Need short dramatic monolog

Cafe Society
1

Man, this is really lazy of me, but… my daughter needs a (roughly) 60-90 second monolog for her H.S. drama class. From a play/movie/book whatever.

Should be emotionally charged. I’ve been waiting for her to find one herself, or for one to pop magically into my mind. No luck.

I think she’d prefer modern language to Shakespeare. She’s small and has a soft voice.

2

My first thought was the King’s “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” speech from Henry V, but of course that’s Shakespeare.

I’d check the collected works of Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Mother Theresa or some other historic woman whom she admires. Google around and you’re sure to find some good speech excerpts.

I’ve always thought Congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s statement during the Watergate hearings was incredibly powerful: American Rhetoric: Barbara Jordan - Statement on House Judiciary Proceedings to Impeach President Richard Nixon

Or consider Queen Elizabeth I’s ringing declaration to her troops as the Spanish Armada approached: Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History

3

Find a short monolog by Rose in Titanic

4

Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.

5

Damn… I try to be good about that, but apparently my mind disengaged. I supposed that’s why I can’t think of any appropriate monologues. That, and not being a theater-type person.

pudytat: I’ll look the that over. Thank-you.

Elendil: I hadn’t considered political speeches, but yes they are worth considering. (But hey! Nothing from LOTR?)

6

The funeral scene from Steel Magnolias.

7

Oh, sure! Does she like Tolkien?

  • Gandalf speaks to Frodo of the virtue of pity, FOTR, “The Shadow of the Past”
  • Galadriel speaks to the Fellowship and tries to give them hope, FOTR, “The Mirror of Galadriel”
  • Theoden’s warlike speech to his men, ROTK, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”
  • Eomer exhorts his men, ROTK, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”
  • The unfurling of Aragorn’s flag, just after that, in the same chapter
  • Sam sees the stars through the dark clouds of Mordor and takes hope, ROTK, “The Land of Shadow”
  • Eowyn realizes her love of Faramir, ROTK, “The Steward and the King”
  • Aragorn’s crowning and the rebuilding of the city, same chapter
  • Gandalf’s and Aragorn’s discovery of a sapling of the White Tree, same chapter
  • Frodo and Bilbo come to Valinor, “a far green country under a swift sunrise,” ROTK, “The Grey Havens”
  • Aragorn’s death and Arwen’s mourning, Appendix A, “Here Follows a Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”
8

Has she already read some plays? Ideally, you should perform monologues from plays you’ve read and understand fairly well, so you’ve got all that background on the character.

She might like the monologue from Saint Joan that’s quoted on the Wikipedia page, especially since, if she doesn’t have time to read the whole play, Joan of Arc is a familiar bit of history.

9

I would stick to plays. It’s generally considered bad form to use an excerpt from a novel or screenplay as an audition piece for theater. The guidelines for your daughter’s class may allow it, but they are written for different purposes after all, and if you’re daughter is actually considering theater as a vocation or avocation, she might as well start off on the right foot. If the drama teacher is a theater person at heart (and not an English teacher who drew the short straw), I suspect she’ll appreciate it too.

Also, pick something that plays to your daughter’s strengths. If she’s a soft-spoken young girl, pick something appropriate for a soft-spoken young girl - not a battle-hardened soldier ralllying the troops! Performing any dramatic monologue is challenging enough for a beginner. She’ll have plenty of opportunities to test herself later should she choose to go further in the craft.

So what specific recommendations do I have? Unfortunately, as a loud, middle-aged man I haven’t paid much attention to monologues for soft-spoken young girls, but here are some sources you might want to check out.

https://www.nowcasting.com/search/search-tms.php

10

Anything by Katarina in Taming of the Shrew should do nicely, if she can do Shakespeare.

11

It occurs to me that if your daughter isn’t motivated to find a monologue on her own, she’s not going to be sufficiently motivated to put in the effort required to do justice to Shakespeare’s verse. And by “justice” I don’t mean scaling the heights of the thespian art, I mean not having it come out sounding like a nonsense rhyme by Dr. Seuss. So if she must do something by Shakespeare, stick to prose, but even better would be choosing something by a 20th- or 21st-century writer, where the words and the meanings behind the words will be familiar to her.

ETA: OK, 19th century (Shaw, Wilde) at a stretch, but nothing earlier than that.

12

If you are going to consider political speeches. The Gettysburg Address will do nicely- short and most know some ,if not all of it

13

Mayou Angelou comes to mind

14

“Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!”

15

Brilliant.

16

“Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!”

17

Small and soft voice? She could go completely against type and use:

Coffee is for closers!

or

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

or

You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit!

18

OP here; thank-you one and all.

She decided to take muldoonthief’s suggestion and do Alec Baldwin’s “Glengarry, Glen Ross” speech for her high school drama audition.

Nah. We went to www.monolguearchive.com and she picked “Enemies.”
Merci, TWDuke.

She’ll be reciting it after school today. Last night I spent a lot of time saying:
Slower.
Louder.
Accent something in that phrase.
Slower.

All suggestions and jokes were appreciated, very much. Special hat tips to:
CWN and** Leiko**.

(Oh, and Mr. Heir, she loves the Hobbit but has never given LOTR a dedicated try.)