I'm 18, male and need to choose a Shakespearean audition monologue!!!?

Question

If I had to choose between Mark Anthony (which I'm pretty sure is way too old), Henry V, Edmund from "King Lear", Berowne from "Love's Labour's Lost", Malcolm from "Macbeth", Launce from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", Iago from "Othello" or Angelo from "Measure for Measure", which one should I choose???!!

Answer 1

Henry V

Answer 2

The only problem with Iago is that so many people do his monologues that you'd have a hard time impressing someone. Try for a lesser known one, Edmund would be a good choice, Henry V, or any of the histories. The Launce monologues are done so often it's ridiculous, but Angelo might work.

Remember, you want to stand out and that's awfully hard to do if the director has heard the same monologue twenty times that day.

Answer 3

I'd say Othello as well, specifically Iago's monologe at the end of Act 1, Scene 3. Branagh did it quite well and with a menace that has seldom been paralleled.

Iago:
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets
He has done my office: I know not if ’t be true,
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man; let me see now:
To get his place; and to plume up my will
In double knavery; how, how? Let’s see:
After some time to abuse Othello’s ear
That he is too familiar with his wife:
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected; framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have ’t; it is engender’d: hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light

Answer 4

I saw an 18 year old do the Friar Francis monologue from Much Ado About Nothing." It is at the turning point in the play, and everyone can do it, regardless of age. Your motivation is to save the chastity of Hero, which has been wronged by Don John and Claudio.

No one ever does it, so people will be intrigued to see how it is handled. It's a great monologue at auditions. Not too long.

Take it and read they play well. You will see the importance of this outstanding piece. Parts in parentheses can be edited out.
-------------
Pause awhile,
And let my counsel sway you in this case.
Your daughter here the princes left for dead:
Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
And publish it that she is dead indeed;
Maintain a mourning ostentation
And on your family's old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial.

(Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
Change slander to remorse; that is some good:
But not for that dream I on this strange course,
But on this travail look for greater birth.)

She dying, as it must so be maintain'd,
Upon the instant that she was accused,
Shall be lamented, pitied and excused
Of every hearer: for it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she lived indeed; then shall he mourn,
If ever love had interest in his liver,
And wish he had not so accused her,
No, though he thought his accusation true.
Let this be so, and doubt not but success
Will fashion the event in better shape
Than I can lay it down in likelihood.

(But if all aim but this be levell'd false,
The supposition of the lady's death
Will quench the wonder of her infamy)

And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,
As best befits her wounded reputation,
In some reclusive and religious life,
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds and injuries.

Answer 5

How about something from Iago in Othello. He was great. He kept telling Othello he was not what he thought he was and Othello never listened...good play. I read it many years ago in a high school Shakespeare class. Good luck.

Answer 6

Go for this scene from Othello :

Act 5. Scene 2
"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.

Kissing her

Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes."

Do it with a lantern in your hand, and you've got it ;)

Otherwise, go for Henry V.
Good luck :)

Answer 7

Henry V

Answer 8

Check out Monologue Search @ http://www.monologuesearch.com

We are developing an expansive database that you can search by age, comic/dramatic, classic/contemporary, etc. We have quite a few Shakespearean audition monologues. Please stop by and take a look. Feel free free to send us a line if you can't find something to your liking!

All the best!
Justin

Answer 9

OOO Go with some one from mid summers dream. I loved that play the best. At least you can do shakespear, Those are hard charactors to get into. It's not done much, so you will get noticed.

Answer 10

Malcolm from "Macbeth"