. And know that that tree over there is gonna be maybe music paper, the Boss is gonna make forty million writin’ some poor-slob-can’t-get-work song on. This tree is gonna be ten-dollar bills, get passed around, buy things, mean something, hear stories; we got sketch pads and fuckin’ “I don’t love you anymore” letters pinned to some creep’s pillow–something of import. Headlines, box scores, some great book or movie script–Jack Nicholson’s gonna mark you all up, say whatever he wishes to, anyway, out in some fuckin’ desert, you’re supposed to be his text, he’s gonna lay out this line of coke on you-Tree over there is gonna be in some four-star restaurant, they’re gonna call him parchment, bake pompano in him. And you’re stuck in the ground, you can’t go nowhere, all you know is some fuckin’ junkie’s gonna wipe his ass and flush you down the East River. Go floating out past the Statue of Liberty all limp and covered with shit, get tangled up in some Saudi Arabian oil tanker’s fuckin’ propellers–you got maybe three hundred years before you drift down to Brazil somewhere and get a chance to maybe be a coffee bush. “I’m sorrys” are fuck, man.

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Sankebit By David Marshall Grant

JONATHAN: I can’t believe you never told me you slept with my wife three months before I was married. Don’t say anything. I don’t want you to say anything. I just think there’s been too many secrets at the table, that’s all. I don’t want any more secrets, okay. I’m out in the hallway, you’re in the kitchen. God, I miss you Michael. I want us to be closer. I need you, really. Please. I’m going to a shrink, okay? I’m going to cure myself. I have to. Nobody likes me anymore. She’ll come home, I know she will. I mean, we’ve been married ten years, you make allowances. I’m a shit I admit it. But what nobody seems to give me credit for, is I hate myself. I accomplish a thing just to see how worthless it is. I know that. I eat myself basically. I keep winning, watching it prove nothing but my own failure. She’s the only thing I didn’t win, Michael. She took me. I don’t know why. I have to keep her. We’ll make up. We’ve been doing it for a decade. And if we can’t, we’ll bury it, like nuclear waste, and we’ll move on. We’ve done it before. That’s what people do. Do you remember when your mother died and I hugged you? I was a better person then. I want to help you. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. You gotta feel snakebit. Michael, you’re going to be fine. They know so much more now. I know you’re going to be fine.

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Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar

AMIR: You keep saying that like it means something. You still don’t get it. The Quran is about tribal life in a seventh-century desert, Isaac. The point isn’t just academic. There’s a result to believing that a book written about life in a specific society fifteen hundred years ago is the word of God: You start wanting to re-create that society. After all, it’s the only one in which the Quran makes any literal sense. That’s why you have people like the Taliban. They’re trying to re-create the world in the image of the one that’s in the Quran. Amir has since gotten up from the table and is now pouring himself another drink. Here’s the kicker. And this is the real problem: It goes way deeper than the Taliban. To be Muslim—truly—means not only that you believe all this. It means you fight for it, too. Politics follows faith? No distinction between mosque and state? Remember all that? So if the point is that the world in the Quran was a better place than this world, well, then let’s go back. Let’s stone adulterers. Let’s cut off the hands of thieves. Let’s kill the unbelievers. And so, even if you’re one of those lapsed Muslims sipping your after-dinner scotch alongside your beautiful white American wife—and watching the news and seeing folks in the Middle East dying for values you were taught were purer—and stricter—and truer… you can’t help but feel just a little a bit of pride.

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Male and Female Classical Monologues For Auditions

Many programs ask you to include at least one classical monologue, so if you’re looking for classical monologues for women or classical monologues for men, here are ten to pick from:

Agamemnon by Aeschylus (Male)

AGAMEMNON: And what and I supposed to tell them?
It’s too late for turning back. Too late.
You Gods,
How cleartell this heartache?
How begin to break the binds
Of these threads in which I’m now entwined?
Some Gods plays with me and my plans,
His cunning far outwits my petty wiles.
The rabble live with lighter load,
Unencumbered, they can cry
When the fates fuck them around.
Not so us people of position,
We must appearances preserve.
We are the slaves of our supporters.
Trapped helpless in their gaze.
What can I do?
I am ashamed to show my grief,
Yet it is shameful not to shed a tear,
Such misfortune now enmesh me.
You Gods, were things not bad enough
Without Klytaimnestra coming too?
With what words will I greet my wife?
With what face can I look at her?
A mother must tend to her daughter, I suppose,
On her daughter’s wedding day.
Though this father grieves at how
He must give his child away.
My child,
My ill-starred child,
Who will now honeymoon with Hades
On her knees she’ll beg me;
Father, do not marry me to martyrdom, Papa-

