Audition Monologues for Roles Where Characters Experiment With Something New, Vol. 5
Audition rooms are short and unforgiving. You get sixty seconds to communicate a person who is real and specific. Characters experimenting with something new accelerate that work because their interior life is louder than usual. They are hyper-aware. Their feet hurt. Their hands are clumsy. They are noticing everything because nothing is automatic. That kind of heightened awareness is exactly what casting reads as alive. Use these monologues to drill that on-camera presence. Each scene asks you to be specific about a body in a brand-new situation. Ten characters. Ten chances to practice being newly awake.
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Selma — 42, corporate lawyer leaving to become a full-time visual artist
(In a half-empty office, to her assistant) Diane. Sit down. I have something to tell you, and I want you to hear it from me before HR sends a memo. (beat) I'm done. I'm leaving. End of the month. (sighs) I know. I know. Sixteen years. Partner track. The corner office. The whole thing. (firmer) Diane, I have been waking up at three in the morning for two years. Two years. Painting in the basement at four AM. Showering at six. Coming in here at seven. And I have not told a single soul. (softer) My husband knows. My therapist knows. And now you know. (pause) I'm going to be a painter. I am forty-two years old. I have a degree in art history I never used. I have a studio rented downtown. The first month's deposit cleared on Friday. (laughs, slightly shaky) Stop crying. Please. You're going to make me cry. (softer) You were the best part of this job. I mean that.
Kai — 36, finance professional in his first week of nursing school
(Sitting in a school cafeteria, on a video call with his mother) Mom. Mom, listen. I survived day three. (laughs) I am thirty-six years old, surrounded by twenty-two-year-olds who think I'm an adjunct professor. One of them called me sir. Sir. (sighs) The biology lab. I have not been in a biology lab since 2008. I do not remember what a mitochondrion does. I tried to look at a cell under a microscope and I almost cried. (firmer) But Mom, you remember when Dad was in the hospital. You remember the night nurse, the woman who sat with him while you slept. (softer) She was who I want to be. She made everyone feel okay. And nobody at my old job, in ten years, ever made anybody feel okay. (pause) I'm tired. My feet hurt. The scrubs are scratchy. (laughs) But I'm going back tomorrow. And the day after that. Tell Dad I'm sorry I couldn't make Sunday dinner.
Annette — 58, retiring after 35 years as a kindergarten teacher
(At her empty classroom, packing a box, to a fellow teacher) Karen. Look at this. (holds up a drawing) Twenty-eight years ago. Marcus Reynolds, my first class. He's a dentist now. He sent me a card last Christmas. I keep all the cards. I have boxes. I have boxes, Karen. (sighs) Thirty-five years. Tomorrow I walk out and I don't come back. (beat) I told the principal I was excited. I told the kids' parents I was excited. I am not excited. I am terrified. (firmer) Who am I if I'm not Mrs. Annette. I have been Mrs. Annette since I was twenty-three. Some of these parents I taught when they were five. (softer) What do I do on Monday, Karen. What do I do at eight AM on Monday when I don't have a circle time. (longer beat) I told my husband I'd take up gardening. I hate gardening. (laughs through tears) I think I'm just going to come back as a substitute. Don't tell anyone. Let them think I retired.
Roscoe — 29, corporate lawyer who just quit to attend culinary school
(At his parents' kitchen table) Dad. Mom. Please don't talk over me. Please. Just let me get through it. (sighs) I quit. Last Friday. I gave four weeks notice. I start culinary school in February. (beat) Yes, I know how much law school cost. Yes, I am paying you back. We have a plan. Beth and I have a plan. (firmer) Dad, look at me. I have been miserable for four years. Four. Years. I cried at my review last month. The partner gave me a tissue and we both pretended it didn't happen. (sighs) I want to cook. I want to feed people. I have wanted this since I was nine, when Grandma taught me how to braise. (softer) I'm not running from law. I'm running toward something. And if I don't try now, I'm going to be forty-five and I'm going to hate everybody. (longer beat) Mom. Don't cry. Or do. It's okay. I just need you both to nod. That's all I need. Right now. Just nod.
Imani — 24, two months into full-time freelancing after quitting her agency job
(On a phone call with her best friend, in a sun-drenched apartment) Mireille. I had to call you because I cannot tell anyone else this. (laughs) I have been awake for four hours and I have done two hours of yoga and I have made an actual breakfast with actual eggs and now I am about to start work at ten AM. Ten AM. Like a person. (sighs) I am going to lose my mind, Mireille. I love it and I am going to lose my mind. (firmer) Everyone told me I would miss the structure. Everyone. My mother, my old boss, the woman at the bank when I closed my 401k loan. I don't miss the structure. I miss having someone to complain to in the kitchen. (softer) Three clients so far. Two are sweet. One is monstrous and pays double. (beat) Did I do the right thing, Mire? Tell me I did the right thing. (laughs) Don't actually tell me. Tell me anyway. I need to hear it again.
