Audition Technique: Contemporary Monologues

Presented by Paul Pryce

To be held online over Zoom: 

This audition workshop is for the adventurous actor craving an inventive and creatively rich and imaginative approach to uncovering a monologue. Whether tried and true pieces or new work, at the end of these 3 weeks you will be armed with practical tools to help you live spontaneously in the moment every time you perform.

Through a series of imaginative acting exercises, guided daydreaming, improvisations, psychophysical actions, and text analysis our goal is to ‘break open’ the monologue and find the guts in the piece that viscerally grab you, compelling you to speak the words rather than dutifully executing the writer’s story.  We must do the ‘homework’ fully then throw it all away for our impulses to take hold of us, and hopefully, surprise us.

For the first day of class: Participants must bring 2 contrasting monologues from a play that you are excited by. They can be previously performed pieces. They must be memorized. We will be re-examining them in class, so be prepared and open to doing them differently. Please read the plays from which they both come from and be familiar with the given circumstances of the play. Please be prepared to email a copy of each monologue to the instructor.