Audition Tips: Preparing a Monologue
So you’ve chosen a your monologue - I hear you asking “what next? Where to start?” Well besides learning the lines (a more detailed post about memorising stuff coming soon) here are a few of the things I do when I’m preparing a monologue for an audition:
📝 WHO IS YOUR CHARACTER? ~ I know, not the easiest question to answer straight away but you need to create either a mental or written-down (my preferred method) profile with basic facts about your character. Start with things you can pick up from the text, from what people say about the character and what the character says about themselves. Then write down some basic facts and stats - you can find countless templates online on what questions you could consider about your character
📝 WHERE HAS YOUR CHARACTER BEEN JUST BEFORE THE MONOLOGUE TALES PLACE? ~ you need to establish the given circumstances of the monologue - where has your character just come from? Who was the last person they saw? What is the environment around them like - hot or cold, indoors or outdoors? Who are they talking to in the monologue?
📝 ANNOTATE! ANNOTATE! ANNOTATE! ~ print out a copy of your monologue and use a different marker (e.g. Highlighter, underlining, squiggly lines, etc.) to mark the following moments in the monologue: words to emphasise, pauses, high points, low points. You can also write down any key words that you think will help you remember more about your character.
📝 READ THE REST OF THE PLAY! ~ do as much research as you can about the play and its context. I cannot stress this enough!!!!! Read the play! Simple as that. Trust me, it’s very obvious when auditionees haven’t read the play and have no clue about the context of the character’s story.
📝 VOICE AND PHYSICALITY ~ once you have an idea of who your character is, you can identify facts about them that might affect how they talk and walk/hold themselves physically. For example, where they grew up might affect their accent, their age might affect their physical stance, a health condition might affect how well they can move. The best way to do this is to lose your inhibitions and just play around and see what comes of it.
