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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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

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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

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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

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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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The Godfather of American playwrights Eugene O’Neill has a catalog of plays that remain unmatched in American theater. From Long Days Journey Into Night to The Iceman Cometh his plays are still amongst the most revered by actors all over the world. If you are a young man working your way through drama school you will most likely be be dealt with the task of working on parts like Jamie and Edmund Tyrone or a young woman with Anna Christie.

Eugene O’Neills deeply personal work makes for all-encompassing uncut characters that will elevate and actors work craft when working on the roles. The completeness of the characters force actors to bring a “full bucket” in order to do the roles justice. 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.

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace. – Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill Monologues

Monologues from Anna Christie

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!

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

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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!

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

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Monologues From The Hairy Ape

YANK: I scared her? Why de hell should I scare her? Who de hell is she? Ain’t she de same as me? Hairy ape, huh?

(With his old confident bravado.)

I’ll show her I’m better’n her, if she on’y knew it. I belong and she don’t, see! I move and she’s dead! Twenty-five knots a hour, dats me! Dat carries her but I make dat. She’s on’y baggage. Sure!

(Again bewilderedly.)

But, Christ, she was funny lookin’! Did yuh pipe her hands? White and skinny. Yuh could see de bones trough ’em. And her mush, dat was dead white, too. And her eyes, dey was like dey’d seen a ghost. Me, dat was! Sure! Hairy ape! Ghost, huh? Look at dat arm!

(He extends his right arm, swelling out the great muscles.)

I coulda took her wit dat, wit’ just my little finger even, and broke her in two.

(Again bewilderedly.)

Say, who is dat skoit, huh? What is she? What’s she come from? Who made her? Who give her de noive to look at me like dat? Dis ting’s got my goat right. I don’t get her. She’s new to me. What does a skoit like her mean, huh? She don’t belong, get me! I can’t see her.

(With growing anger.)

But one ting I’m wise to, aw right, aw right! Youse all kin bet your shoits I’ll git even wit her. I’ll show her if she tinks she- She grinds de organ and I’m on de string, huh? I’ll fix her! Let her come down again and I’ll fling her in de furnace! She’ll move den! She won’t shiver at nothin’, den! Speed, dat’ll be her! She’ll belong den!

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

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MILDRED: Please do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. Give me credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at least. I would like to help them. I would like to be some use in the world. Is it my fault I don’t know how? I would like to be sincere, to touch life somewhere.

(With weary bitterness.)

But I’m afraid I have neither the vitality nor integrity. All that was burnt out in our stock before I was born. Grandfather’s blast furnaces, flaming to the sky, melting steel, making millions- then father keeping those home fires burning, making more millions- and little me at the tail-end of it all. I’m a waste product in the Bessemer process- like the millions. Or rather, I inherit the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and darned by it, as they say at the race track- damned in more ways than one.

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

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Monologues From Long Days Journey Into Night

EDMUND: You’ve just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They’re all connected with the sea. Here’s one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and the singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself–actually lost my life. I was set fee! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged without, past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God if you want to put it that way. Then another time, on the American line, when I was lookout in the crow’s nest on the dawn watch. A calm sea, that time. Only a lazy ground swell and a slow drowsy roll of the ship. The passengers asleep and none of the crew in sight. No sound of man. Black smoke pouring from the funnels behind and beneath me. Dreaming, not keeping lookout, feeling alone, and above and apart, watching the dawn creep like a painted dream over the sky and sea which slept together. Then the moment of ecstatic freedom came. The peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men’s lousy, pitiful, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on the beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint’s vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see–and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason! (He grins wryly) It was a great mistake my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. As it is I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!

