Audition Monologues: How to Pick One for Each Kind of Audition

You type “audition monologues” into a search bar and get a list of five hundred speeches. None of them says whether it’s right for the audition you actually have: a drama school that wants four pieces, a festival that wants verse, or a community theater down the road that wants one minute of anything.

That’s the missing step. The right monologue depends less on how good the speech is and more on the room it’s going into. Every audition call is a small brief, and most of them say exactly what they want if you read them closely.

The short version: read the call first, then pick. Match the type (classical or contemporary, verse or prose), the number of pieces, and the time limit, timed out loud. Below, each kind of audition is described from real published requirements, with public-domain speeches from our library that fit, and a plan for five speeches that cover the monologue part of every call in this article.

Read the call before you pick the speech

Before you choose anything, pull four facts out of the audition notice: how many pieces, what kind, how long, and where it comes from. Write them on a card. If the notice doesn’t say, the organization’s website often has an audition page or FAQ that does.

The “where it comes from” part trips people up. The UNCSA School of Drama’s high school audition requirements ask for monologues from a published play, “not films or generic monologue books,” and say applicants are expected to have read the entire play. The same page rules out accents, dialects, and stylized characters. That’s three ways to be wrong before you’ve said a word. Our list of monologue audition mistakes covers the others panels see most.

Then time it. A limit is measured on the clock in the room, not in your head, and most people run longer out loud than they guess. Our free monologue timer tells you how long a speech runs at different speeds before you commit to learning it.

Drama school and college auditions

Training programs ask for the most, and they publish it. The asks vary a lot, which is why you should never reuse one school’s list for another.

• An earlier edition of Juilliard’s monologue FAQ asked for four memorized monologues, two in heightened text and two contemporary, each about two minutes. At least one heightened piece had to be by Shakespeare and at least one in verse, and contemporary pieces came from 20th- and 21st-century writers. Check Juilliard’s current requirements before you apply.
• UNCSA’s high school program wants two contrasting monologues, each no longer than 90 seconds, from published plays.
• The University of Windsor’s audition guidelines ask for two monologues of about a minute each: one from a Shakespeare play and one from a published modern or contemporary play.
• RADA’s BA Acting first round is a self-tape with one classical and one contemporary speech plus an introduction. The second round adds another classical speech, a repeat of one from the first round, and a song or spoken word.

Notice the spread: one minute at one school, two minutes at another, two pieces here and four there. Build for the most demanding school on your list (most pieces, longest time), then trim for the rest.

That Juilliard FAQ added two things worth knowing. The school didn’t publish a list of suggested or banned speeches, and it warned against picking from monologue books without reading the whole play. It also said there was no timer in the room, but a piece slightly under or a few seconds over two minutes was fine. That’s a rare bit of honesty about how strict a limit is. None of the other calls here say how strict they are, so treat their limits as hard.

For school picks, a verse speech with a clear change in the middle serves you well. Helena’s “How happy some o’er other some can be!” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs 208 words, about 1.4 minutes in our library. Macbeth’s “Is this a dagger” runs about 1.8 minutes, with a marked cut near 90 seconds on its page (time it: it runs just over). Our guide to the drama school audition covers the rest of the day.

Shakespeare festivals and classical companies

Festivals want to hear verse handled well. Festival limits run from 90 seconds to two minutes, and these real calls show the range:

• The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s 2025 auditions asked for one classical monologue, preferably Shakespeare, two minutes or shorter.
• The Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2027 non-Equity guidelines ask non-singers at the in-person Equity principal auditions (EPAs) for either a 1 1/2-minute Shakespeare monologue (no sonnets) or a 1 1/2-minute contemporary one. Singers bring the Shakespeare piece and 16 bars of a Broadway-style song.
• For a video submission, the same guidelines ask non-singers for a Shakespeare monologue plus a contrasting Shakespeare or contemporary one, no sonnets, with the whole submission, slate included, no longer than four minutes.
• They also say that at the Los Angeles EPAs you have only three minutes in total in the room, including saying hello and talking to the accompanist.

That last line is the one people miss. “Three minutes in the room” is not three minutes of speech. Greeting, slate, and a breath between pieces all come out of the same clock.

For a 90-second cap, Viola’s “I left no ring with her” from Twelfth Night and Petruchio’s “Thus have I politicly begun my reign” from The Taming of the Shrew each run about 1.4 minutes in our library, just under the cap, so time yours out loud. Our Shakespeare festival audition guide goes deeper on verse and voice.

Unified and regional auditions: the 60-second slot

Regional cattle calls compress everything. SETC’s Professional Auditions page says the Fall audition video is 60 seconds at most, and an acting-only applicant does one monologue. Sixty seconds is a different art from two minutes: you have time for one clear want and one turn, and nothing else.

