Monologues for Auditions: How to Choose Them and 6 Originals to Practice

How to choose a monologue for an audition

Keep it between 1 and 2 minutes

Time it out loud and with pauses, because reading in silence is deceiving. If the call asks for another length, respect it. If you go over, they may cut you off before the best part.

Pick a character close to your age and type

Whoever is watching has to be able to picture you in the role, and that gets harder if at twenty you play an eighty-year-old grandfather. Think about the age you read as and your type, what is called your physique du rôle: the roles you would be called in for today. Character-transformation challenges are for class.

Look for an objective and a change

The best audition monologue is a scene where the other person stays silent: your character wants to get something from someone (forgiveness, help, for them to stay) and tries different paths to get it. Look for something that happens in the middle, like a discovery or a decision. A single emotion, all crying or all shouting, shows very little.

Skip the overly famous ones

Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” Segismundo’s speeches in Calderón’s Life Is a Dream, and the famous movie scenes have been heard countless times, and whoever evaluates you will compare you with every version they remember.

Comedy or drama, depending on the project

For a comedy, comedy; for a drama, drama. If you don’t know what they’re looking for, or if it’s a school, bring one of each and ask which they prefer. Comedy works when the character takes seriously what is happening to them, and drama works when you play what the character is after instead of forcing tears.

A published play or a text written for practice

If it comes from a published play, read the whole play: you’ll know who your character is and what happened to them, and they may ask you about it. A text written for practice, like the ones in this guide, arrives fresh, although you build the context yourself.

Avoid presenting an author’s text without naming the play: you take the credit away from whoever wrote it and, if someone recognizes it, it looks like you’re passing it off as your own. With the ones that circulate online without a signature, find out where they come from.

How to prepare a monologue for an audition

Before memorizing, answer these four questions:

• Who is speaking? Age, situation, what they care about. What the text doesn’t say, decide yourself.
• Who are they speaking to? To someone specific, with a name and a relationship. Decide how that person reacts to each line.
• What do they want? A verb you can actually do: to convince, to stop, to ask forgiveness. “Being sad” is impossible to play; “getting them to hug me” is playable.
• What happened right before? A fight, a piece of news, a slammed door: if you know, the first line comes out charged.

Then divide the text into sections, one for each change of tactic, and only then memorize. Rehearse it with opposite intentions, as if you were begging or threatening: it prepares you for the moment they ask for an adjustment. For everything around the audition, from your clothes to your exit, review the audition tips.

How to present the monologue in the audition

The introduction

Greet them and say your name, the character, the play, and the author; if it’s one from this guide, the title and “original monologue by Casting and Acting” are enough. Take a second to breathe and place your scene partner. When you finish, hold the ending, step out of the character, and say “thank you,” with no apologies.

Where to put your eyes

In a room, unless you’re asked to, avoid using the people evaluating you as scene partners, because it makes them uncomfortable. Place your imaginary partner at a fixed point at eye level, above or beside the table. On camera, whether it’s a filmed audition or a self-tape, look near the lens, off to one side. Texts that speak to the audience are the exception.

If they cut you off or ask for a different intention

If they stop you before the end, they may have already seen what they needed: thank them and listen. If they ask you to do it again differently, that’s a good sign: they want to see whether you can take direction. Ask about anything that’s unclear and truly change what the character wants or how they go after it: repeating the same thing louder wastes the second pass. And if they ask you to continue in your own words, these ideas for improvising in an audition will help.

6 original monologues for auditions

We wrote them for this guide, in everyday American English, and each runs between 1 and 2 minutes when spoken.

1. Grandma’s Video (comedy)

Character: teenager, ages 13 to 17, any gender.

What happened before: Grandma posted a video of her grandchild rehearsing a dance on her social media, and it now has thousands of views.

Grandma, sit down. Right here, in front of me. And put the phone down, please… Thank you.

Do you know what this is? Your profile. And do you know who this person is? That’s me. In pajamas. Dancing in the living room with a broom. Forty-three thousand views, Grandma. Forty-three thousand people watched me fall on top of the cat.

I know it was a rehearsal. I know you thought it was adorable. But you don’t post that, Grandma. You keep that in your heart and take it to the grave. (Takes it back.) Okay, not the grave. You keep it, period.