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

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Edmund: God, Papa, ever since I went to sea and was on my own, and found out what hard work for little pay was, and what it felt like to be broke, and starve, and camp on park benches because I had no place to sleep, I’ve tried to be fair to you because I knew what you’d been up against as a kid. I’ve tried to make allowances. Christ, you have to make allowances in this damned family or go nuts! I have tried to make allowances for myself when I remember all the rotten stuff I’ve pulled! I’ve tried to feel like Mama that you can’t help being what you are where money is concerned. But God Almighty, this last stunt of yours is too much! It makes me want to puke! Not because of the rotten way you’re treating me. To hell with that! I’ve treated you rottenly, in my way, more than once. But to think when it’s a question of your son having consumption, you can show yourself up before the whole town as such a stinking old tightwad! Don’t you know Hardy will talk and the whole damn town will know! Jesus, Papa, haven’t you any pride or shame? (Bursting with rage.) And don’t think I’ll let you get away with it! I won’t go to any damned state farm just to save you a few lousy dollars to buy more bum property with! You stinking old miser! (He chokes huskily, his voice trembling with rage, and then is shaken by a fit of coughing.)

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

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JAMIE {swaying and blinking in the doorway -—in a loud voice). What ho What ho.

EDMUND {sharply). Nix on the loud noise

JAMIE {blinks at him). Oh, hello, Kid. [With great seriousness]
I’m as drunk as a fiddler’s bitch.

EDMUND {dryly). Thanks for telling me your great secret.

JAMIE {grins foolishly). Yes Unnecessary information Number One, eh?

{He bends and slaps at the knees of his trousers.)

Had serious accident. The fron’ steps tned to trample on me. Took advantage of fog to waylay me Ought to be a hghthouse out there. Dark in here, too {Scowling ) What the hell is this, the morgue?
Lesh have some light on subject.

{He sways forward to the table reciting Kipling.) Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river, Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark! Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an’ they will surely gmde you ’Cross the ford o’ Kabul nver in the dark.”

{He fumbles at the chandelier and manages to turn on the three bulbs.)

Thash more like it. To hell with old Gaspard. Where is the old tightwad? Can’t expect us to live in the Black Hole of Calcutta,

{His eyes fix on the bottle of whisky.)

Say! Have I got the DT’s?

{He reaches out fumhlingly and grabs it.)

By God, It’s real. What’s matter with the old man tonight? Must be ossified to forget he left this out. Grab opportunity by the forelock.  Key to my success.
{He slops a big drink into a glass.)

EDMUND. You’re stinking now. That will knock you stiff.

JAMIE. Wisdom from the mouth of babes. Can the wise stuff Kid. You’re still wet behind the ears.

{He lowers himself into a chair, holding the drink carefully aloft}

EDMUND. All right. Pass out if you want to.

JAMIE Can’t, that’s trouble. Had enough to sink a ship, but can’t sink, here’s hoping. {He drinks.)

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

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Mary explains her use of the morphine to Cathleen, the servant.

MARY. I have to take it because there is no other that can stop the pain – all of the pain – I mean, in my hands. Poor hands! You’d never believe it, but they were once one of my god points, along with my hair and eyes, and I had a fine figure too. They were a musician’s hands. I used to love the piano. I worked so hard at my music in the Convent – if you can call it work when you do something you love. Mother Elizabeth and my music teacher both said I had more talent than any student they remembered. My father paid for special lessons. He spoiled me. He would do anything I asked. He would have sent me to Europe to study after I graduated from the Convent.I might have gone – if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mr. Tyrone. or I might have become a nun. I had two dreams. To be a nun, that was the more beautiful one. To become a concert pianist, that was the other. I haven’t touched a piano in so many years. I couldn’t play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home – See, Cathleen, how ugly they are! So maimed and crippled! You would think they’d been trough some horrible accident! So they have, come to think of it. I won’t look at them. They’re worse than the foghorn for reminding me – But even they can’t touch me now. They’re far away. I see them, but the pain has gone.