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The Merchant of Venice By William Shakespeare (Female)

PORTIA:
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that
follows his own instructions: I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps
o’er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the
youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the
cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
choose me a husband. O me, the word ‘choose!’ I may
neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I
dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed
by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

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All’s Well That Ends Well By William Shakespeare (Male)

PAROLLES: It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept is ever lost. ‘Tis too cold a companion. Away with’t! ‘Tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by’t. Out with’t! Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with’t! ‘Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying: the longer kept, the less worth. Off with’t while ’tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion, richly suited, but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats drily. Marry, ’tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet ’tis a withered pear! Will you anything with it?

Medea by Euripides (Male)

JASON: I ought not to be rash, it seems, in speech,

But like the skilful pilot, who, with sails

Scarce half unfurled, his bark more surely guides,

Escape, O woman, your ungoverned tongue.

Since you the benefits on me conferred

Exaggerate in so proud a strain, I deem

That I to Venus only, and no god

Or man beside, my prosperous voyage owe.

Although a wondrous subtlety of soul

To you belong, ’twere an invidious speech

For me to make should I relate how Love

By his inevitable shafts constrained you

To save my life. I will not therefore state

This argument too nicely, but allow,

As you did aid me, it was kindly done.

But by preserving me have you gained more

Than you bestowed, as I shall prove: and first,

Transplanted from barbaric shores, you dwell

In Grecian regions, and have here been taught

To act as justice and the laws ordain,

Nor follow the caprice of brutal strength.

By all the Greeks your wisdom is perceived,

And you acquire renown; but had you still

Inhabited that distant spot of earth,

You never had been named. I would not wish

For mansions heaped with gold, or to exceed

The sweetest notes of Orpheus’ magic lyre,

Were those unfading wreaths which fame bestows

From me withheld by fortune. I thus far

On my own labours only have discoursed.

For you this odious strife of words began.

But in espousing Creon’s royal daughter,

With which you have reproached me, I will prove

That I in acting thus am wise and chaste,

That I to you have been the best of friends,

And to our children. But make no reply.

Since hither Iolchos’ land I came,

Accompanied by many woes, and such

As could not be avoided, what device

More advantageous would an exile frame

Than wedding the king’s daughter? Not through hate

To you, which you reproach me with, not smitten

With love for a new consort, or a wish

The number of my children to augment:

For those we have already might suffice,

And I complain not. But to me it seemed

Of great importance that we both might live

As suits our rank, nor suffer abject need,

Well knowing that each friend avoids the poor.

I also wished to educate our sonsIn such a manner as befits my race

And with their noble brothers yet unborn,

Make them one family, that thus, my house

Cementing, I might prosper. In some measure

Is it your interest too that by my bride

I should have sons, and me it much imports,

By future children, to provide for those

Who are in being. Have I judged amiss?

You would not censure me, unless your soul

Were by a rival stung. But your whole sex

Hath these ideas; if in marriage blest

Ye deem nought wanting, but if some reverse

Of fortune e’er betide the nuptial couch,

All that was good and lovely ye abhor.

Far better were it for the human race

Had children been produced by other means,

No females e’er existing: hence might man

Exempt from every evil have remained.

Much Ado About Nothing By William Shakespeare (Male)

BENEDICK: This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.

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Macbeth By William Shakespeare (Female)

HECATE: Have I not reason, beldams as you are,

Saucy and overbold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth

In riddles and affairs of death;

And I, the mistress of your charms,

The close contriver of all harms,

Was never called to bear my part

Or show the glory of our art?

And, which is worse, all you have done

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now: get you gone

And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i’ th’ morning. Thither he

Will come to know his destiny.

Your vessels and your spells provide,

Your charms and everything beside.

I am for th’ air. This night I’ll spend

Unto a dismal and a fatal end.

Great business must be wrought ere noon.

Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vap’rous drop profound;

I’ll catch it ere it come to ground:

And that, distilled by magic sleights,

Shall raise such artificial sprites

As by the strength of their illusion

Shall draw him on to his confusion.

