# Shakespeare Monologues for Beginners: Eight Easy Picks and How to Start Each One > What makes a Shakespeare speech easy for a first-timer (a clear want, one listener, plain verse, a short run), eight beginner-friendly picks sorted into comic and dramatic, women and men, the first step for each, and the famous speeches to save for later. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/shakespeare-monologues-for-beginners - Published: 2026-11-10 - Last updated: 2026-11-10 The notice says "one classical monologue, Shakespeare preferred," and you have never done one. You search for easy Shakespeare monologues and get a list of thirty speeches with no hint of which ones a first-timer can actually pull off. Half of them are the speeches everyone has heard. The other half are three minutes of a king you are forty years too young to play. Some Shakespeare speeches really are easier than others, and the reasons are specific. It isn't about short words or famous lines. It's about how clearly the character knows what they want, who they're talking to, and how plainly the verse moves. The short version: pick a speech where the character wants one thing, talks to one listener, speaks in regular verse with few hard images, and fits well inside the time limit. The eight below pass the first three tests and fit a two-minute slot; the four longest (Helena, Viola, Petruchio, Romeo) may need a small cut for a 90-second limit, which our [guide to cutting a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-cut-a-monologue) covers. For each one you'll find who says it, what just happened, why it suits a beginner, and the first thing to do with it tonight. For the full texts of more speeches, see our [Shakespeare monologues library](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/shakespeare). ## What makes a Shakespeare speech beginner friendly Start with what the room asks for. RADA's [2026 BA Acting admissions procedure](https://www.rada.ac.uk/documents/1342/BA_acting_admissions_procedure_2026.pdf) gives the classical speech two minutes. UNCSA's School of Drama, in its [high school audition requirements](https://uncsa.edu/admissions/drama/high-school/audition-requirements.aspx), says an individual monologue may not exceed 90 seconds. A beginner is safest choosing a speech that sits comfortably inside the shorter limit, because a first Shakespeare piece usually runs longer on your feet than it did in your head. RADA's same document has a short list of do's and don'ts that reads like a beginner's checklist. It suggests at least one speech from a character close to your age, asks you to imagine the person you are speaking to, and advises against speeches where the character is mad, drunk, or wildly out of control, because those are difficult to perform. It also tells you not to worry about how original your choice is. From those rules and from how the plays are built, four tests sort the easy speeches from the hard ones: - **A clear want.** The character needs one thing by the end of the speech: a plan, an answer, a person. You can say it in one sentence. - **One listener.** The speech goes to one person, or to the audience, or to the character's own mind. You never have to fake a crowd or another actor's replies. - **Plain verse.** The lines keep a regular beat, the sentences are not tangled, and the images are ones you can picture without a footnote on every word. - **A short run.** Roughly 12 to 26 lines, short enough to learn without rushing and still leave room for pauses inside the time limit. The verse test matters more than it sounds. The Royal Shakespeare Company's [key terms for Romeo and Juliet](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/romeo-and-juliet/language/key-terms) describe iambic pentameter as a rhythm like a heartbeat, one soft beat and one strong beat repeated five times, and note that rhyming couplets are often used to sum up the end of a speech. A speech with a steady beat and a few couplets is easier to learn and easier to land, because the rhythm tells you where the stresses and the ending are. Age is the last filter. Nick Hern Books' [tips on choosing drama school speeches](https://nickhernbooksblog.com/2024/10/10/seven-top-tips-for-choosing-your-drama-school-audition-speeches/) suggest a character no more than fifteen years older than you, and add that panels hear the same Shakespeare speeches often because they are the ones that are good for young actors. Popular is fine. Wrong age is not. A note on the line counts below: we counted them ourselves in the [Project Gutenberg Complete Works](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/100), so treat them as approximate. Your edition may number a scene or break a line differently. ## Comic picks Comic Shakespeare for a beginner means a character in a fix, thinking fast, and letting the audience in on it. You don't need to be funny. You need to want something badly and be a little wrong about how to get it. ### Helena, "How happy some o’er other some can be!" (women) *A Midsummer Night's Dream*, Act 1, Scene 1. Hermia and Lysander have just told Helena they are running away together. Helena loves Demetrius, who loves Hermia. Alone, she complains about it, and then lands on a plan: tell Demetrius about the escape so she can follow him into the wood. About 26 lines. Why it suits a beginner: almost every line is a rhymed couplet, so the beat carries you and every pair of lines ends on a click. The want is plain (get Demetrius back), and the turn into the plan near the end gives the speech a shape. Start by finding the line where she decides, *I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight*, and play everything before it as a problem she hasn't solved yet. ### Viola, "I left no ring with her" (women) *Twelfth Night*, Act 2, Scene 