Monologues From Plays to Impress in an Audition

Though similar, monologues and soliloquies are different. A monologue is a speech to someone, whether the audience or other characters. A soliloquy is when a character speaks their inner thoughts. 

Understanding the difference is important because you want to ensure as much as possible that your monologue involves dramatic action – that it’s not just a character thinking or remembering, but delivering a speech that affects events that are happening alongside it. This will make your monologue more active, interesting, and dramatic. 

Always choose a monologue that suits you and the situation. For example, if you’re auditioning for a part in a Shakespeare play, you should pick a classical text rather than a modern one. If you’re auditioning for a young, strong character, choosing a monologue from a character of similar health and stature could help the audition panel envisage you in the role. 

It wasn’t always so, but these days actors of any gender can play any character, so there’s no need to feel restricted in the monologues you choose. The London stage has welcomed stunning turns from Cush Jumbo as Hamlet and Kathryn Hunter as King Lear, among notable examples. 

Finally, a monologue for auditions shouldn’t be longer than two minutes. One to one-and-a-half minutes is even better. The casting director will usually have made their mind up by then.

Wondering which monologue will make an impact and help you succeed in your next audition? Here are eight that will allow you to show a range of emotions, use some physicality, and vary your tone, giving you a great opportunity to impress casting directors.

Act 2

This monologue from Arthur Miller’s 1949 play shows Biff at a crisis moment in his life. It gives you a chance to express his desperation, disillusionment, and ultimate breakdown. 

If you know the play, you’ll notice that the monologue cuts a couple of lines spoken by other characters. That’s OK to do, so long as the words still flow well and make sense. 

Academy Award nominee Timothée Chalamet gives a moving performance of this monologue.

The speech:

      You’re going to hear the truth – what you are and what I am. We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house. Well, hear this, Willy. This is me. You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail. Stop crying. I’m through with it.

      I stole myself out of every good job since high school!

      And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! That’s whose fault it is! It’s goddam time you heard that! I had to be boss big shot in two weeks, and I’m through with it! No! Nobody’s hanging himself, Willy! I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my hand today. And suddenly I stopped, you hear me? And in the middle of that office building, do you hear this? I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw—the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemp- tuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can’t I say that, Willy?

      Pop! I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!

      I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes anymore, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!

      Pop, I’m nothing! I’m nothing, Pop. Can’t you understand that? There’s no spite in it anymore. I’m just what I am, that’s all.

      (BIFF’s fury has spent itself, and he breaks down, sobbing.)

Act 3

This monologue from Edward Albee’s 1962 play allows an actor to delve deeply into self-loathing and desperation. Martha has spent most of the play trying to orchestrate an affair with another man, but in this scene she realises that her husband, George, is really the only man for her. She hates herself, but she also has a great sense of humour, which means you can perform the monologue as tragi-comic rather than just downright miserable.

The speech:

      You’re all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you’re all flops. I disgust me. I pass my life in crummy, totally pointless infidelities… would-be infidelities. That’s a laugh… A bunch of boozed-up… impotent lunk-heads. Martha makes goo-goo eyes, and the lunk-heads grin, and roll their beautiful, beautiful eyes back, and grin some more, and Martha licks her chops, and the lunk-heads slap over to the bar to pick up a little courage, and they pick up a little courage, and they bounce back over to old Martha, who does a little dance for them, which heats them all up, mentally… and so they slap over to the bar again, and pick up a little more courage, and their wives and sweethearts stick their noses up in the air… right through the ceiling, sometimes… which sends the lunk-heads back to the soda fountain again where they fuel up some more, while Martha sits there with her dress up over her head… suffocating – you don’t know how stuffy it is with your dress up over your head – suffocating! waiting for the lunk-heads; so finally they get their courage up… but that’s all, baby! Oh, my, there is sometimes very nice potential, but, oh my! My, my, my! (Brightly) But that’s how it is in civilised society. All the gorgeous lunk-heads. Poor babies… There is only one man in my life who has ever… made me happy. Do you know that? One! I meant George, of course. Uh… George; my husband.

      …George who is out somewhere in the dark… George who is good to me, and whom I revile; who understands me, and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat; who can hold me, at night, so that it’s warm, and whom I will bite so there’s blood; who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad.

      …whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: yes, this will do; who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad.

      …who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is kind, which is cruel; who understands, which is beyond comprehension…

      Some day… hah! some night… some stupid, liquor-ridden night… I will go too far… and I’ll either break the man’s back… or push him off for good… which is what I deserve.

Act 3 

Lorraine Hansberry’s powerful 1959 play charts the struggles and dreams of a black family in 1950s Chicago. It’s a work of great significance: the New York Times said A Raisin in the Sun “changed American theatre forever.” The play is about the Younger family, who are debating what to do with a large insurance cheque.

