Blog #7: Two Websites for Use (Theater)

According to the National Standards for Theatre Education, grades 9-12, students are expected to demonstrate "acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and informal or formal productions". The websites below are resources for students to find monologue material for class workshops, auditions, and the like.

1) Monologue Archive is a solid collection of comedic, dramatic and classical monologues for men and women. Though the monologues for men outnumber those for women, this website would expose students to a number of unfamiliar playwrights. The hope is that student will go to a library, or most likely online, to find more works by the playwrights included on the website. When you click on a monologue, not only is there the text of the monologue piece, but related links that take you to bibliographies, biographies, and some collections of the writer's work, if in the public domain. Because most auditions will ask an actor for a classical AND a contemporary monologue, it is necessary that students work on developing characters from a different time period. Students are most familiar with Shakespeare's verse, but this website includes pieces by Euripides, Christopher Marlowe, Sophocles and many more. Decent monologues can be extraordinarily hard to find, but this website is a helpful start to any actor in search pieces to add to their monologue portfolio.

2.) I also found a series of videos on www.ehow.com titled "How to Find a Monologue for Auditions". The thirteen video hosted by Dr. Charles Grimes. Although I am not a fan of how Grimes monotonously and somewhat uncomfortably presents his information, these videos are short and there are valuable tips for every step of the audition process. If Grimes' tedious speech patterns are too much for the viewer, there are actually transcripts of each video below the comments section. In the video below, Grimes acknowledges that (casting) directors tire of hearing the same popular monologues over and over, then proceeds to drop the names of playwrights I've never even heard of! Becoming worldly theater students would help them to impress theater directors in higher education, professional theaters and beyond. Other video titles in the series include "How to Relieve Stress Before a Monologue Audition" and "How to Be Creative in a Monologue", which are topics that should be addressed as early as possible when students are learning about the audition process and preparatory methods for a role. This site will help students cast a wider net when searching for perfect monologues for themselves and hopefully find plays that they would like the school's drama club to produce one day.

Good Authors for Monologues -- powered by ehow