Totally Teen Women: 50 Monologues
Here is a medley of monologues about the time in a woman's life that is the most volatile and profound: her teen years. Each monologue is about a peak moment in the lives of 50 teen women, trying to communicate their ideas and share their feelings. Every selection provides a variety of intense emotions in the language that teens speak. Each monologue is a short story on its own, with a beginning, middle, and end. Even though any one of the monologues can be completed in brief minutes, its speaker is three-dimensional, its content evolves thoroughly, and its ending provides the impact required for a quick close of the curtain.
Behind The Scenes
Having taught drama for many years, I have empathized with the frustrations of teen actresses. Most books of monologues offer excerpts that are unappealing or inappropriate for young women. The majority of fine roles have either been written for males or for mature women. The few truly exciting, female teen monologues have been hackneyed so often that drama coaches, judges, and auditioners are sick of them. Many good teen parts are in the form of scenes that cannot stand alone as soliloquies. Others contain word choices that make neophyte actresses and their parents uncomfortable. Even more discouraging is the fact that many monologues feel fragmented. Without having the benefit of play synopses, background information, or character descriptions, the monologues seem like disconnected bits of theater. Although some books of monologues give small prologues to the pieces chosen, this information aids the actress but not the audience. Most disconcerting of all is that the scripts available sound foreign to many young women. The speech patterns and subject matter are not those to which a modern teenager can relate.
It is a volume of ready-made audition pieces. It is a psychological study of young minds. It is a compilation of short stories, complete with figurative language and literary style. This book is for the drama coach, the English teacher, the psychology student, the actress, the avid reader, for anyone who enjoys living vicariously through peak moments in the lives of 50 teen women, desperately trying to communicate their ideas, share their feelings.