2. Viola, disguised as a young man, works for Duke Orsino and has just carried his love message to Olivia. Olivia's steward Malvolio has chased her down with a ring she never gave. About 25 lines, and she works out the truth as she speaks: Olivia has fallen for the disguise. Why it suits a beginner: it's a puzzle solved out loud, one clue at a time, which gives you a clear action for every few lines. The tangle (I love him, he loves her, she loves me) is funny on its own if you play it straight. Start by marking each new realization, then try it as a conversation with the audience. Our guide on [how to perform Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-perform-shakespeare-monologues) walks through this exact speech step by step. ### Petruchio, "Thus have I politicly begun my reign" (men) *The Taming of the Shrew*, Act 4, Scene 1. Petruchio has just called the supper burnt and refused to let Katherina eat it. Alone, he explains his method to the audience: keep her hungry and awake, the way a falconer trains a hawk, and claim it's all done out of care. About 24 lines, ending with a dare to anyone who knows a better way. Why it suits a beginner: the listener is obvious (the house) and the want is obvious (win the audience over to the plan). It's a speech built on lists, which are easy to learn in order. Start by deciding who in the audience you are trying to convince, and say the last couplet straight to them. You don't have to agree with him; you have to make his logic sound reasonable to him. ### Puck, "If we shadows have offended" (any actor) *A Midsummer Night's Dream*, Act 5, Scene 1, the epilogue. The play is over, and Puck stays behind to ask the audience to forgive it as a dream and to applaud. About 16 short rhymed lines. Why it suits a beginner: the lines are shorter than pentameter, with a quick, rhymed pattern, the listener is the whole audience, and the want could not be clearer. It's a good first speech to learn even if you audition with something else. Start by finding the bargain in it: if you pardon us, we'll make it up to you. Then play the final request, *Give me your hands, if we be friends*, as a real ask. ## Dramatic picks A beginner's dramatic speech is short and simple in shape: something has just happened, and the character reacts to it. Avoid speeches that need an entire play's worth of backstory to make sense. Each of these makes sense from the moment before. ### Juliet, "’Tis but thy name that is my enemy" (women) *Romeo and Juliet*, Act 2, Scene 2. Juliet is on her balcony at night, thinking about the boy she just met, who turns out to be a Montague. Romeo is below, listening, but she doesn't know it. About 12 lines, from *’Tis but thy name that is my enemy* to *Take all myself*. Why it suits a beginner: one argument, made in plain words. A name is only a word, a rose would smell as sweet under any name, so Romeo should drop his. The famous line sits in the middle, so you never start cold on it. Start by paraphrasing the argument as if you were persuading a friend, then put the speech back into the verse and keep the same urgency. ### Ophelia, "O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!" (women) *Hamlet*, Act 3, Scene 1. Hamlet has just raged at Ophelia, told her to go to a nunnery, and left. Alone, she mourns the man he used to be. About 12 lines. Why it suits a beginner: it's short, complete, and needs no plot summary for a panel to follow. The want is to make sense of what she just saw. Its hardest moment is the list in the second line, *The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword*, which pairs each role with a word. Start by working out which word goes with which (the usual reading is courtier's eye, scholar's tongue, soldier's sword), and the line stops being a tongue twister. This is Ophelia before her madness, so it avoids the out-of-control speeches RADA warns about. ### Romeo, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" (men) *Romeo and Juliet*, Act 2, Scene 2. Romeo has slipped into the Capulet orchard and sees Juliet at her window. She can't hear him. About 24 lines, through *That I might touch that cheek*. Why it suits a beginner: the RSC uses its first line as its example of iambic pentameter in the play, and much of the speech keeps that steady beat. The want is simple (to reach her) and the listener is fixed (Juliet, who can't hear him, or the night). Start by picking a single spot above the panel's heads to be her window, and keep coming back to it. The speech is wonder, not volume. ### Macbeth, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" (men) *Macbeth*, Act 5, Scene 5. Macbeth is under siege in his castle, and his officer Seyton tells him the Queen is dead. His answer is the speech. About 12 lines if you start at *She should have died hereafter*, which gives you the cause. Why it suits a beginner: it's short and every image is concrete (a candle, a shadow, a bad actor, an idiot's story). It is heavily used, but the Nick Hern Books guide is plain: originality in a classical choice is not a major requirement. Start by deciding what Macbeth feels in the silence after Seyton's news, and let the first line come out of that, not out of the speech's reputation. ## Speeches to save for later Some speeches are on every list of famous Shakespeare monologues and are still poor first choices. Not because they're bad, but because they fail one of the four tests. - Hamlet's *To be, or not to be*: an abstract argument with no listener and no event right before it to push against. It's a wonderful study piece and a hard audition piece. - Hamlet's *O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!