Monologues

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > MONOLOGUES

'As I get older, I need less and less. I think there are a lot of things I can miss, and I wont miss them. Like a lot of people who felt displaced when they were young, I crave domesticity. It's all there is, really. A warm, well-lit, quiet place, with someone listening and telling you stories at late hours. I can't think of anything better than that.'

-- Jon Robin Baitz

It tells a story with a Point of Attack followed by a middle portion leading to a Climax, or at least the equivalent of a Curtain Line. It's the Climax or Curtain Line of the monologue that catapults us into the next scene or the resumption of dialogue.

Think of the monologue as an operatic aria: when the emotion and complexity of a character's Subtext becomes overwhelming, a monologue is a great solution. And it tells a story -- either of an event that happened or an emotional development. Ideally, it does both of these at the same time.

In the good old days, playwrights had characters speak in paragraphs so the transition from dialogue to monologue was not an earth-shaking event. Now, with characters often only speaking in short phrases, the monologue is a very big deal. Especially because there are usually only one or two monologues in a contemporary play.

• How much does a character have to say for it to be a monologue?
  About 10 lines in format is a good minimum.

• How long can it be?
  You can write a whole play as a single monologue, complete with acts and intermissions. Or three long monologues -- one per Act -- as Jon Robin Baitz did in THREE HOTELS.

For some fine examples, these are three of the best collections of monologues written by contemporary playwrights. And if you're a performer looking for audition pieces that won't bore directors and instructors who've suffered through the usual stuff a a thousand times before . . .

From plays
by members of
New Dramatists,
America's leading
development organization
for playwrights.

From plays
by Beth Henley,
a playwright
with a fine
voice for
women.

150 monologues
from 70 of America's
current playwrights
and interviews
with 3 playwrights
and a great actress.