Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook: An Actor's Guide to Over 1000 Monologues and Dialogues from More than 300 Contem porary Plays

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just a word of clarification, especially to those new to this kind of material (like myself). This book is like a catalog of monologues and scenes, but does not reprint the actual scenes. You'll need to find the actual scripts elsewhere.

This is unquestionably the best book an actor can use to find monologues. While many people have complained about the fact the monologues aren't included in the book, this is actually a very good thing. The book gives a synopsis of the scene or monologue in the play, and tells you what publisher you can get the play from. Many young actors when they find a monologue in a collection memorize and perform it, without understanding the subtext behind the scene. This book forces the actor to read the play and get a strong concept of the character they plan to play. The book also mentions a few monologues and scenes which are heavily performed in professional auditions and should be avoided if at all possible. This book is a valuable resource if for nothing else then to get you looking at some new plays and authors, many of them relatively obscure compared to Arthur Miller and Neil Simon. With 300 plays featured, this book can keep a dedicated actor very well occupied.

This book has saved me the time and agony of sifting through hundreds of plays trying to find good material. It has summaries of each scene and monologue, and where to begin and end. I'm just starting acting, and this resource has given me guidelines and direction when choosing pieces. I feel it would be a good book for actors of all levels who are looking for creative, interesting and challenging new scenes to work on. How about a book on film and TV work Ed?

For an actor auditioning for drama school in Britain and looking for a range of monologue material, I didn't realise that the majority of auditons in this book would be American. A great deal of them require a New York accent for example which isn't appropriate when the audition panel do not want to hear any accent other than your own.
I believe this to be a good book and can see why others would find it useful but if I had known then what I know now I personally wouldn't have purchased it...a warning to any other Brits looking for audition material is to search around for books with more monologues from closer to home.
I too just want to reciprocate what one other reviewer mentioned and that is that there are no full examples of monologues within the book. It gives you the characters age, a brief description and the start and finish lines but not the monologue in full. Also there may be 1000 monologues inside but but many are from the same play i.e The Cherry Orchard (1M) (2F) (1M&F)...so actually the number of plays used is 300 in total. Also, many of the parts are for an older playing range - 30s-60s - i didn't feel there were enough parts for those of us in our 20s.

Information about each monolgue is provided including the race of the characters, a little background and level of difficulty. This is a great reference if you're looking for a quick audition piece with a certain theme or play in mind. If you're an actor with a limited amount of time to aquire material this book is perfect. The only drawback is the fact that you have to actually find the plays from which the monologues were taken yourself. But hey, it's worth it!

Mr.Hooks' comprehensive guide to monologues and scenes is both succinct and insightful. He gives the reader knowledge of the level of difficulty of a piece as well as offering advice on its strengths and weeknesses from a first hand perspective.

I thought this book actually had 1000 monologues but it does not. The book has a snippet analysis of over a 1000 monologues so if you like the analysis given then you can go find/buy the monologue. I think it will definitely come in handy when my son needs a specific monologue based on character and/or setting and this book will allow for him to narrow down his search of which monologues fit the requirements of an audition and will save him time. I would recommend the book for saving an actor time in searching for a monologue but again the book does not contain the actual monologues as I originally thought that it would.

Very well organized. Very easy to find monologues/scenes for specific age ranges. The only problem is that it gets you excited about a certain monologue or scene and then you can't find the play. Its very frustrating. Its not really the author's fault, but the book did me little use because I couldnt find the plays that I wanted (except the 3-4 week shipping at Amazon.)

Though it could be a useful book, it just gives you suggestions, not the actual monologues, so basically its a middle man. Doesn't help that much however if you're good at finding monologues, this is the book for yah.

As noted already this is not a collection of monologues but a resource on info on monologues and where to find them. As an actor I find this extremely helpful. Many books only have the specific monologue. To get a good sense of any monologue it is imperative that the actor know where the speech comes within the context of the play. This book, though suggesting monolgues, requires the actor get the whole play ... with that in hand, reading the play in its entirety should be the first step the actor takes..

NOTE: A new edition of this book is due out soon.