Saturday, February 16, 2013

More Anne of Green Gables Monologues

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
From the book, young Anne talking to herself in her bedroom mirror.

ANNE: Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll always stay imagined.  This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it.  I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall.  I am tall and regal, clad in a gown or trailing white lace, with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair.  My name is Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald.  No, it isn’t - I can’t make that seem real.
 You’re only Anne of Green Gables, and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady Cordelia.  But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?

Thursday, February 7, 2013

How To Dress for an Audition

DRESSING FOR AN AUDITION

Your appearance is the first thing directors notice at an audition. Here are some tips for making the best of that first impression.

The number one rule in dressing for an audition is: Don’t let what you’re wearing become a distraction. Yes, you want to make and impression and wear something that reflects your personality, but your attire should not be the most memorable thing about you. The directors need to be able to envision you as the character they are casting for. That doesn’t mean dress as the character - I would strongly recommend against going to an audition in an Annie or Oliver costume for example (though you will occasionally find the director that likes that). Instead try keeping it simple, i.e. a solid color dress with simple lines in your favorite color, or khaki pants with a casual button down shirt.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

DO be clean and tidy, not matter what your style.
DON’T wear bold or loud prints.
DO wear color.
DON’T wear white or green unless specifically asked to.
DO dress up a little.
DON’T be too formal, uncomfortably stiff, or over the top glamorous.
DO wear your hair styled like it is in your head shots.
DON’T wear jeans unless specifically asked to, it’s generally too casual.
DO wear casual clothes you can move in to an audition with dancing.
DON’T wear a lot of jewelry or accessories.
DO wear clothes you feel good in and attractive in.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The Happy Prince Monologue - boy, age 8 to 14

THE HAPPY PRINCE
From the Oscar Wilde fairy tale about a statue of a former prince

Boy, Age 8 to 14

PRINCE: Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. He has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint. Alas! I no longer have rubies to give him. My eyes are all that I have now. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweler, and buy firewood, and finish his play. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, do not weep so. Do as I command you and pluck out my eye.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

A Girl of the Limberlost Monologue - Age 12 to 14

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
Elnora
Girl, Ages 12 to 14
 

      Oh Uncle Wesley, why didn’t you tell me?  You should have seen me among them at that school.  I was a picture!  They’ll never forget me.  No, they won’t get a chance, for they’ll see the same things tomorrow, if I can go back.  And if I don’t go back, all of them will know it’s not because of my clothes.  They will know it’s because I am so poor I can’t buy my books.  It’s books and tuition.  Over twenty dollars in all.  Oh, how can I get it, Uncle Wesley? 
      No. I wouldn’t touch a penny from you, unless I really could earn it.  Hand me money because you find me crying for it!  I owe you and Aunt Margaret for all the home life and love I’ve ever known, and I’ll not take your money.   I’m going home, and I’ll try mother for the money.  It’s just possible I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition need not be paid at once.  Maybe they would accept it quarterly.  But, oh, Uncle Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret, you keep on loving me. 

Friday, February 1, 2013

The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe Monologue - Lucy


THE LION, THE WITCH, & THE WARDROBE
LUCY
Girl, Age 6 to 10

 

It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve come back. Why, haven’t you all been wondering where I was? I’ve been away for hours and hours. It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I’ve been away for hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened. No, Peter. I’m not just making up a story for fun. I was in the wardrobe. It’s - it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing , and there’s a Faun and a Witch and it’s called Narnia; come and see. There! Go in and see for yourselves. But - but where has it all gone? No. It wasn’t a hoax, I promise. Really and truly. It was all different a moment ago. Honestly it was.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Pride and Prejudice Monologue - Lydia

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Girl, age 14 to 16

Lydia has runaway with Mr Wickham. She believes they’re going to get married and hasn’t thought at all about how her choices will negatively affect her family or her friend, Harriet Forster. 

Dear Harriet,

You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before the are packed up. Goodbye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey.

