Powerful pieces that demand emotional range, vulnerability, and specificity. Free for auditions.
Dramatic monologues are where actors prove they can carry the weight of a scene alone. The pieces on this page are drawn from the playwrights casting directors expect you to know — Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg — and they cover the full emotional register, from quiet, internal grief to public confrontation.
from Othello
Iago • William Shakespeare
from King Lear
King Lear • William Shakespeare
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 Othello
Othello • William Shakespeare
from A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche DuBois • Tennessee Williams
from Saint Joan
Joan • George Bernard Shaw
from Prometheus Bound
Prometheus • Aeschylus
from The Glass Menagerie
Tom • Tennessee Williams
from Miss Julie
Miss Julie • August Strindberg
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 Henry V
Henry V • William Shakespeare
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 Medea
Medea • Euripides
A strong dramatic monologue does three things at once: it puts the audience inside a specific person's specific problem, it earns the emotional crescendo it eventually reaches, and it ends in a different place than it started. When you are working a piece in rehearsal, mark those three things explicitly. Where does the character begin emotionally? What is the inciting moment that turns the temperature up? What truth does the character have to admit by the end?
Audition-room rule of thumb: dramatic does not mean loud. Casting directors see actors confuse the two constantly. The most memorable dramatic auditions are often the quietest — a character realizing something terrible in real time, not screaming about it. Pieces like Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking or Blanche's monologue in Streetcar work because the actor is fighting to hold themselves together, not because they are letting it all out. Use the practice tool on each detail page to rehearse the moment-to-moment listening, not just the delivery.
If you are building an audition book, a strong rule is to have two dramatic monologues at the ready — one classical, one contemporary — both ideally under two minutes. Filter by length below to find pieces that fit.