Contemporary Monologues for Teenagers

These two additions to the Good Audition Guides series are extremely useful for school settings, containing 40 monologues each for teenage male and female performers.

Trilby James has written an excellent introduction to the books, which contains advice for those auditioning for youth theatres, drama school, and for professional work. Clear advice is given on choosing and on preparing monologues, such as that ‘unless a character is making a political or after-dinner speech, chances are they have no idea they are going to speak for such a long time.’ Obvious when you think about it but actually a really useful director's tip.

Each piece in the books is preceded with a list of ‘Ten things you need to know about [the character]’ and ‘Five things to help you perform the monologue’. These are thorough, and ample to get the student started, though James insists quite rightly on the need to read the whole play – which Nick Hern Books helpfully offer to assist with, there being a code inside the books for a 25% discount on all the full play texts.

The choices are varied and cover the full range in terms of class, race, age (between 14 19), sexual and gender orientation. It's also a great introduction to a large number of plays written since 2000 for possible full student productions.