How to Find Humorous Monologues

Video Transcript

"Good day. I'm Dr. Charles Grimes, and I'm speaking today on behalf of Expert Village on finding a theatrical monologue for use in auditions. You might need to find some extra time to look at and gather some elusive comic monologues. These are often a challenge for the actor to find. Unfortunately, comedies tend to be outnumbered by tragedies or realism or serious plays, so you'll have to put some extra time in the library or online to find comic monologues that will work for you. Let me give you a few suggestions as far as going to the library or looking up sources. Here's one anthology called Chief Pre-Shakespearian Dramas. So we're going all the way back before Shakespeare, all the way back to everyone favorite medieval play, Every Man, which is the only medieval play people have read. But even there, you're likely to find good comic monologues. This is a good cheap book that I bought for a dollar. It has over two dozen plays in it. So make sure that you read widely in the history of drama. Go back before Shakespeare, go to Roman comedies, go to medieval plays, and also think about going contemporary. Many recent playwrights work in a genre we call black comedy, which mixes tragedy and comedy both, and you end up laughing in a sick way at what you're seeing on stage. Think about Nicki Silver, Tracey Letts, Tom Stoppard, Mark Ravenhill, Martin McDonough, and think about other black comedies or comedies of the absurd that might be by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, they might not be straight comedies, but they'll induce a kind of sick, queasy laughter and they're excellent choices. Also in many theatre of the absurd plays as a woman you can look at a part and it might be written gender neutral and so you can take it and use it for yourself. But the important thing is, put some extra time and read widely throughout theatre history to find comic monologues that are going to work."