Your Affectionate Friend,

Lydia Bennet

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Original Monologue - Girl, age 11 to 14

UMBRELLA
Girl, age 11 to 14

An umbrella is a stupid thing to get in a fight with your mom over. But she wanted me to get the same ruffled pink umbrella I’ve had since I was three. I don’t feel like a ruffled pink umbrella kind of person anymore, you know? I wanted this art print umbrella I’d found at the museum gift shop. It was the kind of umbrella that made me wish for rainy days. It was perfect, but my mom said ‘no.’ She didn’t just say ‘no;’ she actually told me the pink one matched my style better. Like I have no idea what my style is. Like that’s something she can decide for me. And while I stood there trying to explain how completely wrong she was, she took one of the stupid pink umbrellas up to the counter. That’s when I lost it. Right there in the store. I came this close to telling her I’d broken the old umbrella, just so I wouldn’t have to be seen with it anymore. Next thing you know she’s stomping out the door telling me I could spend the year with wet hair, because she wasn’t buying me anything if I was ‘going to behave like this.’ I’ve never been so relieved in my life. And she was wrong; I won’t have wet hair all year, because Grandma drove me back to the museum gift shop. When it rains, I’ll be out dancing it, with an umbrella that’s all me.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Audition Web Sites

I'm based out of Houston, and I use the sites listed to the right to search for auditions.  I also check at the local theater webpages.  What sites do you recommend for your area and nationally?  Let me know, and I'll post them on the audition sites sidebar.  Thanks!

Lord of the Flies Monologue


LORD OF THE FLIES
PIGGY

I expect there’s a lot more of us scattered about. You haven’t seen any others, have you? I’d run and have a look about with you, but my auntie told me not to run, on account of my asthma. Can’t catch me breath. I was the only boy in our school what had asthma. And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three. I expect when we find the others, we ought to have a meeting. And we’ll want to know all their names, and make a list. I don’t care what they call me, so long as they don’t call me what they used to call me at school. They used to call me ‘Piggy.’ No. Please! I said I didn’t want to be called --” Oh. Oh fine. Just so long as you don’t tell the others.”

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Anne Frank monologue

ANNE FRANK
THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL

This monologue is taken directly from part of the book’s Friday, 5 February, 1943 entry

Dear Kitty,
Just recently Mrs. Van Daan came out with some perfect nonsense.  She was recalling the past, how well she and her father got on together and what a flirt she was.  “And do you know,” she went on, “if a man gets a bit aggressive, my father used to say, then you must say to him, ‘Mr. So and So, remember I am a lady!’ and he will know what you mean.”  We thought that was a good joke and burst out laughing.  Peter too, although usually so quiet, sometimes gives cause for mirth.  He is blessed with a passion for foreign words, although he does not always know their meaning.  One afternoon we couldn’t go to the lavatory because there were visitors in the office; however, Peter had to pay an urgent call.  So he didn’t pull the plug.  He put a notice up on the lavatory door to warm us, with “S.V.P. gas” on it.  Of course he meant to put “Beware of gas”; but he thought the other looked more genteel.  He hadn’t got the faintest notion it meant “if you please.”
Yours,
Anne

Friday, January 18, 2013

Original Monologue - Girl, age 13 - 14

FIRST KISS
Girl, age 13 to 14

 Your first kiss is supposed to be sweet.  Or perfect.  Or tingly?   It’s supposed to at least be memorable.  I wouldn’t know.  I’ll probably never know.  Not that first kiss.  The one where the boy you like looks in your eyes, like you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and kisses you.  It’s not happening for me now.  Ever.  Because I blew it.

 I don’t know if you noticed, but I talk a lot when I’m nervous.  That, and my hands get sweaty.  I think everybody’s hands get sweaty when their nervous.  But, you just wipe them off on your jeans and move on.  It’s not like it’s super noticeable, like say, talking non-stop.  And I mean non-stop.  Like an insane parrot that just can’t shut up. Not even when Noah Miller looked at me with the I’m completely into you look.  Not even when Noah Miller, the guy I’ve been dreaming about for weeks, put his hands on my waist and pulled me closer.   Nope, why would I stop talking then?  In fact, I talked faster.  It talked much that Noah Miller finally gave up and told me he’d see me later.  But I think we all know he won’t.   Why would he want to see me later?  So I can talk some more?

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Secret Garden - Boy, Age 8 to 12

THE SECRET GARDEN
 Colin is a boy age 8 to 12 who has been bedridden his entire life.