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear:

And you all know security

Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

[Music, and a song.]

Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.

Ajax by Sophocles (Female)

TECMESSA: You shall hear all that passed,

Being sharers in the event. At dead of night,

When the evening campfires no longer blazed,

He grasped his two-edged weapon, and seemed bent

To sally upon some errand, objectless.

I, in surprise, said to him “What dost thou, Ajax?

Why thus unsummoned either by the voice

Of messengers, or any trumpet-call,

Goest thou forth? Now the whole host is sleeping!

“But briefly he replied and in cant phrase;

“Woman, a woman should be seen, not heard.”

I held my tongue, and he rushed forth alone.

What there befell him truly I cannot say;

But he came in and brought, bound all together,

Bulls, herdmen’s dogs and fleecy spoil of sheep.

Some he beheaded; of some, their heads bent upward,

He cut the throats and clave the chins in twain,

And some he bound and tortured, as if human,

(Though it was cattle he fell on;) and at last

Rushing out through the door he hurled up words

To a phantom, some against Atridae, some

About Ulysses, laughing loud and long

At all the outrage he had wreaked on them;

Then darting back into the hut, once more

Hardly and by degrees he comes to reason;

When looking on the chamber filled with havock

He shrieked, and smote his head. Then he sat down,

Flinging himself among the weltering wrack

Of sheep that he had butchered, and clutched hold

Upon his hair with his clenched fists. Since then,

Most of the time he sat, uttering no sound;

After, he threatened me–’twas terrible!

If I disclosed not all that had befallen,

And questioned me, what could have come to him.

O friends, in fear, I told him the whole story,

So far as I well knew it. Instantly

He burst out crying lamentably–cries

Such as I never heard from him before.

For clamour of the kind, he ever taught,

Belonged to base and pusillanimous spirits;

Rather, suppressing all shrill outcries, he

Would groan, low, like the rumbling of a bull.

Now, prostrate under such adversity,

He, without meat or drink, sits on the ground

Among the beasts his edge has dealt on, dumb.

And plain it is he meditates no good;

That way, at least, his words and wailings tend.

But O dear friends–for therefore was my errand-

Come in and help us, if by any means

You have the power; for such men as he

Are conquered by the counsels of a friend.

Octavia By Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Female)

OCTAVIA: Though I should endure what must be borne, ne’er could my woes be ended, save by gloomy death. With my mother slain, my father by crime snatched from me, robbed of my brother, by wretchedness and grief o’erwhelmed, by sorrow crushed, by my husband hated, and set beneath my slave, the sweet light brings no joy to me; for my heart is ever trembling, not with the fear of death, but of crime — be crime but lacking to my misfortunes, death will be delight. For ’tis a punishment far worse than death to look in the tyrant’s face, all swollen with rage ‘gainst wretched me, to kiss my foe, to fear his very nod, obedience to whom my smarting grief could not endure after my brother’s death, most sinfully destroyed, whose throne he usurps, and rejoices in being the worker of a death unspeakable. How oft does my brother’s sad shade appear before my eyes when rest has relaxed my body, and sleep weighed down my eyes, weary with weeping. Now with smoking torches he arms his feeble hands, and with deadly purpose aims at his brother’s eyes and face; and now in trembling fright takes refuge in my chamber; his enemy pursues and, e’en while the lad clings in my embrace, savagely he thrusts his sword through both our bodies. Then trembling and mighty terror banish my slumbers, and bring back to my wretched heart its grief and fear. Add to all this the proud concubine, bedecked with our house’s spoil, as gift for whom the son set his own mother on the Stygian bark; and, when she had o’ercome dread shipwreck and the sea, himself more pitiless than ocean’s waves, slew her with the sword. What hope of safety, after crimes so great, have I? My victorious foe threatens my chamber, blazes with hate of me, and, as the reward of her adultery, demands of my husband his lawful consort’s head. Arise thou, my father, from the shades and bring help to thy daughter who calls on thee; or else, rending the earth, lay bare the Stygian abyss, that I may plunge thither headlong.

Medea By Euripides (Female)

MEDEA: O my sons!

My sons! ye have a city and a house

Where, leaving hapless me behind, without

A mother ye for ever shall reside.

