NYTimes: In Performance

I'm really digging this new video series the NYT is running.  Called 'In Performance', it's stripped down closeups of actors performing monologues and songs from shows that are currently running in New York (or at least they were when the video was made).  Some recent additions are Tina Packer with an excerpt from her Shakespeare's Women, and a number from Hands on a Hardbody.  There's about 20 videos up at this point, all are brief, and it's a cool way to get a glimpse of a new performer, a new piece of writing or music, without paying for a plane ticket.

One of my favorites is Elizabeth Marvel's monologue from Picnic, but you can find all of them here.

And in what's Valerie up to news:  I'm playing a Fury in a reading at Symmetry Theatre on 4/21 of Carol Lashof's Just Deserts.  Info here.  Also, I'm super excited to be playing the lead in the upcoming film adaptation of Steven King's Big Driver.  This film is currently doing some pre-production fundraising, and you can find more about it here.

Monologue searching - beyond the monologue books

I'm never not searching for monologues, but this is at the forefront for me right now, because my current monologues have been in heavy rotation for about a year, and I need to rotate in some new pieces.

In particular, I need some new classic pieces (my definitition of 'classic' is a play from approx 1950 or before with a non-contemporary approach to language).  How I found my current classic piece was not by picking up a monologue book, but by thinking about classical archetypes, and what ones I'm best suited to play, given my type.  I ultimately decided that I wanted to find an archetypal loyal wife - and I settled on Andromache (wife of Hector, prince of Troy in the Trojan War).  By searching online, I found plays that feature Andromache - by Euripedes, Racine, Shakespeare and more!

I grabbed one version of each of the interesting plays from the library, and decided that the ideas in Andromache's speech in Euripedes' Trojan Women were the ones I could get behind.  Then, I needed to find a translation/adaptation of the play with language that was exciting - depending on the age of the translation and the nationality of the translator (Brit vs. American), I found versions of the speech that were too stuffy, too flowery, too intellectual, and ultimately found Karen Hartman's Troy Women, which felt bold and exciting and fun to read out loud.

I pulled the most personally provoking 55 seconds out of the approximately 3 minute speech, and my classic monologue was ready for rehearsal.

Monologue inventory

Last week I inventoried my monologues. I looked back through my audition tracking spreadsheet to remind myself what monologues I've been doing in auditions lately, and to help figure out what type of monologue I should be looking for to learn next.

Over the years, I've rotated monologues out of my repertoire for a number of reasons, including that I've done them too much, they've grown stale for me acting-wise, I've outgrown them, or that they weren't playing the right way w/auditors outside the context of the whole play.

And, when I rotate things out of the repertoire, it's time to rotate something else in.  But what?  That's where the inventory comes in.  I categorize and describe what I've got, and then look for the holes.

I categorize by time period, and I use three - classic (Greeks to Moliere or so, incl. Shakespeare), modern (approx Ibsen/Shaw/Chekhov through Odets/Williams/Miller), and Contemporary (written in the last 20-30 years).  Then, I categorize by tone - comic, serious, or serio-comic, keeping in mind that the tone varies  a bit with the time period - a comic classic piece might simply be one where a character talks about falling in love (like Viola in Twelfth Night) but a comic contemporary piece might be much more jokey (think Neil Simon).  After that, I look for where pieces fall in terms of physicality - does this character sit in a chair and talk the whole time or do they run around the stage and pretend to sword fight?  I also look at dialect work, and try to have one piece ready to go in a dialect I'm good at and would get to do onstage (usually a British or American Southern as opposed to Carribean/West Indies or Japanese).

After I look at these things, categorizing gets more creative and fun.  I look at things like character status, are they talking to one person or addressing a crowd, is their internal rhythm slow or fast, are they a city mouse or a country mouse, where does this character fall in terms of my age range?  Typically, I think a character seems young if they're experiencing something new or for the first time, and a character seems older if they are giving advice, or remembering a past event.  I may also look at the character's profession - sometimes the character is primarily a lawyer/doctor/businessperson etc. and other times their relationship parent/child/spouse is in the foreground in the piece.

My current inventory includes:
1. contemporary comic, fast rhythm, low physicality, violinist on a first date
2. contemporary serious, slow rhythm, low physicality, parent of a teen w/cerebral palsy
3. contemporary comic, variable rhythm, medium physicality, stressed out political aide talking to small group
4. contemporary seriocomic, medium rhythm, medium physicality, sister of the bride doing wedding toast for large group
5. contemporary seriocomic, medium rhythm, low physicality, waspy wife attempting apology to cheating husband
6. classic serious, slow rhythm, medium physicality, king's widow about to be taken as war prize
7. classic comic, variable rhythm, high physicality, queen falling in love under a spell
8. classic comic, variable rhythm, medium physicality, maid showing her master that he's marrying his daughter to the wrong man
9. classic comic, variable rhythm, high physicality, drunk getting two reluctant fighters to duel
10. classic serious, slow rhythm, low physicality, conquered queen begging for her son's life


So after the inventory, my biggest hole is in the modern category.  I need to do my looking there.  I don't have any dialect pieces right now, so looking at something like Shaw or Wilde would be a good place to start.  It'd also be great to look for pieces that emphasize physicality.  In terms of high or low status, age of character and those types of variables are really open - I've got a lot of different things covered, so I can probably find something that pairs well with other monologues that I've got already.  I might want to think about looking for someone who is talking to a group - overall, more of my monologues are characters talking to one or two people.

Okay - now I'm off to the library!

Or, if anyone reading has a suggestion for me - post 'em in the comments!