COLIN: The springtime.  I was thinking that I’ve really never seen it before.  I scarcely ever went out, and when I did go I never looked at it.  I didn’t even think about it.  That morning when you ran in and said ‘It’s come!  It’s come!’ you made me feel quite queer.  It sounded as if things were coming with a great procession and big bursts and wafts of music.  I’ve a picture like it in one of my books - crowds of lovely people and children with garlands and branches with blossoms on them,  everyone laughing and dancing and crowding and playing on pipes.  That’s why I said, ‘Perhaps we shall hear golden trumpets’ and told you to throw open the window.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Secret Garden - girl, ages 8 - 10

THE SECRET GARDEN
 
Mary is 8 to 10 years old in this scene
 
MARY:  I don’t know anything about boys.  Could you keep a secret, if I told you one?  It’s a great secret.  I don’t know what I should do if anyone found it out.  I believe I should die!  I’ve stolen a garden.  It isn’t mine.    It isn’t anybody’s.  Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it.  Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don’t know.   And I don’t care, I don’t care!  Nobody has any right to take it from me when I care about it and they don’t.  They’re letting it die, all shut up by itself.  It’s mine now.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Original monologue - girl age 6 to 10

HOW TO SCARE GIRLS

Look, I know you’re thinking it’s probably a fake. I mean, why would I sell you a real list of how to scare girls? It’s like the ultimate betrayal of my kind or something, right? Except, I get it. Scaring girls… it’s fun.

Last week, Becca, Abbey, and I were getting tadpoles by the stream, and I saw this dead fish. So I picked it up to show them. Only, they started screaming - like it was a brain eating zombie instead of some stupid old fish. Next thing I know, I’m chasing them with it, and it was…..Anyhow, scaring girls? I get it now.

The list is one dollar, and I guarantee they’ll all work. Only, save number eight for your mom. Mom’s are girls too, right? And number eight, made my mom have to lay down with a wash cloth on her face for a whole hour. It was amazing.
Original monologue for a boy age 8 to 12 years old
 
HISTORICAL PLAYS ARE BORING

This play would be so much better with ninjas. I tried to tell my teacher we needed to add some action to it. Like an evil alien army showing up to battle the pilgrims and Indians for control of earth at the big feast scene. But she wouldn’t go for it. She said it wasn’t historically accurate. Oh, and that the Thanksgiving feast being peaceful was the whole point of the play. A bunch of people in itchy clothes stuffing their faces is the whole point of the show? Seriously? She has no idea what entertainment looks like. Not surprising since she’s older than my grandma, but come on. We gotta keep the audience awake, and her show is duller than my sister’s ballet recitals.

So I talked to the guys. And it turns out, they’d been thinking the same thing. That’s why we’re all wearing swords under our costumes tonight. When I give the signal, all the boys from room nine are going to erupt in the most wicked battle to the death ever. Garrett and Ethan even taped sandwich bags full of ketchup to their stomachs, so it’ll look like real blood when they get stabbed. This is going down as the best Thanksgiving play in school history. Just wait.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Anne of Green Gables Monologues

Here are two monologues adapted from the Kevin Sullivan Productions movie Anne of Green Gables.  Anne is roughly 11 years old.

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Riding home to Green Gables for her first time with Mathew

ANNE:
Oh, I know you and I are going to get along just fine, Mr. Cuthbert. I love this place already. I always heard that Prince Edward Island was the most beautiful place in Canada, and I used to imagine I was living here. This is the first dream that has ever come true for me. It's always been one of my dreams to live by the sea. These red roads are so peculiar. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past, I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red, and she said she didn't know and pity's sake not to ask her anymore questions. Dreams don't often come true, do they Mr. Cuthbert? Just now, I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because, what color would you call this?
Red. That's why I can't ever be perfectly happy. I know I'm skinny and a little freckled and my eyes are green. I can imagine I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely, starry violet eyes, but I cannot imagine my red hair away. It'll be my life-long sorrow.

 

 

 

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Apology to Diana’s Aunt Josephine for jumping on her in bed
 
ANNE: I’m Anne of Green Gables and I've come to confess.  It was all my doing, Miss Barry. Diana would never think of such a thing as racing to a bed and jumping on it. She's far too lady-like, whereas I am merely an orphan who doesn't know any better. So I think you ought to forgive Diana and let her have her music lessons back.
I don't know what it's like to be wakened from the few hours of precious sleep granted an old woman in a strange bed by two ferocious, wild girls landing on her head, but I can imagine it must have been terrifying in the extreme. And if you had any imagination you could have put yourself in our place.
Don't you have any imagination, Miss Barry?
Well, we honestly didn't know you were in there, and you scared us half to death. You should just imagine how exciting it was going to be for me to sleep in a spare bedroom, reserved for important company such as yourself. As it was, I had to sleep with Minnie May, and you don't know how she kicks. Mine was the sleep of the bitterly disappointed, Miss Barry. I was forced to lie awake all night with the knowledge that I had cost Diana her career as a world famous concert pianist.