College Audition Monologues Belinda Bremner, Roosevelt University Chicago College of Performing Arts Theatre Conservatory

A Monologue should be: One that does not come from a monologue book A verbal headshot A job interview using someone elses words A bridge between you and the auditor Positive Something the auditors really want to listen to Loud enough to be heard but not so loud as to make the auditors ears bleed Comfortably under the suggested time What you want the auditors to know and remember about you Appropriate to the space and project Exactly what they asked for Completely prepared Active ie. does not begin with That summer when I was twelve Delivered in such a way that it does not do the auditorswork for them, does not tell them what to think Brave

A monologue should NOT be: Something that has little of no relation to who you are Good enough

 Out of a monologue book Overdone Loud Offensive Negative Angry Inappropriate to the audition situation Over the time limit

Something the auditor has just directed (unless you are brilliant and then they may hate you for not auditioning earlier)

The Twelve Step Program to finding the Perfect Monologue 1. List at least a dozen adjectives that describe who you are. Contradictions only prove you are human 2. What roles have you most enjoyed playing? Why? 3. What roles would you most like to play? Why? 4. Who are your favorite playwrights? Why? 5. Who are your favorite authors and why? 6. What films have you most enjoyed and why? 7. A. Who are the actors whom people most often tell you that you remind them of? This is not a matter of looks but rather of a quality? Repeatnot looks. This may be hard for most. B. What actor, past or present, plays(ed) the roles for which you feel

you are suited?

8. What/who makes you laugh and how come? 9. About what are you passionate? 10. if you were not an actor, what would you make your lifes work?

If you could live in any other time or place where and when would that be? And why. Hint: future doesnt work very well. Not a lot of plays set in the future. But if you must pick the future, why then? AND with what ethnic, sociological, geographic, religious groups do you closely identify. What is in your family history makes you you. Ie. I feel very Midwesterner, Italian Irish Catholic but more Italian than Irish and my families have ALWAYS been cops. 12. What famous people NOT ACTORS OR ENTERTAINERS do you most admire? And yup, why? Questions when looking at selected pieces Which of my pieces suit which audition situations? Do I have pieces which suit the kind of work I want to pursue? What gaps need to be filled? Why do I like the pieces I have chosen? What do they say about me? If I am luke warm about a piece, why do I feel this way?

 If I am having trouble with a piece, can I identify what the block is. Some pieces are very appealing but are lousy audition pieces. If this one of them? Do I like this piece for what it talks about but I have trouble because this is not the way I would say in? Am I drawn to this piece for the emotion in it but not the content? Are all my pieces ready all the time? How many ways could I do this piece?

11.

Questions for auditioning for a theatre company What am I auditioning for? What kinds of plays does this theatre usually present? What plays has this theatre presented in the last five years? If I am auditioning for a specific play, do they want a piece from the script, from the playwright or from a similar work. Whose work is like this playwright. Just because they are contemporaries does not mean that they are similar. 5. Do I need a dialect? If so EXACTLY what does the director want? And how will I find it? 6. For whom will I be auditioning? 7. What has the director done recently? 8. Do I really want to do this? Why?

9. Who do I know who has worked with this company/director? 10. Can I get my hands on this/these scripts? 11. Am I completely free to audition? 12. Why am I doing this audition? Why am I doing this piece for this audition?

12 1. 2. 3. 4.

A GUIDE TO AUDITION MATERIAL TO AVOID

B.Bremner

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In general the works of Mamet, Shepard, Durang, Williams, Henley, Wasserstein, Simon, Martin, Shanley and Ives are all way to familiar. If you can find good obscure stuff, go for it. Additionally, auditors really do not to hear pieces about: rape, incest, cruelty to animals or humans, child abuse, bodily functions,

eating disorders, first sexual encounters, whining or bashing. Also, monologues about what a bad actor you are, or what a good actor you are or how much you hate auditioning. What are we saying here? If it came out of a monologue book, get rid of it. Especially if it is one of those egregious (bad) written as a monologue efforts. And NEVER, not that you would dream of it, rewrite a monologue to suit yourself. You might add an expletive or two, but NEVER change words, or worse, add your own contributions. Learn and perform it AS WRITTEN. Sometimes cutting and pasting requires an added word but that is it. BE VERY CAREFUL about piecing together.

