AUDITION PIECES FOR MEN

2019 Commencement

If applying for more than one of the courses below, you may use the same monologue for each audition. Feel free to choose monologues from either the male or female lists.

BACHELOR OF ARTS (ACTING) COURSE, 10294NAT

DIPLOMA OF ACTING

You must prepare two pieces from the monologues provided: one Shakespearean piece; and one contemporary piece.

MUSIC THEATRE COURSES

BACHELOR, OR DIPLOMA

You must prepare any one piece from the monologues provided in addition to the two songs.

BACHELOR OF PERFORMING ARTS (PERFORMANCE

MAKING)

You must prepare one piece from the contemporary monologues provided. Some monologues may have been edited. Please prepare the version provided.

MALE CONTEMPORARY

1. LAUGHING WILD by Christopher Durang, Man. 2. BLACKROCK by Nick Enright, Ricko. 3. OUR AJAX by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Ajax. 4. GOODBYE CHARLES by Gabriel Davis, The Fact Checker. 5. LOVE ME TENDER by Tom Holloway, Chorus. 6. BROTHERS WRECK by Jada Alberts, Ruben. 7. THE SEAGULL by Anton Chekhov adapted by Simon

Stephens, Konstantin.

MALE SHAKESPEARE

1. KING HENRY IV, Act III, Scene II, Suffolk. 2. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, Act I, Scene II, Puck. 3. RICHARD III, ACT I, Scene IV, Clarence. 4. KING LEAR, ACT I, Scene II, Edmund. 5. ROMEO AND JULIET, Act III, Sc III, Romeo. 6. OTHELLO, Act I, Scene III, Iago. 7. HENRY V, Act IV, Sc III, King Henry V.

MALE CONTEMPORARY

LAUGHING WILD

by Christopher Durang

Man

I was in the supermarket the other day about to buy some tuna fish when I sensed this very disturbed presence right behind me. There was something about her focus that made it very clear to me that she was a disturbed person. So I thought – well you should never look at a crazy person directly, so I thought, I’ll just keep looking at these tuna fish cans, pretending to be engrossed in whether they’re in oil or in water, and the person will then go away. But instead wham! she brings her fist down on my head and screams ‘would you move, asshole’! Now why did she do that? She hadn’t even said, ‘would you please move’ at some initial point, so I would’ve known what her problem was. Admittedly I don’t always tell people what I want either – like the people in the movie theatres who keep talking, you know, I just give up and resent them – but on the other hand, I don’t take my fist and go wham! on their heads! I mean, analyzing it, looking at it in a positive light, this woman probably had some really horrible life story that, you know, kind of, explained how she got to this point in time, hitting me in the supermarket. And perhaps if her life – since birth – had been explained to me, I could probably have made some sense out of her action and how she got there. But even with that knowledge – which I didn’t have – it was my head she was hitting, and it’s just so unfair. It makes me want to never leave my apartment ever, ever again.

BLACKROCK

by Nick Enright

Ricko

You back me up, I’ll back you up. Then whatever happened we’re not in it. I know you didn’t kill her! I did. I fucken killed her. (A beat) Shana come on to me, then she backed off. Spider says it’s a full moon, heaps of other chicks down the beach, take anyone on. I knew which ones were up for it, mate. We both did. We checked them out together. And they were checking us out, weren’t they? You and me and every other prick. The whole fucken netball squad. So, I get out there. Wazza’s getting head from some bush-pig up against the dunny wall. One of them young babes, Leanne? I don’t know, comes running up to me, calls my name, Ricko, hey, Ricko! She grabs me, pashes me off. She’s on, no, she’s fucken not, she’s with some fucken grommet, he takes her off down the south end. I head towards the rock. I hear my name again. Ricko. Ricko. It’s Tracy Warner. I go, right, Jared was here. It’s cool. I’ll take his seconds. She’s on her hands and knees. Says will I help her. She’s lost her earring, belongs to Cherie, she has to give it back. There’s something shiny hanging off the back of her T-shirt. I grab it, I say, here it is. She can’t see it. I give it to her. I say what are going to give me? She says she’s going home, she’s hurting. I say hurting from what? Guys, she says, those guys. Take me home, Ricko. Tells me I’m a legend, says she feels okay with me. Look after me, Ricko. Take me home. Puts her arm around me. I put mine round her. I feel okay now, Ricko. She feels more than okay. I say I’ll take you home, babe, but first things first. I lay her down on the sand, but she pushes me off. Oh, she likes it rough. I give it to her rough. Then she fucken bites me. Kicks me in the nuts. My hand comes down on a rock…A rock in one hand and her earring in the other. (Silence) It was like it just happened. The cops wouldn’t buy that, but. Would they? Now if I was with you…Will you back me up, mate? You got to. You got to. Please. Please, Jazza.