You’re going to delete it. Today. Right now. Tomorrow’s a school day and the whole school… (Looks at the screen.) Wait. Who is “DanceKing2009”? “What talent. What ease. What a broom.” (Beat.) Okay, the broom part wasn’t necessary. But it says “talent.” And somebody else: “We want part two.” Eight hundred comments?

(Sits down next to her.) Grandma… Let’s say, just say, we don’t delete it. Let’s say tomorrow we film another one. With conditions: this time you warn me, I comb my hair, and the cat signs a release.

And you film me from my good side. The left one. Always the left.

Acting notes:

• Decide what Grandma does in each pause and respond to that.
• Be truly indignant and let the comments change your plan: if you chase the laugh, it disappears.

2. Thursdays (drama)

Character: woman, ages 20 to 30.

What happened before: Lucía visits her grandmother at the nursing home, as she does every Thursday. For months now, her grandmother has been mistaking her for her daughter Marta, Lucía’s mother, who has passed away.

It’s cold today, huh? I brought you the blue scarf, the one you knitted. And the orange cookies, the ones from the bakery on the corner, the ones you like… Do you recognize me? I’m Lucía. Your granddaughter. Lucía.

(Her grandmother speaks to her. She listens.)

Marta is my mom, Grandma. Was. Marta was my mom.

I know I look like her. Everybody tells me. I have her hands, see? And this habit of biting my lip when I don’t know what to say. And the laugh, they say, though I laugh a lot less.

(She listens again.) Where have I been? Why did it take me so long?

(A long pause. She decides.)

Forgive me, Mom. I was far away. But I’m back now. I’m here.

Tell me something. Tell me what I was like as a little girl. Was I good? Was I stubborn? What did I sing? I don’t remember anymore, Mom. Silly me, I don’t remember anything.

(She listens. Smiles.) I used to climb on the table to sing? In your party shoes? How embarrassing…

Keep going, please. Keep telling me. We have until six.

(She takes her hand.) We have every Thursday.

Acting notes:

• Imagine what Grandma says to you in each silence: your answers come from there.
• Avoid crying from the first line: the heart of it is the decision to stop correcting her.

3. The Rooftop (drama with humor)

Character: young adult, ages 20 to 30, any gender. Written in a casual, friendly voice. You can play it to a friend of any gender.

What happened before: it’s the last night before their best friend leaves the country. On the rooftop, over mate (the herbal drink that Argentines and Uruguayans share from a gourd), they dodge the subject with jokes.

Pass me the mate. Give it here, give it here, I’ll pour. You drown it. Twelve years drinking mate together and you never learned. Over there you’re going to have to manage on your own, huh? Over there nobody’s going to tell you it’s gone cold.

(Pours. Laughs.) Remember the bike you swiped from me in seventh grade? Okay, not swiped: you asked to borrow it and crashed it into Ramón’s corner store. And I told my mom it had been stolen. I covered for you. I was your official alibi, man.

(Beat. Looks out at the city.) Tomorrow at this time you’ll be on a plane and I’ll be right here. On the same rooftop, with the same mate. And nobody to cover for.

(It isn’t easy.) I wanted to tell you something. I made, like, forty jokes so I wouldn’t have to say it. I was going to ask you to stay. There it is. I said it.

(Pours another one. Breathes.) But I’m not going to ask. Go. Seriously, go. Go take on the world. And when it goes well for you, and it will, send me photos of everything, even if I die of envy.

And if it goes badly… (Smiles.) the rooftop’s right here.

(Hands over the mate.) Here. It’s gone cold.

Acting notes:

• Make the casual voice your own: change any word that doesn’t sound like you.
• The mate is your physical action: use it to live in the silences instead of filling them.

4. Third Summons (drama)

Character: man, ages 35 to 55.

What happened before: the school principal has called him in for the third time this year: his fourteen-year-old son hit a classmate, and expulsion is on the table.

Look, Principal, with all due respect: I know what the handbook says. You read it to me last time. And the time before. But my son isn’t a violent kid. My son is a kid who defends himself, and that’s different.

That other boy provoked him. I’m sure he provoked him. He said something about his mother, or about me. And I’ve taught my son since he was little: nobody disrespects you. Nobody. If someone pushes you, you push harder. If someone yells at you, you yell louder. That’s how my father raised me, and that’s how…

(He stops. Something lands on him.)

That’s how my father raised me.

(He sits. When he speaks again, he is a different man.)

Do you know what he told me last night? I asked him why he did it, and he answered: “Because you would have.” And I told him yes. That I was proud. I told my son I was proud of him, Principal.

