Monologues

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > MONOLOGUES

Order '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


A Monologue is a Mini-play.

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.


Monologues are such a natural part of theatrical story-telling that you may be writing them without realizing it, unconsciously concealing them in what appears to be dialogue as Hidden Monologues


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.






Amazon.com If you can't find a good local bookstore with a large selection of theatre titles, you can order recommended plays, screenplays, videos, and books through the Web without having to do title searches. Look for linked book covers [as above] or the amazon.com logo throughout The Playwriting Seminars. And the world's leading Internet bookstore can get them to you in a few days.


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