Things to be considered: age, personality, physical description, accent, and so on. Above all else, acting is about entertaining. Do everything you can to select a monologue that you believe in, while also entertaining to watch. That means finding a piece that has a story arc with a beginning, middle, and end.
That means there is change occurring in the character throughout the speech. Tricks to entertain: choose a speech that has comedy and drama, look for a passage with a surprising twist, or select an uncommon monologue.
Brevity is also the soul of a good monologue. An effective monologue should be around one minute, or 90 seconds max. It is far better to fill a 30 second monologue with great acting choices than to dredge on for 3 minutes of mediocre acting. Worked on a play with a great monologue? Have a favorite writer that you would love to perform? Familiarity with a piece can lead to faster preparation and a greater understanding of character.
Lastly, think about who is going to watch you and what part you are auditioning for. Always try to match the role with the monologue as stated in 1 so the casting folk can see a glimpse of you in the part. One director might be edgy, another more traditional, so try to choose a monologue that aligns.
Following these five steps will put an actor on the track to choosing a good monologue for themselves. Image Source. Follow the steps below to select a monologue that is right for you… 1: Know Your Type First, a monologue is an opportunity to show who you are as an actor, so knowing your type is important.
You could do this by standing in front of a mirror holding a position of your made-up character or even talking gibberish and testing out different facial expressions, voice, and movement. Another good starting point is to base your character on someone you know or some TV star you see as an inspiration.
Think about where you want the monologue to go and how it's meant to fit in with the rest of your play. What role do the monologue and the one delivering the speech play in the context of the written work as a whole? Start thinking about these things as you begin to develop your character.
Now that you have some idea of a character in mind, it's time to create a character profile. A character profile should include the following:. Tip: When creating a character for a monologue, it's important to make sure your audience will be able to connect with that character. Since monologues are long speeches, you need to know you'll be able to capture and maintain your audience's attention throughout the speech. Think about your audience when crafting a monologue.
Michael Mora. Begin writing your script. Remember to keep it short and sweet—a monologue should be no longer than one or two pages long and should take about two minutes to deliver give or take , including all pauses. Now that you've created a detailed character profile, you should find your path from there simple and easy. Decide whether you want the monologue to be comedic or dramatic, and think about the arc of the monologue.
The character should make some discovery or go on some internal journey. You should begin paying attention to the past, present, and future parts of your character profile. This should show your character's life already planned out. Here are some ideas and suggestions to explore when crafting your monologue:. Editing is the most important part of writing a monologue—make sure to edit your script a few times after you have finished it.
You need to make sure that every single sentence and word is necessary and serves a purpose. Draft it and keep on going until you are happy with it. Only once you're happy with what you have and it checks all those "to remember" points in the list at the top should you consider it a final draft.
Break the text up into sections so that you can memorize the text in bite-sized chunks. This will also help you to revise and edit as needed. Hand-writing has been proven to bolster your ability to retain information, so give that a try as well! Make sure to do research on the type of character for whom you're writing the monologue. If you don't know how to write from the perspective of a character who's older, younger, gay, straight, male, female, or different from you in some other way, beginning the monologue-writing process with extensive research is key.
You need to get inside your character's head to feel what they feel and think what they think—reading books, watching movies, or talking to people who understand the type of character you're going for is a great place to start.
A monologue needs to be short and sweet. Remember, you need to capture and maintain your audience's attention. Keep it to two minutes three minutes maximum , including all pauses. Keep it short, and make sure your character has an arc or storyline that is examined within the text of the monologue. Focus on the editing phase of writing the monologue—remember that every word needs to drive the plot forward. A monologue worksheet is a physical template you can use to direct your monologue-writing.
With it, you can create a visual outline for your character profile. Fill out information about your character—their age, fears, likes and dislikes, etc. Then answer some questions about the monologue itself, such as where it takes place, what issues will be resolved, what outcome the character desires, and what obstacles may be preventing that outcome.
With a monologue worksheet, you have all the information about the character and the monologue in front of you while you're writing.
You can use Microsoft Word to create the monologue worksheet template, then print and hand-write on it, or simply use it as a working document on your computer. Thanks for lending us this incridble ideas especially for me cause' it helps me making my nephew a monologue. Well,first I am having a difficulty in writing it but when the time I found this page of yours, I felt so excited. So thank you a lot! I'm also writing a monologue for a class, and I will be presenting it.
This was ver useful and it did not just make the crowd laugh it made me laugh! I loved using your tips for my presentation Thanks. Thank you so much for helping me i really learnt a lot of things i really appreciate it.
This is broken down very well and was very helpful! Thank You! I'm writing a monologue for my school play auditions and this helped so much.
0コメント