The Acting Blog

Contrasting Monologues for Auditions

For people that have been asked to do two contrasting monologues, they often feel that it means one comedic and one dramatic.

However,the contrast is also in tone, style, subject and deliver.  Remember this and the following advice when deciding upon your contrasting monologues.

Picking contrasting monologues is vital to showing off your capacity as an act.   Look at what occurs in each piece and see if they are truly different and contrasting.

Contemporary and Classical don’t necessarily contrast.  They might be similar characters, from similar backgrounds with similar concerns or objectives.   The same can be said of the dramatic and the comedic, they are not necessarily contrasting.

When you look at your two pieces, try to make a list of the similarities and differences in the pieces, are there more differences than similarities?

Try to contrast the situation that the character is in, is one talking aloud about their thoughts and feelings and the other mid-flow in the crisis of the drama.

Are the pace of the two pieces different?

Are the topics similar?  When you think of the theme of the pieces, do they actually contrast?

Contrasting monologues are two very different characters with two very different goals in two very different situations, in two very different plays and two very different genres of dramatic literature.  Contrast is black and white, night and day, not differing shades of gray.

Contrast can exist in:

• Character
• Objective
• Genre
• Situation
• Type of Language
• Movement Demands
• Emotional Range
• Mood or Tone of the Speech
• Accent

The more differences, the more contrasting.  But be sure that the heart of each speech is actually different.  I’m surprised by how many people bring me very similar monologues without understanding that they are almost entirely the same monologue, just wrapped in different paper.

Contrasting monologues show your dynamic range and capacity.  If you need help, you know where to find me.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009

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Tags: Advice for Drama School, Applying for Drma, applying to drama school, contrasting monologues, Drama School

What to do with a Script

No one ever taught me to professionally read a script of any kind.  Over the years, I muddled through.  If you read a script like a story, you are reading it from a literary narrative perspective.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but you are missing an understanding of the sense of the dramatic.   I worry that Drama Schools and Universities do not teach students how to read a script properly.  Why not? Cos no one taught them either.  So, we get a set of highly analytical tools that offer us an academic perspective, which is no use to anyone who wants to use it to produce,  act, write or direct.

Coquelin once wrote that the actor “must read the play carefully over many times, until he has grasped the intention of the author”.  Too many actors are willing to accept their first impression of the script, and then rush off to highlight their lines in pink.   But without the tools to discover ‘the intention of the author’ who can blame them?   It doesn’t matter how many times you read a play as a story, if you don’t understand how the play is made, you’re off to a losing start.

Only after going to the Atlantic Theater Company’s Acting School did I have anything like a set of tools that could be used for professionally reading a script.  At Atlantic, we were taught to use some simple Aristotelian ideas to disect a script and come to a solid understanding of it so that we could figure out our character’s part in the script.

I’d like to offer you these tools in an easily accessible format and talk you through them.  My advanced students won’t find this particularly new, but might find the explanation interesting.  When I pick up a script, I read it once through for pleasure – I published a guide to read throughs in a past blog.  From then on, I’m looking at the script as a tool of work, so I ask the question:

Q – Who’s Story is it? In other words, who is the protagonist?  Over the years, many people have described the protagonist in many different ways, but I would define it as the character that undergoes the most change in the course of the events of the play/film.

Q – What is the Protagonist’s Driving Underlying Need? I’ve added the word ‘driving’ to my own training, because I felt that the need should compel the character throughout the film or play.

Q – Through the Script, What Conflicts Arise As the Protagonist Attempts to Fulfill their Need? Make a list, all the things that happen, that others do (the antagonist or antagonists), they do to themselves that serve as barriers or obstacles to the fulfillment of the need.  Work through the play until you know all the conflicts, you’re uncovering the ‘drama’ of the story of the film or play as you do so.  Drama after all is conflict in action.

Q – How does the Protagonist Change During the Course of the Story? Look at their starting point, the need.  Look at the conflicts.  Now see where they end up.

Then I do something of the same for the antagonist, and lastly for my character to see how I fit into the overall story. (If I’m not in the lead role or the antagonist)

I use these exact same questions when I’m writing a play to ensure that the character’s have clear driving needs, conflicts and journeys.  The clarity is provides to me as a writer is astonishing.  This is the clarity it offers the actor too.  Yet, I fear, still many are willing to pick up the script and start talking, as if the words were all there was there.