*: long, and it climbs through rage to a plan. Great for your second or third classical piece. - Mercutio's Queen Mab speech: dense images at high speed, with a dark turn that needs a lot of control. - Titania's *These are the forgeries of jealousy*: long sentences packed with images of floods and seasons, and a lot of breath to manage. - Any speech where the character is mad or drunk, such as Ophelia's later scenes. RADA advises against these as difficult to perform. Each of these is in our [monologue library](https://www.offbook.com/monologues) when you're ready, with a plain-English guide to every line. If the notice allows other writers, our guide on [classical monologues that aren't Shakespeare](https://www.offbook.com/blog/classical-monologue-not-shakespeare) covers the next shelf over. ## How to start any of these tonight The first evening with a new speech is about understanding, not memorizing. Do these in order: 1. Read the scene the speech comes from, and at least a summary of the play. RADA asks applicants to be familiar with the rest of the play and the context of the speech. You can read every play above in full in our [play library](https://www.offbook.com/plays). 2. Write a plain paraphrase, line by line, in your own words. Any line you can't paraphrase is a line you'll mumble. 3. Write the want in one sentence at the top of the page, and name the listener. 4. Find the turn: the line where the character changes their mind or decides. Most of these speeches have one. 5. Read it out loud, tapping the beat on the table. Notice where the rhythm breaks; those are often the moments that matter. 6. Stand up and say it to the listener you chose. Not to the floor. Then learn it word for word. Shakespeare's rhythm and rhyme help you, but only if you learn the exact words, since a swapped word can break the beat. Our guide on [how to memorize Shakespeare](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-shakespeare) covers paraphrasing first, using the meter as a spell-checker, and hanging each line on its last word. For the verse itself, see [learning lines in verse](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-learn-lines-in-verse). The fastest way to check yourself is to hide the text and recall it. Offbook lets you upload the speech, swap your lines for first-letter cues (keeping punctuation visible if you like), and then hide the whole script for a final run, so you know whether you have it or only recognize it. If you just want to try the cue method first, our free [first-letter memorizer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer) turns any speech into first letters without an account. Video: [Hide your lines](https://www.offbook.com/learn/hide-your-lines) (1:07) ## Time it and match it to the notice Once you can say the speech without the page, time it at full energy, standing, with your pauses. Our free [monologue timer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/monologue-timer) does this, and each speech page in the [Shakespeare collection](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/shakespeare) lists run times at three speaking paces. If you're over the limit, cut from the middle, never the turn or the ending; our guide to [cutting a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-cut-a-monologue) shows how. Then think about the pair. Many notices want two contrasting pieces, and UNCSA lists "comic and serious" as one way to contrast. If your Shakespeare is Ophelia or Macbeth, your second piece should be lighter; if it's Helena or Petruchio, go darker. Our [short comedic monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/short-comedic-monologues) list has more funny options from Shakespeare and other classic writers. Last, rehearse it to a person, not an empty room. The American Shakespeare Center's [essay on direct audience address](https://americanshakespearecenter.com/2019/08/building-empathy-through-direct-audience-address/) explains that Shakespeare's stages were lit all the way through and had little or no scenery for an actor to hide behind, and he used direct address to the audience to his advantage. Several of these speeches (Petruchio, Puck, Helena) work best that way. In the room, pick a spot just past the panel and talk to it as if it might answer. ## Questions actors ask ### What is the easiest Shakespeare monologue? There's no single easiest, but Puck's epilogue and Juliet's "What’s in a name" speech are among the gentlest starts: short, plain, with one listener and one want. For a comic audition piece, Helena's speech from *A Midsummer Night's Dream* is easy to learn because it's almost all rhymed couplets. ### Which Shakespeare monologue should I do for my first audition? One with a character close to your age, a clear want, and a run well inside the time limit. From the list above, Helena, Viola, or Juliet for women and Petruchio, Romeo, or Macbeth for men are all common, workable choices. Pick the one you understand best, not the one you think is most impressive. ### How long should a Shakespeare monologue be? As long as the notice allows, minus room for pauses. Limits vary: UNCSA's high school drama audition caps each monologue at 90 seconds, and RADA gives the classical speech two minutes. Time yours standing at full energy, since the page will fool you. ### Can I do a Shakespeare monologue written for the opposite gender? Check the notice and the program, because rules differ. Puck's epilogue is a natural choice for any actor. When in doubt, choose a speech you can play truthfully at your age and ask the program if you're unsure. ### Is it bad to pick a famous Shakespeare monologue? Not in itself. Nick Hern Books notes that panels hear the same speeches often because they suit young actors, and RADA tells applicants not to worry about originality. What matters is that you know exactly what every line means and play it as if you're saying it for the first time.