Acting 101: Breaking Down A Monologue

good morning everyone well it's morning while I'm filming right now may not be morning when you're watching this but if your name I channel hi I'm Rebecca Curtis on this channel you'll find lots of monologues some acting tips so just it's basically just an acting journey but today we're going to talk about how to break down a monologue so if you are new to this channel welcome if you're not welcome back and just hit that subscribe button and share these videos with other actors that you think might enjoy them or they might be helpful for other actors in your life so [Music] we have the perfect monologue especially if there's an audition coming up and it just says pick-up comedic monologue and you think there's five of them that I could pick how do I pick the right one so I just want to go through some things that I tend to do when I pick a monologue um one is I just look for things that I like if I can think of a monologue from a film or a play that I've already read I've already watched then sometimes I'll go and look at it again see if it's something that I want to perform um but really all I do is when I'm looking for certain monologues and so I type in strong female monologues or comedic monologues or dramatic monologues something on what genre I'm going for and I can start searching through and I search for things with substance I search for things that I know I can play with that I feel like has they have an arc or they have a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions that I can really feel like I could do something with you also want to make sure that you're picking the right age range for you okay me picking a monologue that a 50 year old woman is saying is not going to do anything productive for me as a character because I'm not a fifty year old woman I don't know what that's like um so just make sure you're picking the right age range for you that I ain't arrange that you know you can play because again you want to make sure that you fit those experiences and start with what you know you know like if you know that you're really good at comedy and you're maybe just kind of starting to figure out monologues and performing them start with what you're good at um so if you know you're a really good comedic actor then should start with comedic monologues but I don't want to say just a little bit yourself if you know you're only good at comedy the only new comedy you know you want to stretch yourself as an actor you want to grow number two I don't know if I even said number one but number two after you've chosen your monologue read it through aloud a couple times depending on where you're choosing your Mulligan like if you're choosing it in a library or in the classroom or even at your house and there's lots going on maybe you're not wanting to read it out loud while you're choosing it um I usually read it through once just to make sure that everything's on the up-and-up for me and then and then I read it aloud and I read it a lot of few times before I even start memorizing it or doing anything else with it so read it a lot of few times get somewhere by yourself take a walk go in your room go just go somewhere or you can be alone for a few minutes and just read it aloud by yourself but don't read it aloud in a monotone away read aloud and let things come naturally like if you you know this is the first time reading it how would you do it if you had no practice with it this is kind of good for if you ever go in for cold read auditions because sometimes auditions you know they have you prepare things ahead of time or they send you a little piece of the script ahead of time but there are some auditions where you won't know what you're going to be reading until you get to the audition site so kind of reading your monologue and playing with it is good practice for pulled reads um because it lets you practice getting creative really fast lets you practice kind of just it lets you practice having fun with the scripts quickly does that make sense okay number three um number three uh create a backstory for your character this is so important um you want to know where your character is coming from so for those of you who don't do you know what I mean when I said backstory I hope you do otherwise I'm going to use a Phineas and Ferb reference because dr. Doofenshmirtz is the king of backstories you watch that show maybe you're like an adult I mean I'm an adult but maybe you're like a real adult and you're like I don't watch cartoons Rebecca you're insane but I watch cartoons because they're hilarious some of them and phineas and ferb is one of those anyway it has nothing to do backstories dr. Newman smarts does them all the time where it gives us a glimpse into his past so that we know why he is the way he is or why he's doing what he's doing and that's actually what you need to do for your character you really you need to create a backstory that one of my favorite things to do when I was a teacher was give my kids like creative writing assignments and one of some of them sometimes we create a backstory for this character and whatever we were reading and I kind of loved seeing what they would come up with but if you create a backstory it just it helps ground you know I say ground you it helps you to not just play off emotions and be like oh well they're angry here yeah but but why are they angry if you if you created backstory for the character so why they're angry why they're sad why they're happy then or you know whatever then you're going to have more depth to your performance so this is my backstory so for the monologue that I picked um the characters it doesn't have a name she's just called woman so for the sake of making it make sense for me I gave her name like that's all you should do for your backstory make it as detailed as possible and basically it's almost like I wrote monologue for a monologue but by writing this it helped a get my imagination in my creative juices flowing as to why my character would be spouting off the monologue that she does and kind of what has made her the way she is so that's my monologue or main that my backstory I'm sorry poor um next is an OT your poem oh not your poem I wrote annotate your poem because that's right was I've wrote for the past three years while teaching because I taught poetry inside right and I'll take your poem and I take your monologue which is what so this is annotate it and when I say alligator I mean write all over it like print it out write it out write it out so there are spaces on between the lines or printed out so it doubles faces are spaces in between lines so you can write all over that baby because once you've created a backstory for your character once you have a backstory once you know the reasons that they are the way they are you can now go and look at your your monologue again and and figure out how they would react based on their backstory so this is what I did for mine and so this is my monologue annotated so as you can see your bird all over it and can I kind of go over a little bit of what these things mean for me but it helps me break it down so what I do is I do what's called a pre scene beat which essentially is just what are the couple things that happened right before if this was like a player movie what were the things right before that happened in order to launch your character into their monologue so I created because I've never read this play so I wrote that they're in an interrogation room at a local police station and something happened to the restaurant owner after the restaurant closed they were brought in they brought in anyone that might have had of him vendetta two scared waiters remember to my rant and I call it my rant because you know I had to act like I'm the character from last year and suggests me as a suspect especially since I