Tips for monologue auditions:

• These pieces do not need to be memorized, but you should be familiar with the two monologues that you choose

• Have fun! Be creative. There is no right or wrong interpretation of these pieces.

• Make the two characters different from each other. Let us see a range of tactics and character choices.

 

MONOLOGUES (choose 2)

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Option 1:

There is something Pippin. And we’ve got it. The only completely perfect act in our repertoire…. The finale! You’re the finale. You will leap from the highest height into the hottest fire. Become part of the fire. Be engulfed by the fire. Become fire itself… And in that flame, you become a glorious synthesis of life and death… and life again. Pippin, you’re an extraordinary human being with extraordinary aspirations and dreams. You deserve an extraordinary climax. Like the sun blazing in the sky! The sun at its zenith….

Think about the sun, Pippin. Think about her golden glance- how she lights the world up. Well, now it’s your chance. With the guardians of splendor inviting you to dance, Pippin, think about the sun! Pippin, it is time for you to do something truly extraordinary. Think how you will shine… like the glow of morning… you will burn in our memories forever!

 

Option 2:

Look-See how the sky’s fulla stars? Well, somewhere in the world is this big old tree, biggest you ever seen. And at night, if you shake it like an apple tree, all of the stars come falling outta the sky. And you gather them in your arms just like apples, but when you look down at ‘em, suddenly they’re diamonds. You got an armful of big, sparkling diamonds. Now how do you know it is just a story? Can you swear to me on Mama’s bible that that tree ain’t out there somewhere? Then don’t say it’s a story, ‘cause you never know. Besides, you heard of falling stars, right? Anyone ever tell you where they go? How do you know someone ain’t shaking that tree, making all those stars fall right into their lap?

Oh, Rootie… Did you feel that breeze? When I was real little, I used to come here, lie on my back, and watch the sky move. Then I’d close my eyes, and when those breezes’s come, I’d pretend they were picking me up, floating me to the sky. And then I’d just lie there, floating on the air like it was a velvet blanket. Then the wind would put me down on a cloud and the cloud would be so soft I’d bounce up in the air again, and I’d go bouncing from cloud to cloud. I know it sounds crazy, Roo- but when I feel those breezes, I still dream that someday the wind will come and take me for a ride…. Let’s go home.

 

Option 3:

Don’t get smart with me. I got your number the moment you came through the door like a well-dressed snake. Awright, you just hiss away- but not in this room which you think ain’t a civilized room. Okay, it’s too cheerful for you, but for me and Dotty it’s fine. And this afternoon, at the picnic at Creve Coeur Lake, I will tell Dotty, gentle in my own way, if it’s necessary to tell her, that this unprincipled man has just been using her. But Buddy, my brother Buddy, if in some ways he don’t suit her like he is now, I will see that he quits beer, I will see that he cuts out cigars, I will see he continues to take off five pounds a week.  And by Dotty and Buddy there will be children- children!- I will never have none, myself, no! But Dotty and Buddy will have beautiful kiddies. Me? Nieces- nephews… - Now you! I’ve wrapped up the picnic. It’s nice and cool at Creve Coeur Lake and the ride on the open-air streetcar is lickety-split through green country and there’s flowers you can pull off the bushes you pass. It’s a fine excursion. Dotty will forget not getting that phone call. We’ll stay out till it’s close to dark and the fireflies- fly. I will slip away and Buddy will be alone with her on the lake shore. He will smoke no smelly cigar. He will just respectfully hold her hand and say- “I love you, Dotty. Please be mine,” not meanin’ a girl in a car parked up on Art Hill but- for the long run of life.

 

Option 4:

I will admit that, for a moment during my performance, I felt the surge of something like, oh, say, cocaine in my veins. Mrs. Langtree, it has become clear to me that you have not been altogether forthcoming about the circumstances of your distress. There were two piece of vital information in that second note, which you so conveniently burned- one of them was the specificity of the ransom. What did John Smythe really come to collect? Are you protecting someone? Mrs. Langtree, when a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it. A married woman looks to her baby; an unmarried woman looks to her most valuable possession. Where did you hide the ransom? When the cry of fire was raised, your eyes immediately went…. there. If there are 10,000 pounds in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the right bell-pull, I will return to the stage playing Algernon Moncrieff in “The Importance of Being Forthright.” May I see what the blackmailer is really after?

 

Option 5:

They should be starting soon.  This could be fast…
Maybe I’ll sit... Or not... Four minutes past.
The house is packed now. Stacked up to the rings,
I see it all as though I’m in the wings-
Eyes to the peephole. Yes the dames and dandies,
have got their playbills, bought their drinks and candies.
Upstairs, a mass of maids and one lone page,
now one by one the lamps are lit on stage.
And at a stroke I doubt my every word.
My cast seems talent-free, my play’s absurd.
Here comes our lead. Applaud and look relaxed.
Oh God, our ingenue- who should be axed…
That actress is a penance for my sins.
Abruptly- curtain up- the play begins.
The crowd’s gone quiet. What’s this, mass hypnosis?
Oh, great. A cougher. Mass tuberculosis.
Was that a chuckle- somewhere at the back?
Our ingenue’s of course a painted plaque.
Speed up, speed up! Well good, a solid laugh.
What are you…? Speak! Don’t moo like some lost calf!
She flubbed her line. Show’s over! That’ll spoil it!
I’m in the bathroom puking at a toilet.
That was a hearty laugh. I may well stay.
You know it’s really not too bad, this play?
Thank God we hired that ingenue. She’s brilliant!
I love these actors! Funny, smart, resilient…
My lines are landing now like shining spears,
A line, a laugh, the final speech, and….cheers!