Gus — 51, machinist starting his first podcast about local history
(In a closet-converted studio, talking to his wife through the door) Donna. Donna, come here. I want you to hear this. (beat) No, you don't have to be quiet, I haven't recorded yet. (sighs) I have been sitting in this closet for twenty-three minutes staring at this microphone. The microphone cost me four hundred and twelve dollars. I told you it was a hundred. I'm sorry. (laughs nervously) Donna. What am I doing. I'm a fifty-one-year-old machinist. Nobody wants to hear me talk about the Erie Canal. Why did I think this. (firmer) Except for forty years, I have known things about this town that nobody knows. I have been collecting them. The old guy at the diner told me about the fire of 1923 and that story is going to die with him. (softer) So somebody has to tell it. (long beat) Don't laugh at me. Just give me a thumbs-up through the door and walk away. I'm going to hit record.
Bryony — 33, mother of two applying to an MFA program after ten years off
(At the kitchen counter, talking to her husband) Trevor. I want you to read my statement of purpose. (beat) No, now. Yes, the kids are asleep. Now is the only time. (sighs) I am applying. I clicked the button. Two minutes ago. The thirty-dollar fee went through. There is no taking it back. (laughs, shaky) Ten years. Ten years since I wrote anything for anyone other than the PTA. Ten years since anyone asked me what I thought. (firmer) Trevor, look at me. I stopped writing because we needed me to stop. And I have not complained about it. Not once. (softer) But I want this. I want it more than I have wanted anything in a very long time. And I need you to want it for me too. (long beat) Don't say it'll be hard. I know it's hard. Tell me you believe I can do it. (pause) Say it again. Once more.
Sterling — 47, high school history teacher switching to a tech bootcamp
(In a classroom, after hours, to his department chair) Joanne. I have something to tell you. (beat) I'm not coming back in the fall. (sighs) Twenty-one years. I know. (firmer) Joanne, my salary hasn't moved in seven years. We had Eli last year. The roof leaks. My mother needs a stair lift. The math is the math. (softer) I sat down in February and I looked at the next twenty years of teaching and I saw the same things. The same lesson plan on the Civil War. The same kids glued to their phones. The same fight about screen time in the lounge. (catches breath) The bootcamp is twelve weeks. I have a job lined up for the back end if I finish. Eighty-five thousand to start. (longer beat) Don't be disappointed in me. Joanne. Please. Anyone but you. (softer) I will still be a teacher. Somewhere. Eventually. I just can't be one right now. Not like this.
Mavis — 22, first day at her first magazine internship
(Hiding in a magazine office bathroom, on the phone with her mother) Mom. Mom. I am in the bathroom. Yes, I am hiding. (whispers) Everyone here is so cool. Everyone here is so cool, Mom. The woman at the desk next to mine has a tattoo of a typewriter. Of a typewriter, Mom. That's a person who has made decisions. (sighs) My editor told me to grab coffee and I think I did it wrong. I think I asked too many follow-up questions. I asked her what kind of milk. The look on her face. (laughs nervously) But Mom. Mom. Last night I read a magazine. The magazine. The one I'm at. And I thought, I would die for this. (firmer) I am going to be one of the cool ones. I am. Just give me eighteen months. (pause) Don't tell Aunt Patricia I called from the bathroom. Tell her I'm thriving. Tell her I have my own desk.
Tobias — 39, leaving a stable corporate job to join a six-person startup
(In a kitchen at midnight, to his wife) Erin. I know it's late. I know. (sighs) I have been sitting in the car for an hour. I went into the garage and I sat there. (firmer) I'm going to take it. The startup. I'm going to say yes tomorrow morning. (beat) I know. I know what we said. I know about the mortgage. I know about Lila's preschool. I know all of it. (softer) But Erin, the founder, Maya, she looked at me yesterday and she said, Tobias, I have been trying to hire you for a year because you are the only person I know who actually finishes things. And it broke me. (catches breath) Eleven years of being told I'm a good guy. Eleven years of being passed over. (firmer) She's going to give me equity. Not a lot. Enough. (softer) Erin, I am thirty-nine. If this is going to happen, it has to happen now. Please. Please tell me you understand. (longer beat) Don't say anything yet. Just don't go to bed angry.
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