Shows to avoid: Agnes of God A, My Name is Alice (I and II) Angels in America Talking With Keely and Du Lone Star Laundry and Bourbon Is There Life After High School Nuts Zoo Story Three Tall Women I Hate Hamlet

 Key Exchange Runaways Streetcar or Glass Menagerie Laughing Wild Boys Next Door Say Goodnight Gracie Any Neil Simon beginning with a B Woolgather or Extremities Earth and Sky Night Mother Steel Magnolias K2 Blue Window For Colored Girls Loose Knit or Spike Heels Much Nicky Silver Shadow Box The Nerd Reckless

Brilliant Traces It Had To Be You In the Boom Boom Room And They Danced Real Slow in Jackson Amadeus Picasso at the Lapin Agile Terra Nova Painting Churches Dining Room or Love Letters Any Lily Tomlin Lives of the Great Waitresses Personality Much Jules Feifer Unbridaled Passion Lady with a Clarinet Coyote Ugly Getting Out Holy Ghosts Rosencrantz and Guilderstern A Piece of My Heart or Shrapnel in the Heart

Man in the Moon Marigolds Uncommon Women Six Degrees of Separation St. Joanany of them To Gillian Molly Sweeny or Dancing at Lughnasa (Maggie on the bike) Primary English Class Girls Guide to Chaos

Line that picked up a Thousand Chicks Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me Quilters (Esp. Sunbonnet Sue) Elemosinary or Patient A Les Liaison Dangereus Naomi in the Living Room

House of Blue Leaves or Loveliest Afternoon Fantastiks Standing on my Knees Childrens Hour Colored Museum Death of a Salesman Crucible After the Fall Defying Gravity I Never Saw Another Butterfly or Anne Frank White Rose Bright Room Called Day Cyrano

Our Countrys Good Sylvia How I Learned to Drive Fooling Around with Infinity The Harvesting Eqqus Independence

Children of a Lesser God Why we Have Bodies Most Massive Women Wins Catholic School Girl Moving Real Queen of Hearts Our Town Album Waiting for the Parade Rainmaker P.S. Your Cat is Dead Dentity Crisis No Exit Look Back in Anger Sonnets

UNTAPPED SOURCES

Shakespeare Histories Marlowe, Dryden, Jacobeans, Jonson Corneille/Racine Mariveaux Lope de Vega (Except Laurencia in F o) Anhouilh and Giradoux, Camus and Sartre Brecht, Buchner, Frisch, Duerrenmat Great neglected stuff from the 30s through the 60s Great scripts from 50s television dramas Fry, Inge, Odtes, Hellman, Luce New translations of Greeks Richard Nelson and George Walker Dario Fo, Ugo Betti Underdone Ibsen Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian Scripts

English 60s such as Osborne, Saunders, Whiting American Theatre Magazine Biographies and interviews and commentaries 10 Minute plays from Louisville Radio plays Scriptseeker.com

In rehearsing monologuesBe Excruciatingly Specific: Who am I? Where am I? To whom am I speaking?

B.Bremner

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What do I want? What stands in my way? What am I going to do to get it? What just happened that makes or permits me to say this?

To what is this a response? How can I deliver the opening of this monologue in a way that conveys that it is a response, a reaction? Why I am I saying this now, not last week or five minutes from now? Why MUST I say this now? How much of this do I know I am going to say? Have I ever used these exact words before? What does it cost me to say this? What surprises me in this speech? What do I discover? What in this speech does the other person already know? What words have resonances? What is shared knowledge, experience? At which point(s) do I realize I have to continue speaking? When do I realize I have to change tactics? What must I do/not do to keep the other persons attention? What are the other persons reactions (facials, verbal, physical)? What is my body doing? (hands, feet, back) What does my posture say? What do I need to access this monologue? What is my first state?

SOME QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED What have you done with your emotional arc? Describe the way this character thinks. Where is his/her emotional center? What is his/her emotional/intellectual age? The two can be widely different? Does he/she act instinctually? Premeditatedly? Passiveaggressively? How? About what does she/he care most in the world? What quality does he/she hold in the highest esteem? In lowest regard? To what extent has she/he examined her/his life? How much of what he/she does or of what happens to her/him does

she/he understand? How much does he/she THINK they understand? To what extent is she/he in control? What does she/he keep in her/his pocket/purse? How and to whom does she/he pray? For what? Whats on the bookcase? Beside the bed? Favorite meal? Worst nightmare? Secret fear? Worst/best habit? Attitude toward money/work/fame/social position? For who did he/she voteif they voted? What would they choose to do if they knew they had only six months to live One day? One hour?

Whom do they love most? Hate most? Who is their best friend? Who is the hero/villain of his/her life?

If the chips were really down, what would he/she do to survive? How does she/he deal with change? What makes him/her laugh? Cry? How does she/he lose her/his temper? What is the favorite flower/holiday/childhood memory/meal/time of the day/season of the year/writer/song? What impression does she/he make on others? How much is intentional? How aware is she/he of this? How much is accurate? How would he/she describe her/himself to others? What does he/she smell like? What are the secrets? What does he/she do when nervous/lying/tired/happy/embarrassed? Have they ever been in love? With whom? Is the glass half empty or half full? What is their idea of perfect happiness? What does she/he consider her/his greatest achievement? What does she/he like most /least about self? What does she/he consider the most overrated virtue? What word is the most overused? What is his/her greatest regret? Idea of misery? Favorite name? Favorite expletive?

B.Bremner

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