Auditioning with Original Monologues?

i wuldn't unless it is very strong and really good music. on one hand, its impressive to have the guts to do that, but on the other hand it has to be up to snuff as other material you could have done. if you are most comfortable with it, go for it!

It depends on what you're auditioning for. It's more important for the people who are casting to be able to see you in the part you're up for.

Many "now-famous folk" have auditioned with original or unconventional material. So, history shows us it can work succesffuly. I wouldn't be afraid to use an original song, or a "non-theatre song," unless it doesn't fit a the part... or it's such a "showy" song (for whatever reason) that it outshines the performance. Everyone will be asking you where you got your song, and they won't be thinking about your performance. Not a good thing.

But don't be afraid to sell yourself to your best advantage... and go a little outside of the norm. It's important to make SURE it's to your best advantage, though.

EDIT: Oops! I took "material" to mean SONGS, too. But the same principle applies to monologues. And actually I can give you MANY examples of actors I know who have landed parts with original monologues... or non-theatre monologues (books, poems, letters, etc.)

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Updated On: 6/14/06 at 08:37 PM

I'm just wondering, best12, could you give us some of the examples, please?

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Dammit. Well, then what's the best course of action to take? Is going waaaaaaaaaaaay too obscure the worst way to go?

I would not audition with an original monologue unless you are also a writer... so many people audition with original material that is absolute crap... most of the "original monologues" I've seen have been something like this:

YOUNG FEMALE:
My father raped me when I was four... and then a tornado came, and my grandmother got cancer, and then my dog got hit by a truck. And then my boyfriend broke up with me... twice.
And then... it started to rain.
And the rain came down and cleansed me of my past and made me look forward to a better tomorrow.
I'm going to college next month and I can't wait for my life begin - eighteen years too late, maybe, but better late than never.

Most of the auditions I've gone to recently have either provided a list of monologues to choose from or at least stated that the monologue must be from a musical, play, or book.

If you're looking for something unique, find a book narrated in the first person whose narrator you can pull off and do a section from that. That has a lot of possibilities in that if you choose a section that includes some other characters talking, you can do different voices, etc, and even if they have heard a section from the book its unlike you and someone else are going to pick the EXACT same section.