But I to other realms an exile go,

Ere any help from you I could derive,

Or see you blest; the hymeneal pomp,

The bride, the genial couch, for you adorn,

And in these hands the kindled torch sustain.

How wretched am I through my own perverseness!

You, O my sons, I then in vain have nurtured,

In vain have toiled, and, wasted with fatigue,

Suffered the pregnant matron’s grievous throes.

On you, in my afflictions, many hopes

I founded erst: that ye with pious care

Would foster my old age, and on the bier

Extend me after death–much envied lot

Of mortals; but these pleasing anxious thoughts

Are vanished now; for, losing you, a life

Of bitterness and anguish shall I lead.

But as for you, my sons, with those dear eyes

Fated no more your mother to behold,

Hence are ye hastening to a world unknown.

Why do ye gaze on me with such a look

Of tenderness, or wherefore smile? for these

Are your last smiles. Ah wretched, wretched me!

What shall I do? My resolution fails.

Sparkling with joy now I their looks have seen,

My friends, I can no more. To those past schemes

I bid adieu, and with me from this land

My children will convey. Why should I cause

A twofold portion of distress to fall

On my own head, that I may grieve the sire

By punishing his sons? This shall not be:

Such counsels I dismiss. But in my purpose

What means this change? Can I prefer derision,

And with impunity permit the foe

To ‘scape? My utmost courage I must rouse:

For the suggestion of these tender thoughts

Proceeds from an enervate heart. My sons,

Enter the regal mansion. [Exuent SONS.] As for those

Who deem that to be present were unholy

While I the destined victims offer up,

Let them see to it. This uplifted arm

Shall never shrink. Alas! alas! my soul

Commit not such a deed. Unhappy woman,

Desist and spare thy children; we will live

Together, they in foreign realms shall cheer

Thy exile. No, by those avenging fiends

Who dwell with Pluto in the realms beneath,

This shall not be, nor will I ever leave

My sons to be insulted by their foes.

They certainly must die; since then they must,

I bore and I will slay them: ’tis a deed

Resolved on, nor my purpose will I change.

Full well I know that now the royal bride

Wears on her head the magic diadem,

And in the variegated robe expires:

But, hurried on by fate, I tread a path

Of utter wretchedness, and them will plunge

Into one yet more wretched. To my sons

Fain would I say: “O stretch forth your right hands

Ye children, for your mother to embrace.

O dearest hands, ye lips to me most dear,

Engaging features and ingenuous looks,

May ye be blest, but in another world;

For by the treacherous conduct of your sire

Are ye bereft of all this earth bestowed.

Farewell, sweet kisses–tender limbs, farewell!

And fragrant breath! I never more can bear

To look on you, my children.” My afflictions

Have conquered me; I now am well aware

What crimes I venture on: but rage, the cause

Of woes most grievous to the human race,

Over my better reason hath prevailed.

As You Like It By William Shakespeare

PHEBE: I would not by thy executioner.

I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:

‘Tis pretty, sure, and very probable

That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,

Who shut their coward gates on atomies,

Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.

Now counterfeit to swound; why, not fall down;

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee;

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains

Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,

The cicatrice and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,

Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,

Nor I am sure there is no force in eyesThat can do hurt.

Here are some additional tips from industry professionals:

• Choose a monologue from a play that you have seen or read. This will help you understand the character and the context of the monologue.
• Don’t be afraid to make the monologue your own. Add your own personal touches to the monologue to make it more interesting and engaging.
• Be confident and have fun! The most important thing is to enjoy the process and to let your personality shine through.

Final Thoughts

Finding good monologues for auditions or college audition monologues can be challenging, but any of the above options should impress your drama school! Thank you and hope you can find a piece out of the 50 Great Monologues For Auditions!

MONOLOGUES FOR ACTORS

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I am going to share with you the plays that I have either produced, acted in, or studied during the numerous hours of class upon class I have taken throughout my acting day thus far. (Which spans over 18 years but who’s counting). These plays have all been written from 1986 – 2007. Modern, relatable, and oh so fun.

Bachelorette
Let’s begin with one of my favourites, Bachelorette. I love Bachelorette. You may be more familiar with the 2012 film adaptation starring Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan and Rebel Wilson. This film definitely makes the girls night out hit list, and has many moments of dark dramedy. I first workshopped this play in a scene study class with renowned acting coach Ben Ratner, in Vancouver BC. I played Regan, and was in love with the ensemble core of lost class that embodied gal pals Katie and Gena. Two years later, I produced and acted in the play for a six day run at Studio 1398 on Granville Island, Vancouver.

