Modern monologues from Tennessee Williams and contemporary playwrights — for film, TV, and contemporary theatre auditions.
Contemporary monologues are what most film and TV casting directors actually want to see. The language is naturalistic, the stakes are interior and specific, and the audition reads short. If you are building a screen-acting book, two strong contemporary pieces — one comedic, one dramatic — will get you further than ten classical speeches.
What separates a great contemporary audition piece from a mediocre one is what is NOT being said. Tennessee Williams and his contemporaries write characters who are deflecting, performing, lying to themselves. The text on the page is rarely the whole truth — your job is to find the line underneath the line. When Amanda Wingfield brags about jonquils, she is not bragging about jonquils.
For film and TV auditions specifically, casting directors want to see if you can be alive on camera in a small, contained way. They are reading you for thinking, not for performing. Pick pieces where the character is thinking through something out loud, not declaiming a known position. Tom's monologues in Glass Menagerie work because he is wrestling with whether to leave; he hasn't decided yet when he starts speaking.
Use the filters below by tone, gender, and length to find pieces that fit your audition brief.