As Act 3 arrives, Beneatha is despairing because her brother has just made a bad investment and she feels all is lost. This monologue allows an actor to relive hope and childhood memories before showing in the painful last line how hope can be destroyed by the hardships of life.

The speech: 

      Me?…Me?…Me, I’m nothing…Me. When I was very small…we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day…and it was very dangerous you know…far too steep…and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk… and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us… And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up…and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face…I never got over that…

      That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up—sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvellous thing in the world…I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know – and make them whole again. This was truly being God.

      No – I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt…

      I think I stopped.

Act 3

In Noël Coward’s 1924 play, Nicky is a drug addict with an overbearing mother, and in this scene, his crisis comes to a head. He’s horrible to his mother here, but the text and subtext let an actor show how much it hurts him to hurt her. 

It’s best played understated at the start, giving you a chance to really build the emotion as the scene progresses.

The speech: 

      Look at me. You've given me nothing my whole life. Nothing that counts. You forget what I've seen tonight, Mother. I've seen you make a vulgar disgusting scene in your own house, and on top of that, humiliate yourself before a boy half your age. The misery of losing Bunty faded away when that happened. Everything is comparative after all. You ran after him up the stairs because your vanity wouldn't let you lose him. It isn't that you love him, no, that would be easier – you only love them loving you. All your so-called passion and temperament is false. Your whole existence has degenerated into an endless empty craving for admiration and flattery, and you say you've done no harm to anybody? Father used to be a clever man, with a strong will and a capacity for enjoying almost anything, but now, he's nothing. A complete non-entity because his spirit has been crushed. How could it be otherwise? You've let him down consistently for years! And God knows I'm nothing for him to look forward to. But I might have been if it hadn't been for you! You're not happy. You're never happy. You're fighting all the time to keep your youth and your looks, as though they mattered in the end. You're not young or beautiful. I'm seeing for the first time just how old you are. It's horrible. With your silly fair hair and your face all plastered and painted. Mother! Mother, sit up! Now then, you're not going to have any more lovers. You're not going to be beautiful or successful ever again. You're going to be my mother for once. It's about time I had one before I go over the edge altogether. I love you really...that's why it's so awful.

Act 2, Scene 2

John Osborne’s Jimmy Porter was the original ‘angry young man’ character produced by the ‘angry young men’ writers who made a big impression on the theatre world in the 1950s. He is awful to his wife, and in this scene he insults and degrades her to another character, Cliff. 

But the monologue also allows an actor to express Jimmy’s frustration and boredom with his mundane life, revealing a chink of hurt humanity through the armour of his anger.

The speech: 

      Peace! God! She wants peace! My heart is so full, I feel ill – and she wants peace!

      I rage, and shout my head off, and everyone thinks, “poor chap!” or “what an objectionable young man!” But that girl there can twist your arm off with her silence. I’ve sat in this chair in the dark for hours. And, although she knows I’m feeling as I feel now, she’s turned over and gone to sleep. One of us is crazy. One of us is mean and stupid and crazy. Which is it? Is it me? Is it me, standing here like an hysterical girl, hardly able to get my words out? Or is it her? Sitting there, putting on her shoes to go out with that… Which is it?

      I wish to heaven you’d try loving her, that’s all.

      Perhaps, one day, you may want to come back. I shall wait for that day. I want to stand up in your tears, and splash about in them, and sing. I want to be there when you grovel. I want to be there, I want to watch it, I want the front seat.

      I want to see your face rubbed in the mud — that’s all I can hope for. There’s nothing else I want any longer.

Scene 8 

In Polly Stenham’s shattering 2007 debut, Martha is a controlling and manipulative mother to her two children and an alcoholic who struggles with how her glamour has faded as she has aged. In this scene, things have come to a head, with her ex-husband having to leave his new family to intervene because of Martha’s deteriorating behaviour.

This monologue allows an actor to blend rage with sadness and a sense of futility. There’s a change of pace when Martha reveals she called Hughie to ask for his help. Use it to vary your delivery to make the most of the audition.

The speech: 

      Are you threatening me? (To Mia.) He’s threatening me – he’s flown all the way over to do what he likes best. Don’t be under any illusions, sweetie, your daddy doesn’t give a fuck about you. He’s just a tidy man. Used to fold his own underwear. He’s a tidy man trying to tidy me away and tidy you both up. Not for you. For him. Don’t be fooled, little madam. Your daddy’s no hero. Threatening me – You could have threatened me over the phone, Hughie. Saved yourself the – (Spits the words.) air miles.

      But that choice suits you, Hughie. Doesn’t it? It’s cheaper to have me sectioned, isn’t it? It’s not private. You want me in an NHS loony bin ‘cause it won’t cost you a pretty penny. Did he tell you that I called him? That I asked for his help? I couldn’t afford a clinic without him. He just wanted it to come to this. I bet he didn’t tell you that in your little heart-to-heart. Don’t be fooled, sweetie. He’s been waiting for this.