was at the restaurant tonight and then I act as if the police are asking me do you know the owner and I say yes what do you think of him and then it launches me into my monologue I also made sure that I looked up any words I didn't know especially the French ones right there I put all of what's called subtext in there so subtext is are those things that we think but we don't say so you know when you say you're you know it's customer service is the best example of that so you know we have to be nice to a person to their face but inside you're thinking really mean things that's subtext so that's why I bro all over my monologue are like these are the things that she's saying but what is actually she thinking and feeling inside okay so that's the kind of stuff you want to do when you annotate think about the feelings inside what are you doing what are your motives things like that yeah you just you wanna you want you want to write all over it you want to write your motives like what are your reasons that you're sick what are your reasons that you're saying each thing you know if there are certain actions that you want to do write down those actions because not all most monologues don't come with what you're supposed to be doing at each moment and so you know you don't want to write down you know the actions add stuff for yourself do you have props in in the monologue like where are where are they oh my gosh these are just some where are they who are they with who are they talking to why are they saying these things you want to think about sorry I have notes so sometimes I'm looking down at these notes because I want to make sure that I get everything because they feel like there's so much that you need to do to make that monologue successful number five start memorizing this is every actors favorite part right memorizing is the most exhausting part of this ask guys of acting I think because you know like I love the pre-work before it I love getting to have fun with the text app for it but when you're memorizing it's like oh my gosh I just need to know the words um so that's that's just me anyway um so memorizing is my least favorite part of this whole process everyone memorizes differently some different ways if you're having trouble memorizing to help you everyone says a lot of people suggest writing it out and I know that may be hard for a monologue I'm typing it out maybe sometimes too it depends on kind of how your how you are as a person writing helps things stick longer and just easier I guess I don't know the science behind it but there's something there's a reason um but I've typed stuff out before I've written somehow before this goes for scenes too I usually don't write out monologues because they're longer um but sometimes I've typed them out to help me I just tend to kind of just take that that's what another reason I think it helps to read it through a few times before you even start annotating it before because then it starts kind of getting into your brain and then you actually start remembering it faster than you think you do but um I have I you know say a line or two especially if they're easy because you know some it's sometimes the story just makes sense so see some will be easier to memorize than others and so like I'll say a line or two over and over a few times and then I'll try to add another line and then I'll go back and do all three then on another line I'll go back and do all four you know and I just keep adding until I get it and I say it over and over and over again so for some people it's way faster than others oh another way if some people will record themselves saying it and then just listen to it over and over because it's like a song how do you learn a song you don't really obby very rarely do we go over like I'm gonna learn the song I'm gonna look up all the lyrics I just sing along um well maybe do that I need up for some songs not all I've been learning the song for an audition that I'd be that but um you know the way that we learn songs is we listen to them over and over and over again so you can do the same thing with a monologue or a scene whatever you just listen to it over and over again so it's kind of drilling itself into your brain so that's another way to memorize a monologue I think those are all the tips I have for memorizing so one of the writing it writing slash typing it to just kind of saying it over and over again three listening to it number six have fun with it now that you have your monologue all annotated and memorize oh my gosh just have fun um you know like play with it play with the way you say it like do it in different ways do it at different volumes when I was doing the cocktails at Pam's when I was trying to loosen myself up because sometimes I get so frustrated with trying to nail everything perfectly because I think oh my gosh I have to put this online like if it's not any good and then sometimes I just lose myself up and just say like if you weren't do this some movie in a movie what would it look like how would you imagine yourself doing it if you were to do in a play you know live how would you want people to see you doing it and it kind of like loosens me up um you know just to have fun with the way you can say it like I tried to be as crazy as possible when I was doing it um one of the last excuse me see my note sentence um one of the last times I did a you know I just tried to be as crazy as possible because that helps loosen me up that helps discover other ways of saying something so so have fun with it like I think that as actors sometimes we get so caught up in doing it perfectly that we forget to have fun with the craft that we're doing and if you're not having fun with it what's the point you know so um once you've got everything like once you've done the hard work behind it the choosing it at the annotating at the writing the backstory the memorizing it then you're free to just have fun with it and do things with it and and especially if you're in a show oh my gosh if you're in a show and you do all this work beforehand and you get it all kind of done before ahead and it's so much easier for the director to work with you too because then you have ideas then you have creativity flowing and then they can play with it too and they can tweak it and they can they can fix it or they'll they'll say oh I like that you discovered that let's keep that you know so so just yeah have fun with it make it your own discover discover characters and just have fun have fun I think I've said that enough all right well if you guys have any more question if you guys have any I say more questions like someone asked me to do this but if you have any questions definitely put them in the comments below if you have any suggestions or tips and tricks that you like to hear more about I'm happy to do that like I said I'm still going on this journey but I also have learned a lot just in my schooling and kind of my like my small experiences that I'm gaining as I'm going so if you are just kind of starting out and you saw and you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out and ask I'd love to hear from you guys other than that I've just have a wonderful day and if you have any monologues that you oh yeah that's another thing if you have any monologues that you're thinking about doing or you want to do you can send them my way and we can talk about them if you want help with one let me know I'm just if you want to put a link down to your monologue go for it I'd love to just them out alright have a great rest your day guys buddy

Channel: Rebekah Curtis

Views: 2,623

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Monologue, Acting, Acting Tips, Monologue tips, tips and tricks for acting, break down a monologue, helpful acting, acting techniques

Id: CWyTyZ5yuhI

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019