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

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We hope you enjoy this list of Eugene O’Neill monologues and just to remind you there are many more monologues in our monologue database that you can access below

Monologues For Actors

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Ever been overlooked for a promotion? Been made to feel jealous of a potentially cheating spouse? Plotted revenge on your boss? Yes? Then you’ll love this compilation of Othello monologues from one of Shakespeare’s most action packed tragedies. Weather you’re a villainous aspiring Iago, a philosophizing Emilia, a bewildered and earnestly loving wife like Desdemona or a blinded by jealous rage, Othello, you’ll surly find a speech to suit your word to the action and action to the word!

Have fun looking through these 12 Othello Monologues we have picked for you to work on. Have a great rehearsal!

1. Iago – Act 1, Scene 1

Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion, Nonsuits my mediators;
for, ‘Certes,’ says he, ‘I have already chose my officer.’
And what was he? Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and calm’d
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I—God bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ancient.

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2. Iago Act 1, Scene 1

O, sir, content you;I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined their coats
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

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3. Roderigo Act 1, Scene 1

Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,
If’t be your pleasure and most wise consent,
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
At this odd-even and dull watch o’ the night,
Transported, with no worse nor better guard
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor—
If this be known to you and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
But if you know not this, my manners tell me
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
That, from the sense of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:
If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.

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4. Othello Act 1, Scene 3

Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question’d me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels’ history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She’ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer’d. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, ’twas passing strange,
‘Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank’d me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

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5. Iago Act 1, Scene 3

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe.
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
And it is thought abroad, that ‘twixt my sheets
He has done my office: I know not if’t be true;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man: let me see now:
To get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery—How, how? Let’s see:—
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear
That he is too familiar with his wife.
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected, framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose As asses are.
I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

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6. Desdemona Act 3, Scene 3

Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days: in faith, he’s penitent;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason—
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
Out of their best—is not almost a fault
To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,
What you would ask me, that I should deny,
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
Hath ta’en your part; to have so much to do
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,—

 Why, this is not a boon;
‘Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight
And fearful to be granted.

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7. Desdemona Act 4, Scene 2

O good Iago, What shall I do to win my lord again?
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e’er my will did trespass ‘gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
And ever will—though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement—love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love. I cannot say ‘whore:’
It does abhor me now I speak the word;
To do the act that might the addition earn
Not the world’s mass of vanity could make me.

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8. Emilia Act 4, Scene 3

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

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9. Iago Act 2, Scene 1

That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
That she loves him, ’tis apt and of great credit:
The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife,
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb—
For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too—
Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me.
For making him egregiously an ass
And practising upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness. ‘Tis here, but yet confused:
Knavery’s plain face is never seen tin used.

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Iago Act 2, Scene 1

Touch me not so near:I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
Montano and myself being in speech,
There comes a fellow crying out for help:
And Cassio following him with determined sword,
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause:
Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
Lest by his clamour—as it so fell out—
The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,
Outran my purpose; and I return’d the rather
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
And Cassio high in oath; which till to-night
I ne’er might say before. When I came back—
For this was brief—I found them close together,
At blow and thrust; even as again they were
When you yourself did part them.
More of this matter cannot I report:
But men are men; the best sometimes forget:
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
From him that fled some strange indignity,
Which patience could not pass.

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10. Iago Act 2, Scene 3

And what’s he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy
The inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit: she’s framed as fruitful
As the free elements. And then for her
To win the Moor—were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter’d to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function. How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
As I do now: for whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body’s lust;
And by how much she strives to do him good,
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
And out of her own goodness make the net
That shall enmesh them all.

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11. Othello Act 4, Scene 2

Had it pleased heaven

To try me with affliction; had they rain’d
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner’d up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp’d cherubin,—
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
ne’er been born!
Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!

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12. Othello Act 5, Scene 2

Behold, I have a weapon;

A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier’s thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? ’tis not so now.
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon’d;
Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay’d? ’tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello’s breast,
And he retires. Where should Othello go?
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr’d wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!
Oh! Oh! Oh!

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The post Othello Monologues 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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