The play is where the real raw sin lies. First written by Leslye Headland in 2007 and then later performed three years later off Broadway in 2010, this play surrounds the suffocated relationships of four high school besties. Based on Headland’s Seven Deadly Sin’s themed tales of every human flaw we absolutely love exposing during character study, these girls give it all.

Okay so Regan. Main mean girl whose own relationship is suffering. When she finds out Becky (the overweight ‘less attractive,’ never thought she would get married) is in fact, getting married – to a very successful attractive man, this does not sit well with Regan. In order to maintain her ‘perfect,’ stature Regan is common to pop pills and drink only the finest champagnes while of course provoking party girl high school best friends Katie and Gena. Against Becky’s will, Regan openly invites Katie and Gena where the entire play begins and remains within the Bachelorette party a la bridal suite, sans bride. Regan is the ring leader maid of honour who completes the play will a full blown panic attack after ripping Becky’s dress, attempting a one night stand, all the while trying to ‘save,’ Katie from an overdose. Her role includes the levels the defectless divine to absolute destruction. A highly recommended character to research and practise.

Next, Katie. Unapologetic reckless Katie. Easily convinced into every daring deed, Katie wears her scorn on her sleeve. Working retail, with a self-inflicted death sentence if she is not married by 30, Katie reeks of desperation. Aside from her evident jealously, Katie has a more fun and playful approach to the lost child on the loose of adulthood. Ultra-vulnerable, self-loathing, need I say more? Complete with a cocaine induced monologue where she attempts a loving connection to, innocent stoner Joe, Katie will provide full layers of lethal life.
Now Gena. To-cool –for-any school Gena. Gena is the hard, punk – goer type of the two. Always onto Regan’s next scheme, Gena plays a big sister figure to Katie when things start to turn. Gena is written as ‘compassionately compelling, always the sexiest women in the room.’ Ironically and arguably the most sane and responsible of the trio, Gena may come off as the ‘bad one,’ but she pulls it together and is quick on her feet to safe the malfunction madness of the evening.

Becky. Bless Becky. So in love, and so naïve. All this woman wants is to walk down that damn aisle with some form of sisterhood. Putting her faith in Regan to organize and keep the prenuptial events in order, Becky wants what any bride wants, the day of her dreams. Choosing to explore this role will give you the dynamic of blissful bride, cut to I will stand up for myself and dismiss anyone (Regan) who attempts to destroy my deserved day. Becky is a beautiful character who finally takes ownership of whatever ‘imperfections,’ her high school life made her believe she had.
Bachelorette is never short of comical moments, complete with a full cast of chaos. Enjoy them, love them, and get your bachelorette bash on!

Spike Heels
The next play I want to dive into is, ‘Spike Heels.’ Written by Theresa Rebeck in 1990, the play was first performed OFF Broadway in 1992. The original cast included Kevin Bacon, Tony Goldwyn, Saundra Santiago and Julie White. The play has been performed many times throughout the New York theatre scene, most recently making its revival in January of 2019 at the Gene Frankel Theatre.

Unlike Bachelorette, where the cast are primarily women, Spike Heels is a four-sided love story between Andrew, Edward, Georgie and Lydia. Rebeck brilliantly highlights the many elements of pushing power amongst men and women. From sexual harassment, to social status, and making it in a ‘man’s world,’ both Georgie and Lydia have very different plights to ultimately be loved by the men who manipulate them.
Let’s start with Georgie.

Georgie is Andrew’s next door neighbour and a sort of ‘self improvement project’ to him. He gets Georgie a job at Edward’s law office as his secretary. Growing up in a working-class background and never attending college, Georgie struggles in the new corporate environment and takes it upon herself to read ‘books that makes no sense,’ to try and figure out ‘what the f- is going on down there.’ Georgie is fiery, with quick wit, reluctant adaptation to the world of suits and class, all the while never being afraid to utilize her sexuality when the necessary occasion presents itself. Rebeck wrote monologues between Georgie and Lydia as well as Georgie and Andrew where Georgie is challenging their means of upper-class society. She goes full viper in her bold Boston accent, shaming them both as characters who think they are better than her simply because of their connected family backgrounds.
I would recommend the challenge of Georgie’s intensity, and fight to be finally seen and taken seriously, not just for her feminine assets. Bonus practise for your Boston accent!

