Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, Restoration comedy, and 19th-century realism — the canon, audition-ready.
"Classical" in audition contexts usually means anything pre-1900. The pieces on this page span 2,500 years of dramatic writing — Aeschylus and Sophocles through Wilde and Ibsen — and they are the foundation of every serious actor training program. If you are auditioning for a conservatory, an MFA program, or a classical theatre company, this is where you start.
from The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell • Oscar Wilde
from As You Like It
Jaques • William Shakespeare
from Othello
Iago • William Shakespeare
from King Lear
King Lear • William Shakespeare
from The Seagull
Trigorin • Anton Chekhov
from Julius Caesar
Marc Antony • William Shakespeare
from Romeo and Juliet
Juliet • William Shakespeare
from The Merchant of Venice
Shylock • William Shakespeare
from The Seagull
Nina • Anton Chekhov
from The Seagull
Nina • Anton Chekhov
from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bottom • William Shakespeare
from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Oberon • William Shakespeare
from Pygmalion
Eliza Doolittle • George Bernard Shaw
from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Puck • William Shakespeare
from Othello
Othello • William Shakespeare
from Saint Joan
Joan • George Bernard Shaw
from Prometheus Bound
Prometheus • Aeschylus
from Twelfth Night
Viola • William Shakespeare
from As You Like It
Rosalind • William Shakespeare
from Miss Julie
Miss Julie • August Strindberg
from Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano • Edmond Rostand
from A Doll's House
Nora • Henrik Ibsen
from Richard III
Richard III • William Shakespeare
from Electra
Electra • Sophocles
from Hamlet
Hamlet • William Shakespeare
from Henry V
Henry V • William Shakespeare
from The Tempest
Prospero • William Shakespeare
from Romeo and Juliet
Mercutio • William Shakespeare
from Henry V
Henry V • William Shakespeare
from The Taming of the Shrew
Katherine • William Shakespeare
from Arms and the Man
Raina • George Bernard Shaw
from The Merchant of Venice
Portia • William Shakespeare
from Macbeth
Lady Macbeth • William Shakespeare
from A Doll's House
Nora • Henrik Ibsen
from Hamlet
Ophelia • William Shakespeare
from King Lear
Edmund • William Shakespeare
from Hamlet
Hamlet • William Shakespeare
from Macbeth
Macbeth • William Shakespeare
from Antigone
Antigone • Sophocles
from Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler • Henrik Ibsen
from Uncle Vanya
Sonya • Anton Chekhov
from Pygmalion
Henry Higgins • George Bernard Shaw
from Medea
Medea • Euripides
A classical audition piece needs to do something a contemporary piece does not: it needs to prove you can handle heightened language. That does not mean shouting in a Royal Shakespeare Company accent. It means specificity with elevated syntax — characters who use bigger words, longer sentences, and more inverted grammar than people do in 2025, but who are still asking for something specific from another human being. The text gives you formality; you have to bring the human underneath.
Three traps to avoid: do not generalize the emotion (pick the exact thing the character wants from the other person), do not flatten the rhythm (each playwright has a different sound — Sophocles is not Strindberg, Shakespeare is not Shaw), and do not perform the period (you are playing a person who thinks they are in their own time, not yours).
The pieces below are filterable by playwright and tone. If you are putting together a conservatory audition book, the standard ask is two contrasting pieces — typically a classical verse piece (Shakespeare or Greek) and a 19th-century realist piece (Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg). Mix and match below.