Audition Monologues for Roles Where Characters Experiment With Something New, Vol. 10
Every actor hits a stretch where the work feels mechanical. The audition tape goes flat. The scene study sounds rehearsed. The fix is almost always new material, more often, with a wider emotional range than you would naturally choose. This final volume leans into creative acts. Characters who are writing, performing, singing, making things in front of other people for the first time. Vulnerable in a specific, useful way for actors. Use this set like a workout circuit. Pick the one that scares you slightly and tape it cold. Ten characters putting it out there.
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Odette — 29, finishing the first draft of her first novel
(Calling her sister, breathless) I did it. I did it, I did it, I did it. (laughs) Twenty-eight months. Three hundred and forty-one pages. I just typed the words 'the end' on the last page like a complete cliche and I am sitting on the kitchen floor crying. (beat) Hannah. I told nobody. I didn't tell Mom. I didn't tell Daniel. I didn't tell my therapist for the first six months. Because every time I'd told someone in the past that I was writing a novel, they'd ask about it three months later and I'd have nothing. (steadier) And I couldn't survive that face again. The pity face. (firmer) But I did it. I did it on weekends and on lunch breaks and at five a.m. before my real job. (softer) It might be terrible, Hannah. It might be the worst novel ever written. (beat, defiant) But it exists. There is a manuscript and it has my name on it and it exists in the world. (quieter) I'm allowed to call myself a writer now. Right? Just for tonight?
Heath — 36, at his first band rehearsal in a friend's garage
(Setting down a bass guitar, to the drummer) Okay. Okay, that was. That was a song. We just played a song. The four of us, in this garage, played an entire song from beginning to end. (laughs) I haven't done that since I was nineteen. Seventeen years, Marco. Seventeen years of not picking up the bass because I was busy being an adult. (beat) My wife thinks this is a midlife crisis. She told me last night, you can have the band or you can have the motorcycle, you cannot have both. (small laugh) I picked the band. (steadier) Listen. I'm not pretending we're going to play stadiums. I know what we are. We are four guys with day jobs and receding hairlines making noise on a Tuesday night. (firmer) But the noise. The noise is good. (quieter) When I played that bridge, the one in the second song. I felt nineteen again. Just for sixteen bars. (beat) Same time next week. I'll bring the beer.
Saoirse — 43, in her first figure-drawing class, painting from a live model
(Quietly to the woman at the easel next to her) Don't look at mine. Please. I'm begging you. (small laugh) I have been drawing fruit. Fruit, Helen. Apples in a bowl. Pears on a tablecloth. For four years. And tonight my teacher said, you're ready, sign up for the figure class, you'll love it. (steadies) Helen, there is a naked person standing on a platform six feet from me. A real, breathing, naked person. And I am supposed to look at him. Closely. With my full attention. (beat) I am a forty-three-year-old mother of three and my hand will not stop shaking. (firmer) But look at the shoulder. Look at the way the light falls along the deltoid. (softer) It's beautiful, Helen. It's actually beautiful. I have never let myself just. Look at a body before. As a thing of shape and weight. (quieter) I'm going to come back next week. Don't tell my husband. He thinks I'm at pottery.
Ronan — 25, performing magic in front of a small audience for the first time
(Backstage, to his friend, vibrating with nerves) Sixty people. Marcus, there are sixty people in that room. I counted them through the curtain. Sixty. I have done this trick in my kitchen, in the mirror, on FaceTime to my mother, at the park for children. Never for sixty adults at the same time. (beat) My hands are sweating. Magicians cannot have sweating hands. The cards stick. The whole illusion falls apart. (laughs, slightly hysterical) I have been doing magic since I was eleven. Fourteen years. And tonight is the first time anyone is paying to watch me. (steadies) Twenty dollars a ticket. Sixty people. (firmer) Okay. Okay, here is what is going to happen. I am going to walk out there. I am going to do the coin pull. The coin pull never fails. The coin pull is bulletproof. Then I'm going to ride the high. (softer) Marcus. If I bomb. If I really bomb. Drive me home without saying anything. Just drive me home.
Lila — 31, at her first community choir rehearsal, talking to the woman next to her
(Whispering during a break) I'm sorry, can I ask you a completely terrified question. (laughs softly) Do you. Do you read music? Like actually read it, the dots, the lines, the. (steadies) Because I do not. I do not read music. I auditioned because the director said sight-reading wasn't required and I think I may have been lied to. (beat) Marjorie. I have wanted to sing in a choir since I was eight years old. Eight. My mother told me I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. She said that. To an eight-year-old. (small laugh) So I didn't sing. For twenty-three years. Not in the car, not in the shower, not on my birthday when people sang at me. (firmer) And then she died. Last year. And I thought. What else. What else did she talk me out of. (softer) The first soprano in front of me. She is glaring at me. (quieter) Stay near me, Marjorie. I will follow your alto into hell.
