Paste a long monologue, pick a target time — 60s, 90s, 2min, 3min — and toggle sentences on and off until the cut lands inside the window. Running total updates live. Practice the cut version against our scene partner in one click. Built to fix the over-time audition that gets the polite cut-off.
13 sentences · estimated total 1m 18s at 140 wpm
Most theatre auditions ask for 60s or 90s; screen casting often specifies 30–60s for self-tape slates. Allow a few seconds of margin — a piece that lands at 88s on the desk often runs to 95s in the room with nerves.
Click any sentence to cut it. Click again to restore. The running total updates live; the target chip turns green when the kept version lands within five seconds of the window.
How working actors cut. Don't trim the opening or the close — the audition lives at the entry beat and the landing line. Cut from the middle, and cut the sentences that *paraphrase* an idea the actor has already stated once. Most overlong audition pieces have three sentences saying the same thing in slightly different shapes; keeping the strongest one and dropping the others is almost always the right cut.
Cut on logic, not on length. Casting directors notice when a cut breaks the through-line of the speech — the room reads "this is a fragment", not "this is a polished audition piece". When in doubt, read the cut version aloud and check that the argument still moves from where the character starts to where the character lands.
Drill the cut, not the original. Once the cut lands inside the window, run the cut version against our scene partner tool three times in a row at performance pace. The version you have drilled three times is the version that survives nerves in the room. The version you have only read once on the page is the version that drifts back toward the original timing under pressure.
Timing estimates use 140 words per minute — the conservative audition floor most working actors land at under nerves. Faster readers will run shorter; slower or more deliberate pieces (verse, grief beats, suspended silences) will run longer than the estimate.
Run Lines Online reads the other characters aloud — 20 unique voices, no scene partner needed. Free.