From Publishers Weekly
These collections offer monologues--51 for actors, 54 for actresses--selected by Beard ( One Hundred Men's Stage Monologues from the 1980s ) from some of the better plays of 1991. Each volume contains an introduction by a veteran director, David Frank of the Wisconsin-based American Players Theater and Josephine Abady of the Cleveland Playhouse, offering useful suggestions for the choice and performance of audition monologues. Both collections display a good range of material in terms of age, dialect, ethnicity and class, tone and subject matter. The rhymed quatrains of David Hirson's La B ete and the blank verse of Miriam Hoffman's A Rendezvous with God in the men's volume and free verse by Ntozake Shange and Emily Mann ( Betsey Brown ) and Joyce Carol Oates ( I Stand Before You Naked ) in the women's volume add further variety. The playwrights represented are a distinguished lot, including Jon Robin Baitz, Christopher Hampton, Beth Henley, Harry Kondoleon and Romulus Linney. The depth of writing talent suggested by these excerpts is a hopeful sign for theater in the '90s, particularly for the actors and actresses likely to refer to these volumes.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
These companion volumes follow in the footsteps of last year's highly praised Best Women's . . . and Best Men's Stage Monologues of 1990 (both Smith & Kraus, 1991). The 105 audition pieces presented in these two books are taken from plays written in the past year and represent contemporary authors such as Ntozake Shange, Harry Crews, Jon Klein, Beth Henley, and Joyce Carol Oates. We are introduced to courageous and outrageous characters and to situations dealing with violence, passion, racial tension, addictions, and gay relationships. Aspiring actors and actresses will find within these books many roles to challenge their dramatic abilities. Recommended for modern drama collections in academic and public libraries.
- Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. LouisCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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