AS YOU LIKE IT * Audition Choices * Also available on the SW Drama Website, 45-60 seconds
Choose one of the monologues below to memorize and perform for your audition. Pick the one (any gender) that you
think will show off your greatest strengths. Do some studying. Make sure you understand the story and context of your
monologue. You can choose a different monologue, but don’t spend more time choosing than working. Time it too!
Female Monologues
1. Viola, Twelfth Night, II, 2- Viola is protecting to be a boy for her safety in a strange town where she has washed up from a
shipwreck. She is serving the local Duke and is falling in love with him. The Duke has sent her to court Olivia, who he is in
love with. On the way back from Olivia’s palace, Viola realizes Olivia may have fallen for herself in disguise.
I left no ring with her. What means this lady? How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her. And I (poor monster) fond as much on him;
She made good view of me; indeed, so much And she (mistaken) seems to dote on me.
That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, What will become of this? As I am man,
For she did speak in starts distractedly. My state is desperate for my master's love.
She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion As I am woman (now alas the day!),
Invites me in this churlish messenger. What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?
None of my lord's ring? Why, he sent her none. O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
I am the man. If it be so, as 'tis, It is too hard a knot for me t' untie.
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
2. Isabel, Measure for Measure, II,4- This follows right after Angelo’s monologue in the male monologues. Angelo says he will
save the life of Isabel’s brother if Isabel will have sex with him. Angelo is a highly respected priest and he tells her no one will
believe her if she tells on him.
To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, 188 Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour, 196
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths! That, had he twenty heads to tender down
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up,
Either of condemnation or approof, Before his sister should her body stoop
Bidding the law make curt’sy to their will; 192 To such abhorr’d pollution. 200
Hooking both right and wrong to th’ appetite, Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
To follow as it draws. I’ll to my brother: More than our brother is our chastity.
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.
3. Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing, I, 1- Beatrice has just heard that Benedick is about to visit. She is smart and funny, and the
two of them have a long relationship of verbal warfare.
I pray you, is Signior Mountanto [she means Benedick] returned from the wars or no? He is no less than a stuffed man;
but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the
whole man governed with one! So that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference
between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is it Claudio? O
Lord! he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad.
God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a’ be cured
4. Juliet, Romeo & Juliet, III,5- Juliet has just learned that her husband Romeo is banished and she must marry another man.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven; 220
That sees into the bottom of my grief? 212 How shall that faith return again to earth,
O! sweet my mother, cast me not away: Unless that husband send it me from heaven
Delay this marriage for a month, a week; By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed Alack, alack! that heaven should practice stratagems
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies. Upon so soft a subject as myself! 225
O God! O nurse! how shall this be prevented? What sayst thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse?
Male Monologues
1. Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night, I, 1- First lines of the play: Orsino is longing for Olivia who refuses his love.
If music be the food of love, play on; Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, 4 Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
The appetite may sicken, and so die. But falls into abatement and low price,
That strain again! it had a dying fall: Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy, 16
O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That it alone is high fantastical.
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 8 O! when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Stealing and giving odour. Enough! no more: Methought she purg’d the air of pestilence.
’Tis not so sweet now as it was before. That instant was I turn’d into a hart, 24
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity 12 E’er since pursue me.
2. Angelo, Measure for Measure, II, 4- This speech is just before the one by Isabel in the female monologues. Angelo agrees to
save the life of Isabel’s brother if she agrees to have sex with him.
Who will believe thee, Isabel? That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
My unsoil’d name, the austereness of my life, 172 180
My vouch against you, and my place i’ the state, By yielding up thy body to my will,
Will so your accusation overweigh, Or else he must not only die the death,
That you shall stifle in your own report But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
And smell of calumny. I have begun; 176 To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow, 184
And now I give my sensual race the rein: Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes, Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.
3. Dogberry, Much Ado About Nothing, IV,2- Dogberry is the local police officer who often mixes up common words (such as
“suspect” for “respect.”
Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But,
masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain,
thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer,
and, which is more, a householder, and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that
knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns
and every thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!
4. Bottom, Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, 1- He is badly acting the part of Pyramus in the myth of Pyramus & Thisbe.
Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; O! wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame? 268
I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright, Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear?
For, by the gracious, golden, glittering streams, 252 Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
I trust to taste of truest Thisby’s sight. That liv’d, that lov’d, that lik’d, that look’d with
But stay, O spite! cheer.
But mark, poor knight, Come tears, confound; 272
What dreadful dole is here! 256 Out, sword, and wound
Eyes, do you see? The pap of Pyramus:
How can it be? Ay, that left pap,
O dainty duck! O dear! Where heart doth hop: 276
Thy mantle good, 260 Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. [Stabs himself.
What! stain’d with blood! Now am I dead,
Approach, ye Furies fell! Now am I fled;
O Fates, come, come, My soul is in the sky: 280
Cut thread and thrum; 264 Tongue, lose thy light!
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell! Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die. [Dies
