Award Monologues for Men

Patrick Tucker, Christine Ozanne, Patrick Tucker, Christine Ozanne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415428378
• eBook ISBN: 9781136023422
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

Award Monologues for Men is a collection of fifty monologues taken from plays written since 1980 that have been nominated for the Pullitzer Prize, the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards in New York, and The Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier Awards in London. The book provides an excellent range of up-to-date audition pieces, usefully arranged in age groups, and is supplemented with audition tips to improve your acting, and to ensure you give your best possible performance.

20s

1	Jon Robin Baitz	TEN UNKNOWNS	Judd
2	Bill C. Davis	MASS APPEAL	Mark
3	Bruce Graham	COYOTE ON A FENCE	Bobby
4	Richard Greenberg	THE AUTHOR’S VOICE	Gene
5	Ron Hutchinson	RAT IN THE SKULL	Roche
6	Howard Korder	BOYS’ LIFE	Phil
7	Tony Kushner	ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES	Louis
8	John Leguizamo	FREAK	Johnny
9	Kenneth Lonergan	THIS IS OUR YOUTH	Dennis
10	Martin McDonagh	THE PILLOWMAN	Katurian
11	Terrence McNally	LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!	Ramon
12	Michael Murphy	SIN (A CARDINAL DEPOSED)	Patrick
13	Peter Shaffer	AMADEUS	Mozart
14	Nicky Silver	PTERODACTYLS	Todd
15	Neil Simon	LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR	Ira
16	Anna Deavere Smith	TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992	Michael
17	Tom Stoppard	ARCADIA	Valentine
18	Hugh Whitemore	IT’S RALPH	Dave
19	August Wilson	JITNEY	Shealy
20	Lanford Wilson	ANGELS FALL	Zappy
21	Mary Zimmerman	METAMORPHOSES	Phaeton

1

TEN UNKNOWNS

Jon Robin Baitz

FIRST PERFORMANCES	New York 2001
AWARDS	Justin Kirk nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.
CHARACTER	Judd
PLAYED BY	Justin Kirk
CHARACTER’S AGE	late 20s
TYPE	A rising young painter, and addict.
TIME AND PLACE	1992; an artist’s decrepit studio in a village in Mexico.
SITUATION	Judd, a young painter, has been sent by the art dealer Trevor to help Malcolm Raphelson preparenew paintings for a major retrospective of his work. He is confronting his mentor about being cruellytreated, and suggests that his own work be used forthe retrospective.

Judd: Shut up. I just want one thing: To know why? [Beat.] Why on earth did you do this to me? Look at me. This is what you’ve done. [Beat. RAPHELSON can not speak. Totally articulate and clear-headed. He goes on, shaking his head, still baffled.] Why? Malcolm. The public nature of it. As soon as there were other people to witness this – you turned – The satisfaction. You made fun of me with Trevor, to my face, and worse, with her too. Any opportunity for indignity, humiliation: ‘Cabbages for hands,’ erasure, rewriting history to your own specs … why? All the things you hated. The prospect of New York. Of what you would do to me – at a retrospective, in a gallery. Yow. I can imagine it – your constant digs and with so many people there – I don’t understand it. I don’t. Can you please try and explain it. [Beat. JUDD is in tears. He shakes his head.] I’m sorry if I … [Beat.] Did something – if I seemed – disrespectful or … [Beat. There is silence. JUDD tries to pull himself together. He shakes his head.] I keep trying to figure out why you would possibly want to do this and I can’t even – [Beat.] I wasn’t around for all the years you watched yourself become invisible and more and more marginal … It must have been … [He stops. He nods. Suddenly clear to him.] I know what it is. [Beat. Simply amazed.] Take my work – sell it … and sell it as your own – and you get your revenge on everyone – me – because I can actually paint – and these people whom you loathe, who did this to you. It’s so malignant. It’s brilliant and twisted. You get everything you want. That’s what this is. Revenge on all of us. [Pause.] You’re a comic book villain, do you know that, Malcolm? And in case you hadn’t noticed – up there – back in New York, they’ve declared that painting is dead. You have no idea how tiny the stakes are. [JUDD is suddenly absolutely certain and direct and compelled.] But you know who I am? I am a mute with great feeling, huge battles going on inside, storms, plagues … but no way to express any of it. These useless skills. To execute a … but otherwise impotent, nothing else. [Beat.] I loved you Malcolm, I would sit here and understand exactly what you wanted, what you were trying to do. Just a nod or a shake or twitch from you was enough. Fantastic. Magic. Collaboration, the sum bigger than the parts, I was never better, you were never braver – and however it worked – when we were together, something great – But then, alone, when I went off, I went through pad after pad, now I was fucked … but all of it a blur, worthless. Dead. Nothing to say. Torn paper.

NOTES FOR THIS SPEECH:

‘retrospective’: art exhibit or exhibition showing an entire phase of an artist’s lifework.

Feel free to change words if necessary: See Note 3.

You start off on a high, and end up emotionally drained: See Note 4.

You have a wonderful moment of great realization, that you are the better painter, and it must show: See Note 5.

From TEN UNKNOWNS by Jon Robin Baitz. Copyright 2004 by Jon Robin Baitz. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

2

MASS APPEAL

Bill C. Davis

FIRST PERFORMANCES	New York 1980; London 2006
AWARDS	Nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play.
CHARACTER	Mark
PLAYED BY	Eric Roberts [US]; Brendan Patrick [UK]
CHARACTER’S AGE	early 20s
CHARACTER’S TYPE	He is a young trainee Catholic priest.
TIME AND PLACE	Today; America, Sunday Mass in Father Farley’s church.
SITUATION	Father Farley’s comfortable life style (and comfortable wealthy congregation) are disturbed when an intense seminarian comes into their parish with his idealism, to deliver his first sermon.

Mark: Thank you, Father Farley. [MARK faces the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• How to use this book
• Quick advice on Auditioning
• Notes on speeches
• Monologues for Men, 20s
• Monologues for Men, 30s
• Monologues for Men, 40s
• Monologues for Men, Over 50s
• Index of Playwrights
• Index of Plays
• Index of Actors
• Award list from 1980 to 2006