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Monologue help; little lengthy but all advice appreciated!

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#1

Monologue help; little lengthy but all advice appreciated!

Bonjour! Female, 24, soprano/mezzo.

Okay, so I've decided I really need to build up an audition portfolio, and it's going to be from scratch. I'm okay working out songs but I'm less certain about monologues. I want to avoid getting monologues exclusively from books of monologues, for reasons I'm sure I don't need to go into.

First: for modern monologues, can anyone suggest any plays that have some good monologues? I'd really rather have the monologues in the context of the play, and as already said, I want to avoid monologue lists as far as possible. So personal recommendations are particularly welcome here.

Second: for classical monologues, I'd like to gather some up that *aren't* Shakespeare. Especially from similar sortos of Jacobean playwrights. Any recommendations there?

Third: for Shakespearean monologues, can you recommend any lesser-done but still awesome ones?

Yeahhh... like I said, I'm starting from scratch, but I really will appreciate any and all help I can get. :)

Notes from the Earlham Street Gutter
#2

re: Monologue help; little lengthy but all advice appreciated!

Five Women Wearing the Same Dress is jam packed with awesome monologues. It's also very easy to piece together monologues.
The Children's Hour and Bus Stop also have a few that i've used before.
"I'll show you a laughgasm. I'll gasm all over this stage!"
"Interesting choice"
#3

re: Monologue help; little lengthy but all advice appreciated!

There's a great monologue in George Bernard Shaw's, "The Philanderer." The good thing is that it can be used as both a contemporary AND a classical monologue, depending on what you need, because he's right on the border of the classical period and the contemporary period. However, with some schools (Juilliard I know of), they specifically ask for your classical piece NOT be from GBS because he's more contemporary. But anyway, I'm rambling. It's a great monologue. Type in "But why? We could be so happy." The Philanderer in google and you can see if you like it, then if you do, order the play, it's great.
#4

re: Monologue help; little lengthy but all advice appreciated!

you can't use the Phillanderer for a modern monologue - GBS's style of writing is far too old fashioned.

classical monologues are easier to find - get yourself a complete works of shakespeare and flick through it (it will take forever tho). Also you will probably want some 17/18th century stuff - it's always good to cover all of your bases (Google the period of theatre that you want stuff from, get the writer names and start searching from there).

for modern, check out Abi Morgan, Sam Shephard, Tom Stoppard, David Rabe.

A good idea is if you ever take a trip to london, ALWAYS pay a trip to the royal court theatre (next to Sloan Square tube) they have an awsome bookshop downstairs. Also pay a trip to frenches book shop (warren st??? - round there somewhere - again you can google it)
It's harder to find stuff if you aren't in a big city. Foyles, borders and waterstones also have a fair amount of plays in.
I quite like spending the day in a bookshop flicking through anything that grabs my eye. Random and fun, lol.

also look at monologue books and for each one you like, take note of the writer and find other plays they have written.

Good luck dude xx

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