Part 1: Selecting The Right Material

To begin the selection process of choosing material I started by looking at the Performing Arts Library in WGC to get an idea of the kinds of speeches available for me to choose from. For my classical piece I decided to choose a Shakespearean piece as I am familiar with many of his works. Within the information I received about my auditions and from open days it was specified to look for speeches that were my playing age and to perform in my own accent (evidence shown below). With this in mind I looked at Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” as Violet, Helena and Hermia are all portrayed as young girls and I enjoyed reading both plays. The speech I ended up choosing was Helena’s speech in Act 3, Scene 2 of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” when she addresses Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius believing they have conspired against her. I chose this speech as Helena comes across as almost hysterical within this speech and I thought it would be interesting to try and balance her hysterical behaviour alongside a melancholy at feeling betrayed by one of her oldest friends. I wanted to play the speech with externalised emotionality, meaning that I wanted it to be written in Helena’s facial features and body language as well as voice to show the emotions that she goes through.

I spent more time looking for a contemporary speech as I struggled to find speeches that would meet the criteria of the audition packs I received from institutions. I began by skimming through material to see if any speeches caught my eye and then read the plays.

“Girls Like That”, Evan Placey: This play centres around young females and the difficulties faced with technology. There were a few monologues to choose from but I didn’t feel any interest or connection with the piece and felt that the characters lacked any kind of depth and had no variances within their speeches, meaning I could not push myself.

“Secret Bridesmaids’’ Business”, Elizabeth Coleman: I found this play quite funny and liked the hints of a more serious tone that complimented the humorous moments. Like “Girls Like That” there were several monologues and I considered doing Naomi Bartlett’s one, however on further research I learnt that she is the youngest character at 29 and within her monologue she reminisces about her days at school and I felt that with my playing range being the school years I would be unable to select this monologue.

"Blink", Phil Porter: I first looked at this play as it is narrated wholly by two characters, with stories from their pasta mixed in with present conversations. The plot of them meeting as a result of both losing a parent and then loving one floor from one another intrigued me. However once I got into analysing if there were any good speeches in there I found that the only options were stories that I saw as very visual and found that I was unable to this kind of any ways of turning it into an audition monologue.

"Boys" , Ella Hickson: I came across this play while browsing through a monologue book and found Sophie's monologue in Act 2, Scene 2 an interesting speech where she tries and explains her conflicted emotions about the death of her boyfriend and her feelings for his mate Mack. However, having read the script I felt that I was unable to connect with Sophie or any of the other characters and felt that the speech was filled with unnecessary starts and stutters. I was left feeling bored when reading the speech and decided to give it a miss. I did originally consider this for my contrasting but felt their were similar tones within my contemporary speech.

“Death and Dancing”, Claire Dowie: This script was the first one I came across when I skimmed a page and the female character is comparing men and women standing to take a piss. I was immediately drawn in and found that there were lots of speeches that I could pull together to create a monologue. I found that the character of Max would be a good challenge for me compared to Helena as she goes through a rollercoaster of emotions within the piece and I was really interested in exploring her sudden mood swings and her brashness and openness.

"Top Girls", Caryl Churchill: For my contrasting I wanted something that was going to be more upbeat and light compared to my "Death and Dancing" speech, so I chose "Top Girls" and selected Shona's speech where she is describing her job. "Top Girls" and "Death and Dancing have similar themes in presenting women in a strong and empowering way. I liked Shona's speech or the conversational way it is written and I got the impression she wants to go all out and impress with her job, which of course turns out to be untrue. I thought it would be fun to play with the comic value of the piece.

To prepare for the development process of all my speeches I read the scripts a couple of times to get an overall idea of the story, context, and characters and then created mind maps to explore the character more thoroughly.

These images below are the criteria that the institutions I applied for asked me to meet for my auditions.