Fall Play information

Audition Monologues

Prepare ONE of the following monologues for your audition. Pick the monologues that you feel most comfortable with in terms of gender. Memorizing your chosen monologues is not required, but strongly encouraged. You are also encouraged to read the play or watch the play to get a sense of the circumstances surrounding these monologues.

At the audition, you will be called into the audition room one-by-one to preform for us. You will slate yourself (say your name and which monologue you have prepared) and perform the monologue once. After you have done the monologue, we may ask you to do it again or ask you other questions to get an idea of who you are as a person and as a performer. Remember when auditioning, take risks and don’t hold anything back! We are looking to seeing you!

From Hay Fever by Noël Coward

Character: Judith Bliss

Judith, a retired actress, is bored by domestic life and desperately misses the thrill of the stage and attention. She speaks dramatically and with flair, masking her restlessness behind theatrical charm.

JUDITH: I’ve been bored, darling—deadly bored. This house, this rain, these interminable mornings filled with tea and twitching curtains… it’s like being buried in wet cement. I was not meant to wilt away in the countryside arranging nasturtiums. No, I was born for brilliance! Laughter! Danger! That tingling sense of the unexpected—that is what keeps me alive. But you—you just sit there reading the paper as if the world isn’t crumbling with monotony. I tell you, if something doesn’t happen soon—something outrageous—I shall simply combust from the inside out!

From The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Character: Cecily Cardew

Cecily, a romantic and imaginative young woman, explains how she has constructed an entire fantasy relationship with a man before ever meeting him. Her monologue is playful, sincere, and absurdly confident.

CECILY: You see, ever since I first heard of you, I knew I was destined to love you. I even wrote your name in my diary—under “engagements.” I bought a little ring and practiced writing “Mrs. Ernest Worthing.” I broke it off dramatically once, just for the experience of heartbreak. I’ve dreamed up arguments, reconciliations, everything! And now that you’re finally here, it’s all very odd, isn’t it? Falling in love after we’ve already been through the worst. I do hope you won’t be disappointed with the reality. But I promise, I’m very good at imaginary love.

From The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel

Character: Beatrice

Beatrice, a bitter and disillusioned mother, vents her frustration about life’s disappointments and her sense of entrapment. Her anger masks deep pain and longing for something better.

BEATRICE: Do you know what it’s like to wake up and feel like you’re stuck in the same nightmare over and over again? This house, these walls, this life—it’s like trying to grow roses in a garbage dump. Every time I try to make something of myself, something pulls me back down. And don’t start with your science projects and your “sunflowers.” That’s fantasy. This is reality. And reality is mean, and cold, and it doesn’t care how many A’s you get. It kicks you in the teeth whether you’re ready or not. So no, I’m not hopeful. I’m just here, trying not to drown.

From Present Laughter by Noël Coward

Character: Garry Essendine

Garry, a self-important but charming actor, tries to let down a young admirer with flair and frustration. His monologue is theatrical, witty, and slightly unhinged.

GARRY: I’m not ungrateful, Daphne—I’m flattered. Deeply. But you must see that this is all a dreadful misunderstanding. You’ve built me up into some sort of tragic romantic figure, a brooding Byron in a smoking jacket, and I assure you, I’m nothing of the sort. I get indigestion. I misplace my scripts. I cry during sentimental movies. In short, I’m entirely ordinary—and I simply cannot be the grand passion you’re longing for. It’s exhausting just thinking about it! So please, take your adoration elsewhere—somewhere with fewer tantrums and more tea.

From The Miss Firecracker Contest by Beth Henley

Character: Popeye Jackson

Popeye, a sweet and quirky woman, shares an odd but heartfelt childhood memory about imagination and escape. Her tone is gentle, vulnerable, and hopeful.

POPEYE: When I was little, I thought if I stared at a picture long enough, I could crawl inside it. I had this one picture of a pond with willows and a boat, and I’d just sit there, staring, trying to breathe real quiet so I could hear the water. My sister said I was crazy, but I knew that if I believed hard enough, I could get inside. Be somewhere beautiful. And now? Now I still try, sometimes. I close my eyes and picture that pond. Because even if I can’t really go there, just imagining it makes this world feel a little less… heavy.

From The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart

Character: Sheridan Whiteside

Sheridan, a witty and domineering radio personality, has been confined to a small-town household after slipping on ice. He delivers this monologue in frustration as he rails against his confinement and the people disrupting his routine.

SHERIDAN: I have been a prisoner in this house for three interminable weeks. Three weeks of watery soup, amateur dramatics, and the inane babbling of people who think they’re charming because they play bridge and keep a pet llama. I am a man of distinction! I have dined with kings, debated with Roosevelt, and yet here I sit—trapped like a sick walrus—while life goes on without me. And you, Miss Preen, with your simpering cough and tragic eyebrows, you are not Florence Nightingale! You are a one-woman Greek chorus of doom! If this nightmare does not end soon, I shall simply dissolve into a puddle of bile and boredom.

From Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer

Character: Lettice Douffet

Lettice, an eccentric tour guide with a flair for the dramatic, defends her decision to embellish dull historical facts with theatrical flourish. Her monologue is passionate, poetic, and defiantly unapologetic.

LETTICE: History is not dry! It is not dusty dates and drab draperies. No! It is alive! It is thunder and velvet, blood and glory, drama and scandal and majesty! And if those poor tourists shuffled through that deathly dull hall one more time hearing about lintel beams and 18th-century brickwork, I daresay they’d have hurled themselves into the moat! I gave them passion! I gave them Eleanor of Aquitaine weeping in the tower, I gave them poisoned goblets and secret staircases! So yes, I added a few embellishments—what of it? I awakened their imaginations, and I will not apologize for that. Dullness is a crime, and I am gloriously guilty!

From The Curious Savage by John Patrick

Character: Mrs. Ethel P. Savage

Mrs. Savage, an older woman committed to a sanatorium by her stepchildren, is whimsical, wise, and delightfully off-kilter. In this monologue, she explains why she no longer cares to live according to society’s expectations. It’s spirited, sincere, and full of Madame Arcati energy.

MRS. SAVAGE: People say I’m peculiar—eccentric, even. But I say, what’s wrong with that? Why should I march to the same drum as everyone else when I have my own orchestra playing a perfectly lovely waltz in my head? I’ve spent too many years pretending to be something I’m not—quiet, obedient, respectable. But the truth is, I’ve always wanted to dye my hair green and recite poetry to strangers and take up flamenco dancing at seventy-two. Why not? Why should age or money or manners keep us from delight? I’ve learned that the world only frowns when it forgets how to smile. So let them think I’m mad—I’d rather be mad and merry than sane and sorrowful.