      He sat in the sun and waited. Till he could polish me off at the expense of the taxpayer. Money’s bound to be tight now, eh? With family number two. Bet young slinky-eyes is developing expensive tastes –

      Look at her. Tell her the truth.

Thornton Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for this 1938 play, which shows the hopes and dreams of American families before dashing them on the rocks of reality. 

In Act 3, the ghost of Emily Webb, a character who was so full of life and dreams in Acts 1 and 2, looks back with sadness and laments not having valued life while she had it. It’s enough to make the most hardened audience reach for the tissues.

The speech: 

      I can't bear it. They're so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I'm here. I'm grown up. I love you all, everything. I can’t look at everything hard enough. (Pause, talking to her mother who does not hear her. She speaks with mounting urgency) Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway.

      We felt just terrible about it – don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at one another. (Pause, looking desperate because she has received no answer. She speaks in a loud voice, forcing herself to not look at her mother) I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. (She breaks down sobbing, she looks around) I didn't realize.

      All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners? Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking? And Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths? And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. 

      (She asks abruptly through her tears) Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute? (She sighs) I'm ready to go back. I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.

Act 5, Scene 2

No list of great monologues would be complete without some Shakespeare, and this is perhaps one of the finest monologues in all his works. After conspiring with Antony to defeat Caesar only to find herself defeated, Cleopatra learns that Antony has killed himself rather than be captured and shamed. 

She chooses to do the same, holding a snake to her breast to let it bite her. After kissing one of her courtiers, Iras, Cleopatra watches her die from the poison on her lips. This prompts her to reflect on how meaningless life must be if it’s so easy to leave it. 

An actor can really go to town with Cleopatra’s haughty scorn in the face of death in this monologue, but remember that underneath it all she is hurt, heartbroken, and defeated.

The speech: 

      Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
      Immortal longings in me: now no more
      The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
      Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
      Antony call; I see him rouse himself
      To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
      The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
      To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
      Now to that name my courage prove my title!
      I am fire and air; my other elements
      I give to baser life. So; have you done?
      Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
      Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.
      (Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies)
      Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
      If thou and nature can so gently part,
      The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
      Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
      If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
      It is not worth leave-taking.

Scene 9 

Blanche DuBois is one of Tennessee Williams’ most famous characters, and this scene from the 1947 play is one of her most dramatic. The realities of her fading beauty, her alcoholism, and her misspent life all catch up with her in this scene, when her lover Mitch finally calls her out for being a liar and a fraud and she admits to her failings. This gives an actor a great opportunity to show their range.

The speech: 

      Tarantula was the name of it! I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms!

      Yes, a big spider! That's where I brought my victims.

      (She pours herself another drink)

      Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan – intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with... I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection here and there, in the most unlikely places. Even, at last, in a seventeen-year-old boy but – somebody wrote the superintendent about it – "This woman is morally unfit for her position!"

      (She throws back her head with convulsive, sobbing laughter. Then she repeats the statement, gasps, and drinks.)

      True? Yes, I suppose – unfit somehow – anyway... So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out. You know what played out is? My youth was suddenly gone up the water-spout, and – I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle – a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in! But I guess I was asking, hoping – too much! Kiefaber, Stanley and Shaw have tied an old tin can to the tail of the kite.

      Don't say I lied to you.

      Never inside, I didn't lie in my heart...

Act 3 

Performing a Jez Butterworth monologue shows that as an actor you’re current and aware of contemporary favourites. The writer's 2009 smash hit Jerusalem is often referred to as the greatest British play of the 21st century. 

While its eccentric lead character, Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, is the main event, there’s one scene in which one of Johnny’s acquaintances, Davey, steals the show as he launches into a tirade about staying in your lane and not dreaming too big. 

This play monologue gives an actor an opportunity to use expressive language while creating a heartfelt description of how they see the world. Davey’s also sad in this scene that his best mate is going away, so there’s a subtext for an actor to work with.

The speech: 

      My name's David Dean. I work in the abattoir. Get there six in the morning – hungover, hazmat suit, goggles – and I stand there and I slay two hundred cows. Wham. Next contestant. What's your name and where d'you come from? (Mimes killing a cow.) Wham! Have lunch. Pot Noodle. Come back. Slay two hundred more. 

      End of the week, I walk out of there. I'll tell you what I ain't thinking. I ain't thinking: 'Perhaps I'll change my name. Get a Celtic tattoo. See this on my arse? That symbolises the Harmony of the Spheres. That's Vishnu, God of Gayness.' I'll tell you what I'm thinking: 'Shag on. It's the weekend. Pay me. Show me the paper, and shag on.' 

      I wish you well on your quest, Frodo. But whatever you change your name to, you're still fucking Lee Piper; and wherever you go in this world, when you get off the plane, boat, train or crawl out of the jungle smeared in paint, the bloke waiting to meet you is also called Lee Piper. Make paper. Make more paper, Shag on.

Always choose a monologue that suits your skills and needs, and practise until it’s perfect.