How to Avoid a Bad Monologue Audition

Video Transcript

"Good day. I'm Dr. Charles Grimes, and I'm speaking today on behalf of Expert Village about finding a theatrical monologue for use in auditions. Let me tell you about what monologues you shouldn't do. This is a challenge for all actors. You want to distinguish yourself by doing pieces that directors have not heard one time, many times, in the past. So remember what I said earlier also about not stretching during the monologue. Do something that is right as in your wheel house that you can do very well. Unfortunately, Shakespeare monologues are so done that you might want to look in different directions. For a comic monologue, find something from the 18th or 19th century. For a tragedy perhaps, go all the way back to the Greeks. These pieces will not have been done and will give you... these pieces will be new and will show that you are ready to do challenging material as an actor and have read many plays, all of which will put you in a good position. I like to tell actors to avoid those monologue books. There are two kinds of monologue books. In one, the speeches are not even from real plays. They simply have been written to allow lazy actors easy speeches to audition with. Don't use these. You can tell that this is a book, because if you go to the end, you won't find anything that references the play these speeches are from. Also there are monologue books that contain monologues from real plays that have been selected, taken out of their original context and put into a book for you to look at. The problem here is that every other actor out there has in fact looked at these books so they're going to be doing the same monologue as you. So do your original work, keep reading plays, find new plays, look at contemporary plays and commit yourself to finding something that has not been done before. And by no means should you do any of the top ten or twelve Shakespeare plays, they will have seen repeatedly by directors and casting agents."