SEP
14

10 Tips to Showcase Your Monologue Skills

By Christina Hamlett 

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is the author of 44 books and 250 plays.  For Pioneer, she and her writing partner Jamie Dare have penned three “Seusspeare” comedies as well as a contemporary script titled “Fandemonium.”  She is also a professional ghostwriter and a script consultant for stage and screen.  Learn more at http://www.authorhamlett.com. 

Despite the fact that theatres around the world were forced into darkness because of COVID-19, there nonetheless emerged an unexpected bright spot:  specifically, the resurgent popularity of monologues.  Not only can these be easily be performed by way of video conferencing, but it also never hurts to have a variety of solo performances up one’s sleeve for future auditions.

While we typically think of auditions as cold readings onstage during try-outs, you’re just as likely to be asked to deliver a memorized piece of your choosing or — in the case of college admissions — submit a video (“sizzle reel”) showcasing your acting chops.  In either scenario, there’s a right and wrong way to do this.  These 10 tips can help you best showcase your talent:

1. Auditioning for a specific play?  Never choose a monologue from that play.  The reason?  It’s hard to distinguish yourself when your competition is using exactly the same material.  From my own experience on either side of the footlights, directors tend to tune out after the third or fourth time they’ve heard a particular speech.  I’d also caution against “dressing” for a role or bringing props to subliminally influence a casting decision.  All this does is project that you’re trying much too hard.
2. Comedy is almost always preferable to drama for an audition piece, as it puts the decision-maker at ease.  Making them smile or chuckle is a better strategy than pinning their ears back with high-decibel shouting, raging, and flailing of the arms as you angrily pace the stage.  Don’t go with a comedic monologue, however, if you’re not necessarily a naturally funny person.  Being an understated, sophisticated wit is a better choice than trying to force laughter, especially if a competitive audition experience is already fraught with tension.
3. Don’t write your own material.  While you may want to show you’re as accomplished a playwright as you are an actor, you mustn’t lose sight of why you are actually there:  to be an actor.  Self-written works also tend to fall into the category of folksy storytelling, bloviating, and whiney musing — none of which will knock a director’s socks off.
4. For longer audition pieces, go with monologues which demonstrate a range of emotions.  Consider, for instance, a piece that allows you to move through it (i.e., the seven stages of grief:  shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, and hope).  Practice in front of the mirror to ensure your facial expressions and body language are consistent with the words.  If you’re putting together multiple pieces for a sizzle reel, strike a balance between monologues that are light vs. dark, contemporary vs. classic.
5. Know your character beyond the monologue.  Some monologues are standalones, others are extracted from full plays.  If it’s a standalone, approach it as you would its own mini-play.  Although standalones offer only a short glimpse of what makes a character tick, it’s incumbent upon you to create a background profile so as to understand the context of what the speaker is trying to accomplish.  If you’re reading an extracted monologue, don’t just memorize the words.  You need to avail yourself of the full text in order to appreciate the character’s relationships with others in the story as well as their emotional state at the time of the monologue.  In other words, you have to read the whole play from which your monologue has been extracted.
6. Convey emotions clearly.  If you’re videotaping or streaming your monologue, all of the attention is going to be mostly on your face, not your whole body.  Accordingly, every emotion you want to convey will have to be done through your face and voice.  Does the monologue you’ve chosen allow this level of physical restraint?  If you’re used to flitting around, this will result in your moving in and out of the frame.  Likewise, broad gestures we take for granted on a stage (i.e., waving your arms around) are magnified on a small screen and come across as melodramatic.  Background also matters.  Go neutral so nothing detracts from you, the star!
7. Auditioning in person?  Be keenly aware of your body and how it moves.  Graceful?  Frenetic?  Stealthy?  Nervous?  Will you be addressing all of your lines through the fourth wall or to a character onstage we can’t see?  If it’s the former, direct your gaze and words toward the middle of the house rather than at the director.  (Directors really don’t like being stared down.)  If it’s the latter, steadfastly focus and convince us of where this other character is and what they are doing.  This is a lot like movies which use computer-generated imagery:  during a shoot, actors are often delivering their lines to a suspended tennis ball since animation and special effects aren’t added until editing.
8. Choose age-appropriate material.  Although high school students are often called upon to don grey wigs and hunch over to play septuagenarians, an audition monologue is different.  It’s the opportunity to show what you can do when you’re portraying someone who is close to your own age.  Further, the issues and themes explored in an age-appropriate teen monologue will resonate more deeply in your psyche than the experiences of adults many times removed from your generation.
9. Choose a monologue which is active, not static.  You should be able to freely vary the pace, energy, and vocal dynamics.  A monologue that runs like a blah-blah-blah flat-line from start to finish just isn’t going to elicit excitement.
10. Lastly, a great audition monologue talks to the audience, not at them.  In order to accomplish this, choose material with which you feel a personal connection.  What do you share in common with the character you’re portraying?  What life events of your own mirror the events conveyed in the material?  How would you put the monologue into your own words without losing its original intention?  When you can do this easily, you’ll know you’ve found the perfect monologue for your unique skill set as an actor.