Being the studious young woman that I am (right…), I’m taking a couple of summer courses at Skidmore College. One of these classes is introduction to theater, which I signed up for believing it would focus mainly on the history of theater. Well, we do cover that, but for our final project, each of the nine class members must perform a monologue. Now, when I was very little, I had aspirations of being an actress and won critical acclaim at the Downey Family Film Festival (aka my best friend’s family room) for my performance in the “Prince Joe” triology (a set of stories my best friend, my little sister, and I composed that asked the question, “What would it be like if the youngest member of New Kids on the Block was a royal?” Cut me some slack – we were seven-ish.) I haven’t done anything really dramatic since then – save for my nineth grade performance of Shylock’s “If you prick us…” speech for my enriched English class. Surprisingly, I’m not too worried about the actual acting part of the assignment. What I am worried about is that I’m not going to find a monologue that really strikes me. That’s where all of you lovely people come in. I need help. Desperately. Do any of you theatrical types have favorite monologues that you could recommend? My professor has only placed three restrictions on what we do:
The monologue must have been written in the last 50 years.
The character must be within my age range – I’m 19.
Broadway Bound, Biloxi Blues and . . . that other play by Neil Simon should have something good for you. However, I don’t know if they’re within the past 50 years.
Kevin Costner’s baseball monologue in Bull Durham turns me on every time I watch it…mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Oh, wait, am sorry…back to the subject.
Julia Roberts bit where she recites the names and relations and phone numbers to that snotty uptown lawyer was cute, too, and if you can actually remember everything in it would be sure to earn you an A.
Go to the library and get out any book with something resembling “monologues for young actors” in it. You will find a great range of stuff. Also, try “Plays for actresses” edited by Shengold and Lane … there is a phenomenal play in there that I directed last year, where one of the characters is a young girl with bulimia … anyway the whole book kicks ass and you are sure to find something you can relate to.
About the “monologues for young actors”-type books – I spent last night perusing a bunch of these and was completely unimpressed. The subject matter all seemed so trite, for lack of a better word. I’m thinking my library just doesn’t have the best selection of monologue books, because there must be intelligently written young characters out there somewhere. Brunetter, I will go back and see if I can get my hands on a copy of Shengold’s and Lane’s “Plays for Actresses.”
iampunha, was the last Simon play you were thinking of “Brighton Beach Memoirs”? If so, there’s this smashing speech of Nora’s that I’m seriously considering.
kellibelli, thank you for suggesting “Chasing Amy.” It’s one of my favorite movies, and I’d forgotten how many great speeches there are in it!
Now that I’m armed with this new insight, I’ll have to head back to the library and see if I can scare up some more help there. Thanks again, everyone!
Find a good monologue from a Woody Allen film, one of the ones where he goes on about neursises. Find one that gives a weird perspective when spoken from the womens point of view.
The basic idea works for many monologues though, just look at disjointment when it would be spoken by a woman rather than a man.