(Silence.)

Do what you have to do. But first, is there someone here we can talk to? A counselor, someone. For him. (Beat.) And for me, if that’s possible. Because he learned this at home. And at home, nobody knows how to unlearn it.

Acting notes:

• Start with the certainty of someone who believes he is right, or the turn has nowhere to go.
• “That’s how my father raised me” is said twice: first as an argument, then as a discovery.

5. The Parrot on the Third Floor (comedy)

Character: adult, ages 40 to 70.

What happened before: at the residents’ meeting, the building is voting on whether Captain, their parrot, has to leave because he screams all day.

Thank you. I’ll be brief, as the lady on the fifth floor requested. I’m here to talk about Captain. Yes, I know: he screams. He screams at six in the morning. He screams when the mail carrier comes. He screams “Goal!” when there isn’t even a game on. I admit all of it.

But before we vote, I’m asking you to think about something. Captain is thirty-two years old. He’s lived in this building longer than many of you. And a parrot, neighbors, doesn’t make anything up. A parrot repeats.

(Takes out a notebook.) On Tuesdays, when the gentleman on the second floor thinks his wife has gone out, Captain sings: (sings) “My darling, my life, my Rocío.” The wife of the gentleman on the second floor is named Elena. (Beat.) Good evening, Elena.

On Fridays he says, “I’m not telling this to anyone,” in the exact voice of the building manager. What is it she’s not telling anyone, Ms. Patricia? Captain knows. Captain knows everything. And he has a memory…

(Closes the notebook. Looks around at everyone.) All right. Shall we vote? Everyone who wants Captain to leave, raise your hand.

(Waits.) Nobody? Nobody at all? (Smiles.) What understanding neighbors. Captain sends his regards. And you, Elena, if you’d like more details, stop by on Tuesday. Captain holds office hours from ten.

Acting notes:

• Place each neighbor at a fixed point and find them with your eyes when you name them.
• The threat is never stated: the friendlier your tone, the funnier it gets.

6. Co-Pilot (drama with humor)

Character: woman, ages 65 to 80.

What happened before: she was widowed a year ago. Her husband always drove and she never learned; today is her first driving lesson, and she can’t bring herself to start the car.

All right, Andrés, all right. I’m adjusting the mirror. There’s something odd about this mirror: it shows too much. It shows a seventy-four-year-old woman clinging to the steering wheel like a life preserver.

I know you’ve been explaining for ten minutes. Key, brake, gear. I got it. I understand it, I really do. It’s just that in forty-six years of marriage I never once sat on this side. Never once.

My husband drove. Always. He chose the route, the music, the time we left. I was the co-pilot. I handed him his hard candies, warned him about the potholes, and kept quiet when he got lost. Because he got lost a lot, you know? But you couldn’t say that to him.

(Beat. She touches the wheel.) He said I’d get nervous. That this wasn’t for me.

(She breathes. Puts her hands where they belong.) All right. Key. Brake. Gear. (She starts the car. Gets scared. Laughs.) It moved! Andrés, it moved!

Now tell me something, because I’ve wanted to know since I was twenty: how long does it take to get from here to the ocean?

(Before he can answer.) Actually, don’t tell me. I’ll find out myself.

Acting notes:

• A chair is enough: decide where the steering wheel, the mirror, and Andrés are.
• Let the humor cover the fear until it can’t anymore.

How you can use these monologues

All six are original to Casting and Acting, and you can use them freely to practice and to audition. If you’re asked where they come from, cite the source: “Original monologue by Casting and Acting.” You can adapt them to the way you speak and record them for your materials: see how to make an acting reel. And when you have one ready, check which active castings fit your profile.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a monologue for an audition be?

Between 1 and 2 minutes, unless the call asks for another length. Time it out loud, with pauses.

Where can I find monologues for auditions?

In published plays and in texts written for practice, like the ones in this guide. If you take one from the internet, confirm which play and author it comes from.

Can I perform a monologue from a movie or a TV series?

You can, though it’s best to avoid the famous scenes, because you get compared with the original performance. Choose one that works without what you see on screen, and say where it’s from.

Can I use the monologues in this guide at an audition?

Yes. They’re original to Casting and Acting and you can use them freely to practice and to audition, citing the source if you’re asked. To try them out, check the open theater castings, where a monologue is a common test.