OUR AJAX

by Timberlake Wertenbaker

Ajax

The executioner must always stand in the strong position. (He finds a spot, rifle ready, listening.) The last patrol. (He looks around) All quiet, too quiet and then the ambush from all sides – fuck fuck fuck the shell explodes shrapnel cordite- I hear the scream- we have to move forward under fire to the compound-comes the choice- throw in a grenade or force open the door split second decision put civilians at risk put my men at risk option 2 this time, instinct. In the room a family and the child with the wide open eyes. I never had a problem with the body parts one leg here one leg there like a film, seen it all but the eyes of the child age of my child unfathomable openness into the depth of terror and the silent question what is all this for?

Fear mirroring mine as I reflect his in this hall of recurring fears. I break down and cry maybe relief I didn’t kill him or do I already know I’ve lost 3 men? And there’s no medal for saving civilians and for how long anyway? and who are they hiding? If I’m his nightmare now how’s he gonna stop it? Except one day do the same thing for me? His eyes in flashback, always: better not to sleep. The thing is: did I really see them? Is it a film I can’t remember? A picture. In my brain, it all looks the same. And sometimes I see the first option: The grenade, as real as if it happened, the dead child, ball in his hand the film running parallel and none of it is real until you get killed. That’s gotta be real.

GOODBYE CHARLES

by Gabriel Davis

The Fact Checker

I’m not the kind of guy who spends hundreds on a last minute flight, back to New York, tears across town, then run up six flights of stairs and knocks on my best friend’s girlfriend’s door in order to run off and elope with her based on one crazy, thoughtless, inexplicable romantic night. So what am I doing here, Audrey? I’m not passionate. I’m a fact checker for Christ’s sake. And the fact of me – being here – doesn’t check out. It’s nuts! Soul mates? I don’t believe in them. Never have. So how can I be yours? The fact is, you hardly know me! And I hardly know you! Now your boyfriend, I’ve known since kindergarten. Am I really willing to throw all those years of friendship away based on…what? Some feeling? Because the fact is you are in a relationship. Because the fact is we just met yesterday. Because the fact is I’m not the kind of guy who falls in love. That’s a fact. A cold hard fact. And facts are supposed to be true. But the problem is….despite every fact I can muster, there’s something that still doesn’t check out. Because the truth is despite all facts to the contrary…I still love you madly. And it just defies all reason. All morality. All sense. But I do. I love you madly. And it’s not like me. And I don’t want to. But I can’t help it.

Love me Tender

by Tom Holloway

Chorus

I’m a cop, right? It’s my job. It’s just my job. But it means I see things. I sit there in the patrol car and I drive around the streets of this town both day and night, yeah? And I go everywhere… The good parts of town, the bad parts of town… And so I see… Well… everything. Really. Everything. You know what I mean? All kinds. All sorts. And the thing is, you see… I see us. You and me. I see us doing amazing things. Saving. Rescuing. Loving. Caring. Supporting. Sacrificing. Going without. Working hard. Being there for each other. Being pretty bloody amazing to each other. Really. Amazing. But I also see… because of my job… I also see us… I see us like… as if we were animals. As if we’re still animals. Tearing. Ripping. Killing. But worse. Worse than animals because they have a need. Some kind of need. You know? But us? But for us? And that makes me ask myself this question… if we do all… If that is what we’re really like… Good and bad and all that… How do we cope with that? How do we try to comes to terms with something like that?

BROTHERS WRECK

by Jada Alberts Ruben

I want to learn how to throw, remember? I woulda been happy to just keep chuckin the bastard till I knocked the fish out, but I knew I could learn. I wanted to do something good. I wanted us to be the best fisherman the harbour had ever seen, I wanted to live like my grandfathers lived, I wanted to know what it felt like to be proud of myself. So I bought the net. I bought the net. We drank in the driveway till four, it was about four I think, I fell asleep in the chair. I woke up ‘cause,’ cause you changed the music. I yelled at you to turn it down. I think it was four. I came inside, I felt sick. I had to sleep. I, I crashed on the couch. I was gone out of it, till you shook me. You shook me awake. “Ruben, wake up, man, come look at this’. I was heavy, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. ‘Fuck off, Joe, I’ve had enough, let me sleep’. ‘Let me sleep’, I said. Pause You let me sleep. I woke. I thought I heard mice, scampering, scratching, frantic. Then it stopped Pause I lay awake, wondering what it was. By the time I got outside it was too late. You’d stopped moving. I saw the net, the sinkers scraping, all wrapped around, your feet just touching the bottom of the pipe. It wasn’t mice, it was you. Lift him up! Lift him up! Lift him up! Too late. You’re gone. I should’ve got up. You asked me to get up. Fuck! Why didn’t I get up?! Pause No matter what, you always had time for me. No matter what, you were always there for me. I won’t ever be the same, Joe. I… Pause I sat there. I couldn’t move. I tried to tell Del, I did, when she woke up I tried to say something before she saw you, nothing came out. I was stuck, and they found you and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t move, I don’t know

