Admissions
Audition Monologues for Men
BFA Acting or Musical Theatre Auditions
Note to those auditioning: The Acting/Musical Theatre Division Faculty strongly recommend that you read the play from which the monologue is selected. This will allow you to make informed acting choices. Monologues must be memorized. At your audition you may be given direction by the faculty and asked to make adjustments in your performance. Please dress professionally and wear shoes in which you can move. We encourage you to seek coaching on your monologue and/or songs from your current or past theatre or music teacher or director. Please arrive at least fifteen minutes early for your appointment.
You will be auditioning for a Professional Training Program which is designed for those individuals who wish to pursue a professional career in the theatre. Admission to the Acting and Musical Theatre programs is competitive and the training is rigorous.
Pick only ONE of the below pieces to prepare as your audition (note: these are MEN'S monologues; women's are on a separate page.)
All monologues on this site and the plays they are excerpted from are protected by US copyright law.
The Notebook © 2004 by Wendy KesselmanWARREN:
I have a secret. A terrible secret. No one knows. No one in the world. Except my parents. They have to. They live with me. But my secret…I like to read. What am I saying… “like.” Get up every morning, go to bed every night, breathe, dream, tremble, live to read!...I mean, I’ll read anything—cereal boxes, graffiti…But books! That first moment with a brand-new untouched book. Running my hand over the sleek shining cover. Opening it in the silence of my room. That first page. Those first words. And you know what’s even better than a new book? An old one. The worn leather cover, the soft secret smell! What hands have touched these pages, devoured these words in some faraway room long ago? War and Peace. My favorite! Exactly one thousand, four hundred and forty-four pages long. Why does it have to end? I bought it from this amazing man at a secondhand bookstore on the Lower East Side. And in it I found the one person I’d waited for my whole life, the person I’d die for, my favorite, my only heroine—the radiant, the divine…Natasha! But I can’t go into that now.
Lobby Hero © 2002 by Kenneth Lonergan Published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-8222-1829-6JEFF
[to female cop]
Hey, can I ask you something, Officer?...
Remember how a long time ago, like when we were kids, the police uniforms used to be all dark blue? And then around the 1980s I guess, they switched them to dark blue pants and a light blue shirt? And then recently they switched ‘em back to dark blue pants and a dark blue shirt again? What I always wondered was, Did they throw out all the old dark blue pants when they did that or did they just throw out all the light blue shirts and then get dark blue shirts that matched the old dark blue pants, so they wouldn’t have to buy all new pants? Because that would be quite a savings.
If you think about it, you could be wearing pants rights now that were being worn by some lady cop in 1975, if you think about it. Except I guess the women police officers didn’t wear pants back in 1975. I don’t mean they didn’t wear pants, like they were walkin’ around in their underwear. I just mean they were still wearin’ skirts back then, weren’t they? I know I’m blathering, I’m just completely in love with you, can I just say that?
Over the Tavern © 2006 by Tom Dudzick Published by Playscripts, Inc. (No ISBN available)RUDY
Jesus, I hate him, I hate him! I know I’ll go to hell for saying that, but I can’t help it, I do. Why does he have to be that way? You could do something, why don’t you?...Jesus, I never hear from you. I pray every night for things to get better. If you could just let me know that you’re listening. A sign. Nothing big. Just so I’ll know you’re working on it. Here, I’ll watch that candle. If you make it light up I’ll know everything’s going to be fine. Ready? Okay, I’m watching. Go…The one on the end there. On the left…Okay, I’ll close my eyes…Okay, you probably want to give me a better sign. I understand. Like when the angel appeared to Mary. Okay, so I’ll wait. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning. We had a deal, Jesus. I said I’d be a soldier for you. Please, let me know you’re listening. Please. If you don’t… I don’t know. I guess I’ll have some thinking to do.
Lusting After Pipino’s Wife © 1994 by Sam Henry Kass Published by Samuel French, Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-573-69505-6
VINNIE
A man is with a woman, as Patsy seems to be with you… He meets his best friend on the street, introduces him to the mystery woman. The woman already has a semblance of knowledge, concerning the aforementioned best friend: that he’s “a real interesting guy.” So already the groundwork is laid… Perhaps there’s some sort of initial chemistry between the friend and the mystery woman. Perhaps it’s so buried, so hidden that neither one even recognizes its presence. Perhaps these two newly introduced creatures of our societal jungle—will bid each other farewell, after only minutes of introductory chit-chat, only to go through the remainder of the day, and the following day, and then who knows how many days after, only to be burdened with the sexual magnetism that makes two people prisoners of passion— More than likely, that fire eventually burns out. And what remains are ashes, of what might have been… However, there are those occasions, as history has documented—where these two benighted and tortured souls have no choice but to seek each other out—find one another, track each other to the earth’s end, because there is no other choice… Just some food for thought.
Jump/cut © 2008 by Neena Beber Published by Samuel French, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-573-65088-8DAVE
I just had a scientific breakthrough, Paulie. Some things are in fast motion and some things are in slow motion and therefore most of life, most of life, ‘cause it’s on a different speed setting than we have, is just this indistinguishable, undetectable blur…
I’m gonna end up a bum, Paulie…
What if I never get out of the slump…
I just got a glimpse, a glimpse of the future, life after high school, and I am such a fucking bum, man. Someday, someday when everyone is putting on their three-piece suits and ties, including you, Dude, and driving to their big-shot jobs in their big ol’ Buicks and shaking hands and smoking cigars and winning, like, Good Citizen Awards from the Rotary Club and driving their kids to Little League and whatever shit, I’ll still be sitting on some couch somewhere, except the couch’ll be really ratty and smell like cat piss, probably in some five-bucks-an-hour motel, and you’ll have forgotten about me except to think once in awhile “Poor David Hummer, have you heard what a sorry bum the guy turned out to be?”…
I’m not joking, Paulie. You gotta keep me off the ratty couch. Promise. Promise me. You gotta promise me.
The Substance of Fire © 1992 by Jon Robin Baitz Published by Samuel French, Inc. ISBN 978-0573692932
MARTIN
Yes. That’s right. There are limits. I believe I know that. Hey, I spent most of my sixteenth year getting chemotherapy, remember? And it’s not that long ago, I can still feel it. I cannot waste my life. I feel you people dragging me into this thing. You want this confrontation, Dad. You want nothing more than your children gathered around you, fighting. Well forget it. You don’t know what I feel in my back, in my bones. I wake up some days and I’m crying. I think I’m still at Sloan-Kettering, lying there hairless and white and filling up with glucose from a drip. Hey! I can’t get that time back. I feel all the needles, some days, my lymph nodes, and I’m sweating. And part of my life is spent in fear, waiting. I know none of us has forever, know that very well, and I care very much how I spend my time. And involved in an internecine war over a publishing house is, by my reckoning, Father, a dead waste. And if I choose to live with plants as an assistant lecturer at an over-rated seven-sisters school, that is my goddamn choice.