Don’t take a two-minute speech and talk faster. Pick a short speech, or cut a longer one at a point where the thought finishes. Lady Macbeth’s “The raven himself is hoarse” is 128 words, about 0.9 minutes. Juliet’s “What’s in a name?” is 93 words, about 0.6 minutes, short enough to breathe inside.

A worked cut: Viola in 60 seconds

Viola’s full speech is about 1.4 minutes. Our library marks a 60-second cut point after line 19, at 158 words, which is closer to 63 seconds at a steady pace. Here’s where the cut lands, in the Standard Ebooks text:

How will this fadge? my master loves her dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

Why there? Because the knot is complete. She has worked out that Olivia loves her, that she loves Orsino, and that Orsino loves Olivia. The audience has the whole problem. What you lose is the last six lines: her weighing of what this means for her as man and as woman, and her plea to time to untangle it. Cut at the end of a thought like this, never in the middle of one.

For a hard 60-second cap, trim one couplet too. Dropping Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we! / For such as we are made of, such we be. takes out 18 words and keeps the sense, since the line before it leads straight into How will this fadge? That leaves 140 words, about 56 seconds at the same pace. Time it out loud anyway. Our guide to cutting a monologue walks through the method, and the unified auditions guide covers the rest of the slot.

Community theater auditions

Community theater calls can ask for very little, and that’s its own trap: with no rules, people bring something that doesn’t fit the season. Grand Street Theatre’s 51st season auditions asked for one monologue of your choosing, up to one minute long. They strongly recommended memorizing it, but said holding the text was fine.

With that much freedom, let the season choose for you. If the theater is doing a farce and a mystery, a speech with comic timing tells them more than a tragic one. Puck’s epilogue, “If we shadows have offended”, is 94 words, about 0.6 minutes, and shows you can talk straight to an audience.

And memorize it even when you’re allowed to hold it. A piece you know frees your eyes and hands, and that’s most of what a panel is watching. Our community theater audition tips cover the cold reading that often follows.

Generals, showcases, and on-camera calls

When casting sends sides for a film or TV role, prepare the sides, not a monologue. A monologue comes in when someone asks for one, for example at a general meeting or a class showcase.

When that happens, bring a short piece in the medium the person works in, and one that sounds like you on a good day. Our guides to the general meeting and to using a movie monologue cover when a screen piece is the right call and when it isn’t.

Build a small set that covers almost every call

Looking across the calls above, the same few slots keep coming back: a classical verse piece, a contemporary piece from a published play, a short version of each, and a comic option. Five well-learned speeches cover the monologue part of every call in this article (some also want a song).

• A classical verse speech of about two minutes, with a marked cut at 90 seconds and another at 60.
• A contrasting classical speech, for RADA’s second round or Utah’s video submission, which can ask for a second classical piece.
• A contemporary speech of about two minutes from a published play you’ve read, and a cut of it at one minute.
• A second contemporary speech that contrasts with the first in tone or energy.
• A comic piece of about a minute, for community theater and lighter seasons.

For the contemporary pieces, you’ll usually need a play that’s still under copyright. Name the title and character, then buy or borrow the acting edition and read the whole thing. For classical pieces, our plays library has full public-domain texts, and the monologues for women and monologues for men pages sort speeches by speaker. Our guide to choosing contrasting monologues helps you pair them.

Keep every piece ready to perform

A set only helps if each speech is ready on a week’s notice. The danger is the piece you learned last spring and haven’t said since. It feels known until you’re in the room and the second half goes missing.

Test yourself, don’t reread. In Offbook you can hide your lines and say each one from memory, or switch to first-letter cues as a step on the way. Hiding the whole script makes a final check before an audition. The video below shows how it works.

Run each speech in full at least once a week, and run the cut versions too: a cut is a different piece to your memory, with a different last line. For a quick start on any text, the free first-letter memorizer turns a speech into cues with no account needed. Our guide to keeping monologues audition-ready has a weekly routine.

Questions actors ask

What monologue should I use for an audition?

The one that fits the call. Match the number of pieces, the type (classical or contemporary, verse or prose), the time limit, and where the speech must come from. Within those rules, pick a character close to your age and type, speaking to someone, wanting something, with a turn in the middle.

How long should an audition monologue be?

As long as the call says, timed out loud. The calls above range from 60 seconds (SETC’s Fall video) to about two minutes (an earlier Juilliard FAQ, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival). With no limit stated, a piece of about a minute is a safe choice, so you finish before anyone has to stop you.

Do I need a classical and a contemporary monologue?

For many drama schools, yes: RADA and the University of Windsor ask for both, and an earlier Juilliard FAQ did too. Shakespeare festivals may want only classical, and community theaters may leave it open. Having one of each ready means you can say yes to almost any call.

What monologue works for a community theater audition?

A short one, often a minute, that suits the season’s shows. Read the notice for a time limit and whether you may hold your text, then pick something in the style of the plays they’re casting. Memorize it even if holding is allowed.