Now Lydia. The complete opposite of Georgie, everything about this women screams conservative class. From the shoes she wears, to the moderate length of her hemlines Lydia attempts her calmed control when she confronts Georgie in her monologue, ‘I don’t know you.’ Lydia believes that Georgie is trying to steal her fiancée, Andrew, and throughout her blame of betrayal, she actually cries to Georgie as a much needed girl-to-girl moment of relatable struggle. Depicted as ‘cold,’ and ‘un-emotional,’ Georgie takes to Lydia as the two drink, divulge, and even dance.Painted as the ‘better than,’

Lydia has layered tiers of painful sorrow developed from her exhausting plot at perfection.
Both Lydia & Georgie make the dynamic duo of difficult hardships many women go through when dealing with men in power. Through growth and understanding of each character’s background each of these women provide challenging levels of gritted grace.

Have fun, choose your spike heels wisely, and get after it!

Women of Manhattan
The three final roles for women that I want to explore are that of Billie, Rhonda, and Judy. ‘Women of Manhattan,’ was written by John Patrick Shanley in 1986. First making its Off-Broadway debut at the City Center Theatre in May 1986, and then continuing throughout New York and then California in 1999.
This play surrounds the lives of Upper East Side best friends, Billie, Rhonda Louise, and Judy. All three are going through the different phases, woes and wows of love. Billie is ‘stuck in the honeymoon phase, and enhances her marriage by having affairs. Judy is the sexually frustrated one of the bunch as she is described as a ‘fag hag,’ seemingly only able to attract gay men, and Rhonda Louis has recently been dumped but is trying to be brave throughout her broken heart.

The beauty of this love induced trio is the honest difference of how each woman approaches their solution. Rhonda Louise is described to have a southern charm which adds to her strong independent demeanor. While the other characters, Billie and Judy complain about their relationship troubles, Rhonda happily offers advice and is seen as the supportive ‘fixer friend.’She comes off as the realist until the end of the play, where Shanley wrote her beautiful monologue, ‘How can you help me?’ This is a great piece to explore as many women can relate to Rhonda’s evident painful struggle of getting over her ex, without making herself feel ‘less than 35-cents’ in the process. She admits that she has to be truly alone with herself before considering another man to ‘plug the hole,’ she feels inside. Raw, insightful, and lovingly the good friend, Rhonda is a great role to discover.

Now Billie. Oh Billie. Described as blond and flashy, Billie has no shame in candidly sharing the disappointing details of her marriage. Making Judy her project by convincing her to go on a blind date that she sets up, Billie craves a layered relationship full off drama. However, she complains that her marriage is stiff and stuck on the balcony in her monologue ‘It’s the courtship.’ Billie loves attention and desires sexual vigour, with others than that of her safe husband. She is a key ingredient in the balance of what women want amongst the very different situations of these girlfriends.

And finally Judy. Judy has similar qualities of lost desperation to that of Katie in Bachelorette. Judy’s issue is how she comes off to men. According to Billie and Rhonda, they directly break it to Judy that she dresses for gay men, not straight men. Her harsh, no shame and blunt energy is the usual result in attracting men who cry by the end of the night confiding in Judy about how confused they are. Billie and Rhonda try to guide Judy by coaxing her to agree to a blind date set up, where Billie has full control over the who, what, where and when. Judy has many moments of giving her own brutal honesty throughout the play, for example calling out Rhonda Louise for keeping Jerry’s old sneakers in her house. Struggling to finally become an active heterosexual again, Judy has two great monologues that both explore her sad predicament to stop attracting the wrong guys, while sticking to her desire of quality fulfillment when Duke (blind date) suggests they have sex right away instead of getting to know one another.
Complete with the dramatic comedy and honest suffering that is our human heart’s longing for love, Women of Manhattan gives three very strong female roles oh so worthy of their story.

To wrap up and close the curtains, all three plays, ‘Bachelorette,’ ‘Spike Heels,’ and ‘Women of Manhattan,’ prove that there are many modern roles for women. From Regan to Rhonda and Katie to Judy, every character will provide the challenging dynamics of character’s masking their pain while fighting for the evident want of love.
Be delicate with them, but deliberate with your delivery.

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