Wallace — 64, premiering his first short film at a local festival
(In the lobby, to his grown son, shaking slightly) Sit with me a second. Sit. The lights go down in eight minutes and I need to. I need to be a person before they go down. (beat) Daniel. You know what I did for thirty-eight years. I sold insurance. Insurance. And every weekend I had a camera and a notebook and I drove out to the desert and I shot footage and I told myself one day. One day. (laughs) And then I retired and your mother said, well, what's the one day, Wallace. (steadies) Eleven minutes. The film is eleven minutes long. I made it in nine months. There are sixty-three people in that theater. I know because I personally invited every one of them. (firmer) Some of them are going to hate it. Some of them will lie to my face afterward about how moving it was. (quieter) I don't care. I made it. (softer) Hold my hand when it starts. I don't care what people think. Hold my hand anyway.
Marisol — 28, after her first burlesque class performance
(In the dressing room, peeling off false eyelashes, to a classmate) Carmen. Carmen, look at me. Look at me. I just did a five-minute burlesque number. In front of people. (laughs, disbelieving) Eight weeks ago I could not look at myself in a dressing room mirror at Target. Eight weeks ago I changed under my towel at the gym. (beat) And tonight, fully under stage lights, in front of strangers, I did a slow strut down a runway and removed gloves to Etta James. (steadies) My mother would have a literal stroke. (firmer) Which is part of the appeal. I am not going to pretend it isn't. (softer) But Carmen. Carmen. When I hit that final pose. When the lights went up and people clapped. I felt something I have never felt in twenty-eight years on this earth. (quieter) I felt like I lived in my body. Like it was mine. (beat, grinning) I'm signing up for the next class. Don't talk me out of it.
Eamon — 52, doing his first public poetry reading at a bookstore
(At the podium, fumbling with papers, to the small audience) Hello. Hello, everyone, thank you. Thank you for. (clears throat) Thank you for coming out on a Wednesday. I know there's a basketball game on. I appreciate it. (small laugh) My name is Eamon. I am a high school chemistry teacher. I have been writing poems in a notebook since I was sixteen years old. (beat) That notebook has lived in eleven different drawers in seven different apartments. Until last month, when my niece read three of them and said, Uncle E, you have to share these, what is wrong with you. (steadies) So tonight I'm going to read four poems. Four. They are short. (quieter) The first one is about my brother. He died when I was nineteen. I have been trying to write this poem for thirty-three years. (firmer, looks up) I think I finally got it last August. (long beat) Okay. Okay. Here we go. (lifts the page) It is called Pier Six, Nineteen Ninety-Two.
Indira — 22, debuting her first album at a release show
(Backstage, to her producer, pacing) Sam. Sam, I can hear them out there. I can hear them already. The doors opened twelve minutes ago and I can hear them. (laughs, nervous) I uploaded my first song to SoundCloud when I was fifteen. Fifteen. It got eleven plays. Eleven. Nine of them were me. (beat) And tonight I'm performing twelve songs. Twelve original songs. From an actual album. That exists. That has a tracklist and cover art and a release date that is today. (steadies) Sam. What if I forget the second verse of Salt River. I always forget the second verse of Salt River. Always. (firmer) Okay. Okay, taped to the monitor. You promised. Taped to the monitor in Sharpie. (softer) My parents are out there. Both of them. They flew in from Atlanta. They have never seen me sing in front of more than the family. (quieter) If I cry on stage, I cry on stage. That's part of the album anyway. (beat, grinning) Push me out there. Push me before I think about it more.
Talbot — 47, at his first community theater rehearsal
(In the lobby after rehearsal, to the director) Cynthia. Cynthia, hi, do you have one second. (clears throat) I just want to say. I just want to say I know I was the worst person in the room tonight. I know. You don't have to be gentle about it. (small laugh) I am a forty-seven-year-old project manager. I have not been on a stage since I played a tree in fourth grade. A tree, Cynthia. With one line. Which I forgot. (beat) But when my wife saw the audition notice at the library, she said, this is the year. She said, you have talked about doing this for twenty years, this is the year. (steadies) So here I am. Cast as Father, twelve lines, two scenes. And tonight I was. I was bad. (firmer) But I want to be less bad next week. (quieter) Will you tell me. Will you tell me honestly what to work on. I can take it. I project-manage software developers. I can absolutely take notes.
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