Dust off Those Cobwebs!

I had my first private coaching session today. It was okay. I’m a little dismayed at how out of practice I am. I guess acting really is like a muscle sometimes.

We didn’t do very much during the one-hour session. She told me to bring in various plays where I had found interesting monologues. I did three cold readings, and she said that the last monologue (Catherine’s) in Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer” fit me the best. She seemed very excited about it.

I do feel a connection with Catherine and did enjoy the play, but I am hesitant to audition with a Tennessee Williams monologue. I was hoping to find something more recent, more fresh, and less likely to have been seen many times over. While “Suddenly Last Summer” is not one of Williams’ best known plays, he is still a prolific playwright. So I’m afraid that this monologue may be considered one of those “overdone” monologues that auditioners have seen hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times and of which they have grown tired. My coach was deciding between using this one or the monologue in the middle of the play where Catherine talks about the Mardi Gras ball. We both agreed that one was too safe. So hopefully this other monologue, from the very end of the play, will bode well for me.

Soon, I’m going to order a batch of new plays (ugh, it is so annoying not having any access to an English language library). This time, I will be searching for a comedic monologue. It seems that finding a comedic monologue is a difficult task, because so many of the female monologues I’ve found or pieced together are dramatic. I’m open to any suggestions and am wondering where to find a quality comedic monologue for a female (roughly) between the ages of 16 and 25. I am also going to keep an eye out for more dramatic monologues (due to my reservations with the Catherine monologue) but am limited by my small budget.

I have some reservations about my coach, but I can’t place my finger on why precisely. I think I’ll see how our second meeting devolves. Today, we did cold readings, a few exercises, etc. She gave me homework. I have to do a bunch of character analysis before our next session and want to finish reading A Dream of Passion by Lee Strasberg.

My Larry Shue monologue has been my go-to piece for so long now that it feels weird working on something else. A part of me wants to use it. Another part of me finds it way too stale. If I can get a better handle of it and freshen it up, then I might show it to her. I really should re-read the play.

I want to do good work. And I want to get into this one particular acting class at school that you have to audition for. Getting into these drama classes can be a feat, especially since the teachers tend to choose students they’ve worked with or taught in the past. I know that I need training at this point, and I am really hoping that I can come up with at least one good contemporary monologue so that I can get into that class. If I can do that, then preparing three additional monologues for an MFA or conservatory program should be no problem.

So let’s do this.

I need to get rid of this rust.

Class starts soon – the old monologue

I received an e-mail yesterday about the class I will be taking. It starts next week. It will be small–seven people total. I have to miss two classes, because I will be going on a trip, but I’m afraid I will miss a lot.

I wonder how many of my classmates are native English speakers? The e-mail asked for our ages (so that the instructor can pick age-appropriate monologues and scenes in advance), if we prefer to work in any language other than English, and for us to bring in a prepared two-minute monologue.

None of my acting books or plays have come in yet, so the idea of presenting a monologue at this point is not very ideal. I have one go-to monologue that I always use in times like these. I’ve been performing it for five years, which on one hand means I am comfortable with it. On the other hand, sometimes I feel it to be a bit stale. My original emotional prep behind the monologue stemmed from problems I had with my first boyfriend before we broke up (when I was sixteen!). I also haven’t read the play that it’s from, Grandma Duck is Dead by Larry Shue, in ages! Now, I remember very little from the play, which does not make the monologue particularly strong. So I need to firmly rely on my own instincts, emotional prep, and cloudy memory of the circumstance behind the text. Not great but could be worse. I’ve had the monologue memorized for years and no longer have a text version.

I had been looking forward to presenting a new monologue, from one of the plays I ordered, but this isn’t possible since they haven’t arrived yet. The last time I auditioned with the piece from Grandma Duck is Dead, I was very nervous, still delivered, but didn’t exactly nail it the way I had hoped.

Oh well. I’m going to work out soon, shower, read some blogs, work on my monologue, and maybe scan craigslist for any anglophone acting opportunities.