what happened, I couldn’t move. I’m so sorry, I should’ve got up, I should’ve helped get you down, I was stuck. I couldn’t move! That whole time I couldn’t move. I tried I did, that whole day I prayed that I’d move, please let me fucking move!

THE SEAGULL

By Anton Chekhov adapted by Simon Stephens

Konstantin

It was such a pathetic failure. It must have been awful for you. And women, yes? They never forgive a failure do they? I burnt it. The play. Every page. Every copy. If you had the slightest idea how desperate I am. Every day you get colder and colder. It’s started to scare me. It’s like I’ve woken up and the lake has dried into the earth. You’re wrong, you know. About people not being able to understand me. That’s not the problem. The problem is that there’s nothing about me for people to understand. Everybody hated my play. Even you. I thought you were my inspiration. But you clearly find me ridiculous. I mean, clearly. I’m insignificant. To you. I mean nothing. Do you know what I am to you? I’m ordinary. He stamps his foot. I understand! I do! I really – I do understand. It’s like there is a nail hammered into the centre of my brain. And that nail, that fucking nail, like my vanity and my pride, is sucking the blood out of me. Sucking it like a snake. Boris enters. He is reading a notebook. Now here. This is a real writer. Here he comes. Shh. Watch him. He’s got his little notebook. Doesn’t he? That’s what real writers do. Like Hamlet. ‘Words words words’. He doesn’t even know you’re here but look at you. The way you look at him. Your eyes light up. Don’t worry. I won’t get in your way. He leaves.

MALE SHAKESPEARE

KING HENRY VI PART II

Act III, Scene II

Suffolk

A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them? Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan, I would invent as bitter-searching terms, As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear, Deliver’d strongly through my fixed teeth, With full as many signs of deadly hate, As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave: My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words; Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint; Mine hair be fixed on end, as one distract; Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban: And even now my burthen’d heart would break, Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink! Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste! Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees! Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks! Their softest touch as smart as lizards’ sting! Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss, And boding screech-owls make the concert full! All the foul terrors in dark seated hell.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Act I, Scene II

Puck

Thou speak’s aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there. But, room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.

RICHARD III

Act I, Scene IV

Clarence

Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark’d to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloucester; Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England, And cited up a thousand fearful times, During the wars of York and Lancaster That had befall’n us. As we paced along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard, Into the tumbling billows of the main. Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears! What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon; Wedges of god, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, As ‘twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, Which woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep.

KING LEAR

Act I, Scene II

Edmund

Enter EDMUND with a letter. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate: fine word, --legitimate! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

ROMEO AND JULIET

Act III, Sc III Romeo

‘Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven and may look on her; But Romeo may not: more validity More honourable state, more courtship lives In carrion-flies than Romeo: they may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand And steal immortal blessing from her lips, Who even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; But Romeo may not; he is banished: Flies may do this, but I from this must fly: They are free men, but I am banished. And say’st thou yet that exile is not death? Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, But ‘banished’ to kill me? ‘Banished’? O Friar, the damned use that word in hell; Howling attend it: how hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d, To mangle me with that word ‘banished’?

OTHELLO

Act I, Scene III

Iago

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. For I mine own gained knowledge should profane If I would time expend with such a snipe But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor, And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets He’s done my office. I know not if ‘t be true, But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, Will do as if for surety. He holds me well; The better shall my purpose work on him. Cassio’s a proper man. Let me see now: To get his place, and to plume up my will In double knavery. How? How? Let’s see. After some time, to abuse Othello’s ears That he is too familiar with his wife. He hath a person and a smooth dispose To be suspected – framed to make women false. The Moor is of a free and open nature That thinks men honest that but seem to be so; And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose As assess are. I have ‘t! It is engendered! Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

HENRY V

Act IV, Sc III

King Henry V

This day is called the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’ Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispins’s day.’ Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentleman in England now a-bed Shall I think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us up Saint Crispin’s day.