Difference Between a Side & a Monologue

Video Transcript

STEVE CAVERNO: Steve Caverno, on behalf of Expert Village, here to talk to you today about dialogue. Now we're going to talk about an important part of the process: Audition sides and monologues. These are important things to incorporate in your play. When you're writing a play, first up, the play is going to have to be auditioned for. You're going to have to have actors show up at the theater and have the director and the producer of the shows, and they'll be sitting in to watch the actor's performance and give feedback on it, then make decisions on the casting process. Audition sides are generally--usually a two-person scene. Audition sides very often function very well as a two-person scene. It's a scene that has a definite beginning, middle, and end. We'll just do the abbreviations there. So it'll be a scene that starts out. You were--the scene is contained. You understand what's going on inside that one scene. It's a good thing to throw these in your show to find ways to where you can have a scene that has some conflict, that has two characters talking and using tactics and aiming for their goals, and be able to have it where it could be done in a few minutes for a reading to where an audition could be done. Also, monologues are very effective in a scene, in a script. Monologues are done a lot all over the country. Actors go to auditions; they audition for hundreds of theater companies--at the same time sometimes, and they bring monologues with them. They go into college auditions and they all perform monologues to get in to the college of their choice. So these are very important. Usually a monologue is 60 seconds in length. This is not necessarily a must for a monologue, but if you want your monologue to be appealing for an audition then usually, most of the time, the auditions are limited to 60 seconds of monologue. Now, you can kinda put some stuff in there to embellish the monologue and then the actor can cut that out so they have the competition monologue, but 60 seconds is a good thing to go for. And also, in monologues, you want to have the definite beginning, middle, and end in the monologue. We'll look at an example of that as well. But in the monologue, these are good examples of how to get your work seen, okay? Sometimes, you might not have that big of an audience for your work. Someone goes to their theater audition, does this monologue, the first thing someone's going to say to them after they say, "Hey, that was a great read, that monologue," they're going to ask, "Hey! What play is that from? I've never heard that before," and that way, you can kinda get your play out there. So this is a really good way to get some exposure, having good monologues and audition sides in your script.

Watch these related videos

• 
  How to Avoid a Bad Monologue Audition

  playlist Views: 518

• 
  How to Shorten a Monologue

  playlist Views: 529

• 
  Summary of Acting Audition Tips

  playlist Views: 532

• 
  How to Pick a Monologue for an Audition

  playlist Views: 527

• 
  About Monologues & Sides for Broadway Auditions

  playlist Views: 634

• 
  How to Approach Cold Reading Acting Auditions

  playlist Views: 628

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags