Monologues, no matter how we may feel about them, are a necessary part of the actor’s life. Finding suitable monologue material that fits you and shows off your skills and abilities in a positive light is a constant task. Even once you’ve found pieces suitable for your repertoire, you may find that auditions for different kinds of parts demand different kinds of audition material, or that your type has shifted as you’ve aged, grown a beard, changed your hair, etc. Actors must always be on the hunt for audition material that will help them get the job.
Books owned by Elon to help you find and prepare good monologues
To find full scripts of monologues, use the resources listed below.
**All of the monologues in New Play Exchange are available online from wherever you are. If you are off-campus, enter your Elon username and password when prompted to login.
* Drama Online includes plays by both new and established playwrights.
* You can search this collection by character gender, play length, specific playwright, genre, period, theme, and setting.
* If this link won't let you into the database, use the instructions in the box labeled "Find monologues in the Drama Online database" below to find monologues.
**All of the monologues in Drama Online are available online from wherever you are. If you are off-campus, enter your Elon username and password when prompted to login.
* An assortment of classical and contemporary monologues from plays, including Shakespeare, for males, females, kids, and adults.
* Use the filters to find the monologues perfect for you: search by author, gender, and theme.
* From backstage
* The American Theatre journal, produced by the Theatre Communications Group, contains full-text scripts of American plays in some issues.
* Here's a list of all the plays published in the American Theatre journal
-- https://www.americantheatre.org/play-index/
-- once you find a play you're interested in, use the date to find the journal issue in which the play appears.
* Or follow these steps to find some of the scripts in this journal:
1. Click the "American Theatre journal" link above
2. Click the "Ebsco Academic Search Complete" link in the left column
3. Click on "Search within this publication"
4. In the search box, copy and paste these words: JN "American Theatre" AND "script of the play"
**All of the monologues in American Theatre journal are available online from wherever you are. If you are off-campus, enter your Elon username and password when prompted to login.
* This link searches our library system to find books of monologues.
* All of these books have call numbers that start with 812.04508 and are located on the 3rd floor of the library.
**The best use for these books is to find plays, characters or playwrights that you may wish to further investigate.
* This link searches our library system to find books of plays.
* All of these books have call numbers that start with 812.508 and are located on the 3rd floor of the library.
Select Advanced Search (very tiny text under the Search button at the top of the page) then select "Monologue" from the Type drop down list. You can also specify other criteria before you click on the "Submit Advanced Search" button.