All this month, we are exploring some essential questions to ask your character when preparing for a monologue audition. Join me online to continue your acting training during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Check out previous installments: What Do I Want? Do I Get What I Want? Who Am I Talking To?
Once you know who your monologue is addressed to, explore how the character feels about this person.
Consider how you talk to your friends versus how you talk to some kid you don’t really like, or even someone you’re indifferent to. If you’re partnered with a buddy on a project, how do you interact with them, as opposed to when you have to work with the class jerk, or just some kid you don’t really know? In each case, you have to complete the assigned project, but how you interact with your project partner is different, depending on how you feel about them.
Knowing the character’s relationship to the person they’re speaking to allows you to make strong acting choices as you trace their story arc within the monologue. Those choices will include how that other person is responding to you.
A monologue is a miniature play, so cast that other character and direct them. Do they scoff? Laugh at what you’re saying? Laugh at you? Flirt with you? Do they keep trying to leave? Do you keep trying to get them to leave but they won’t budge?
Giving the other character action and reaction will improve your performance by making it come alive for you – and for the people watching you.