Theatre Arts Research Guide

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.

1. Read plays. It sounds so simple, but too many actors do not read enough plays. Get into the habit of reading a play a week and I guarantee that you will find useable material with regularity.
2. Do not use books of monologues. The monologues in those books will be overdone. The best use for these books is to find plays, characters or playwrights that you may wish to further investigate. For example, perusing a book of audition monologues for young women may give you some titles and information that greatly pares down and focuses your search.
3. One acts and short plays by established playwrights are often rich sources of unused material. If you find a playwright that you absolutely love but don’t want to work on their most famous play, dig a little deeper and see if you can find something else they wrote, perhaps earlier in their career.
4. Instead of looking for monologues, look for actors. Do some research and find actors who are similar to you in type and who play the kinds of roles that also fall into your own wheelhouse. Once you have a few names, do some research and see what they’ve been in. Your search may reveal some new titles to consider. Even if the actor is older than you, find out what they played when they were your age.
5. Stop scanning plays for big chunks of text. That’s how everyone else looks for monologues. Those chunks are more likely to be overdone. Instead, once you’ve found a play with a character that fits your type, look for exciting dialogue that features this character. If you can find a good scene with a clear sense of objective driving the character, start editing out the other character’s lines and see if you can create a cohesive monologue. With some minimal editing, you may discover that your dialogue is actually a monologue.

Books owned by Elon to help you find and prepare good monologues

To find full scripts of monologues, use the resources listed below. 

• You can find and read full-text scripts online in the first four resources: New Play Exchange, Drama Online, the Monologuer, and the American Theatre journal.
• The last two links take you to lists of books of monologues and plays in our library.

•  The New Play Exchange is a collection of new plays and monologues.
• You can search this collection by play length/age level/genre, actor race/ethnicity/gender/age, subject matter, narrative attributes, cast size, character race/ethnicity/gender, and playwright demographics.
• New Play Exchange: Every Featured List on NPX Ever
  • A thread of of all NPX's curated lists of different genres/topics/playwrights

• Select Advanced Play Search to the right of the main search bar, then scroll down to "Monologue Search". You can add in any key words, select a gender, and/or enter in a word count before you click "search". 
• 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.

* 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"

* 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.