by Felina Lune Kavi

Created on: March 22, 2007

Auditioning for acting roles does not have to be a stressful experience. In fact, that sometimes performance-upstaging nervousness can be replaced with a clear and confident delivery that will make you want to audition again and again...and not just because you screwed up on the first try.

What, then, is the secret? It lies in the monologue.

I have experienced monologues both as a director looking for an actor and an actor looking for a role. Still, you don't have to be a director to keep in mind what a director really needs from an actor. Aside from acting talent and believability, the director is assessing your dependability during your audition. The monologue, more than the cold reading of the script, is where the director gets a sense of whether you're solid or flaky.

As an actor, you should know your strengths and weaknesses so that a director doesn't have the opportunity to dismiss your monologue as 'just not right' for you. In reading many monologues, you will start to get a feel for what will work in your favor. You may think the way to make an impression is to choose what you've determined to be one of the more difficult monologues. From experience, let me warn you that 'difficulty' is a very relative term in acting. What you might think is difficult, the director might not. Many directors believe that projecting internal intensity through a character whose monologue reads dead-on-paper is more difficult than portraying a 'big character' whose monologue provides the personality and action already.

This is not to say that you should choose what you consider to be an easier or 'safe' monologue either. I am, however, trying to stress that "difficulty" should not weigh heavily on your mind in the selection process at all. Projecting dependability while performing a monologue is all about keeping your conscious mind unfettered from your subconscious. Your subconscious, during an audition, is best kept in the wings...accessible to your performance only as a prop table full of emotions and relative experience from which to draw believability. Your subconscious cannot do this if it is busy sending you mixed messages about your abilities in performing a dauntingly "difficult" monologue. Even if you choose a "safe" one, your subconscious can still psych you out...making you second-guess your choice.

Now, if you can get behind this, you're on the right track. Without all of that worrisome stress, you can now focus on your strengths so that you can find a monologue

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