Is this all there is to know? No. Of course not.  BUT, if this IS all you did, you’d still be better off than the people who only read the script through or immediately got their highlighter out and starting counting the number of lines they’ve got in the script.  These questions unlock the script, and help you start approaching the role.  Whether you’re an actor, director or writer, these questions each help you gain clarity.

Try it out, if you have any questions, contact me.

All the Best

Mark Westbrook

Mark Westbrook is an actor trainer and acting coach based in the United Kingdom.

Tags: Atlantic Theater Company, Drama School, How to Read a Script, What do Do with a Script

What if I don’t get into Drama School?

There are a limited number of places for the small number of drama schools in the UK.   The chances are statistically that you will not get in.  If you are a graduate, then postgraduate courses are slightly easier to gain entry because they are expensive and (often but not always) have the pre-requisite of graduation from an undergraduate degree first.

If you don’t get into Drama School, here’s some tactics so you don’t have to let go of your dream of becoming an actor:

ONE: Be realistic, it took Dustin Hoffman nine attempts to get into the Actors Studio, if you’re just going to base your future on one attempt, then you don’t really want to be an actor that badly do you?

TWO: Train Train Train. You now have a year to get further and better training, monologue coaching, singing and even dancing tuition, so that you are more prepared.  Is there an aspect that went particularly badly?  Address this.

THREE: Reapply next year, and this time save up, so that you can apply to more of the schools. Of course you want to go to your first choice, but if you had a brilliant time at one of the others and became a professional actor, you wouldn’t care looking back.

FOUR: Talk with your parents or friends.  Usually by this stage, there’s a huge pressure to apply to some crappy generic drama degree course.  If you want to spend three years examining the structures of performance from perspectives of semiotics or perhaps post-structuralist approaches to early Naturalism.  Sound like boring crap?  Yeah, it is.  If you want to be an actor, these courses pull you in with promises of ‘practice’ but really they’re not.  How do I know so much? I used to teach on those courses.  Don’t get confused, doing a degree in drama will rarely provide you with the route to acting, but perhaps you’ll swap your dream and become a drama teacher instead.  Nothing wrong with it.  It’s just not doing what you want to do, it will keep the nay-sayers quiet.

FIVE: Research your choices.  Attend open days, find out more about the place.  Doing your research in advance will give you a better chance of understanding what each school is looking for.

Moaning about the cost? About how unfair it is? I know, it’s rough, but how bad do you want it?  If it’s bad enough, you will not stop until you have achieved your goal, if anything gets in your way, you didn’t want it bad enough.

Want a better chance at getting into drama school?  Get some audition coaching from a professional acting coach.

Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach, director and writer based in Scotland.

Tags: Drama School, Theatre School

A sobering fact from American Equity

A sobering fact from US actors’ union Equity, 5 years after attending drama school, only 10% of actors are still in the business.

Sobering percentage.

Tags: actors union, Drama School, equity

Drama Schools – What are they looking for?

If you’re a young (or not so young) actor, looking to get a place at a UK drama school, you might be asking the question:

What exactly are a drama school looking for from an applicant?

It’s a tough question because each individual drama school will be looking for slightly different things to make up their newest
intake of acting students. Here’s a helpful list of some things that MOST Drama schools are looking for:

* An individual who is open to new ideas
* An individual who is emotionally open and free
* An individual who has natural energy and spirit
* An individual who is unafraid of taking artistic risks
* An individual who is great alone and works well in a team
* An individual who is focused, committed and has both feet on the ground
* An individual who has an opinion but is not judgmental
* An individual who is trainable – which means they can learn from three years of training
* An individual who will make a success of their training or as Stella Adler used to say, they have a talent for their talent.

You can’t grow these overnight, and if you don’t have them naturally, it’s going to be a real struggle for you.
Having said all this, of course, there are some people who just impress them. It’s a gamble to hope to be that person.

Hope that helps!

Best Wishes

- Mark –

Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach based in Scotland.
To find out more about his acting workshops, masterclasses and private tuition, visit Acting Coach Scotland

Tags: Drama School, Stella Adler