15 Original Audition Monologues (Free to Use)

Find the right monologue for your next audition. Every piece here is original, royalty-free, and written to showcase real acting range. Each one lists the genre, who can play it, the age range and the running length, so you can find your match fast.

How to Choose an Audition Monologue

1. Match the role, not your mood. Choose a monologue that aligns with the character you are auditioning for. If the role is a sharp-witted lawyer, do not pick a grief monologue.
2. Show range within the piece. The best monologues shift emotionally. Look for material that lets you move between at least two distinct emotional beats.
3. Stay within your age range. Play your playable age, not your aspirational one. Casting directors want to see you, not a stretch that pulls focus from your talent.
4. Avoid over-performed pieces. Casting directors hear the same monologues hundreds of times. Original material like the pieces below helps you stand out immediately.
5. Keep it under two minutes. Unless specifically asked for longer, a tight 60-90 second monologue is ideal. Respect the room's time and leave them wanting more.
6. Know who you are talking to. Every monologue is spoken to someone. Decide who that person is, where they are standing, and what you need from them before you begin.
7. Rehearse, then let it go. Over-rehearsing kills spontaneity. Know the text cold, then trust yourself to be present in the moment. The best auditions feel like conversations.
8. Have two ready at all times. Keep one dramatic and one comedic monologue polished and ready. You never know when an opportunity will come up, and preparation is professionalism.

Drama

The Last Honest Thing

Character: Jordan · Genre: Drama · Any gender · 20s · 1-2 min

Best for: emotional vulnerability, raw honesty, quiet intensity

You want to know what scares me? It is not the failing. I have failed plenty. It is the moment right before you say something true and you can feel the whole room tilt. Like the air gets thinner.

I spent three years pretending everything was fine. Three years of "I am good, how are you?" while something inside me was just... dissolving. And the worst part was not the lying. The worst part was how easy it got. How natural. I could smile at someone and mean absolutely nothing by it and they would walk away thinking we just had a real moment.

Then last Tuesday - nothing special about last Tuesday - I was standing in line at the coffee shop and the barista said "How are you doing today?" And I opened my mouth to say fine. And I could not do it. I physically could not push that word out. So I just stood there. And she looked at me. Really looked at me. And I said, "I do not know. I honestly have no idea how I am doing." And she said, "Yeah. Me neither."

That is the last honest thing that happened to me. A stranger in a coffee shop. And I have been chasing that feeling ever since - that relief of just... not performing. For once in my life, not performing.

So if you are asking me to go back? To put the mask on again? I cannot do that. I know it would be easier. I know it would make everyone more comfortable. But I would rather be terrifying and real than pleasant and hollow. I am done being hollow.

Concrete Flowers

Character: Marcus · Genre: Drama · Male · 30s · 1-2 min

Best for: grounded strength, restrained emotion, working-class authenticity

My father built things. That is what he did. Not because he loved it - because the world kept knocking things down and somebody had to put them back together.

He built our back porch three times. First time, the storm took it. Second time, the landlord said it was not up to code, tore it down himself while we were at school. Third time, Dad built it so solid you could park a truck on it. He looked at me and said, "They will have to bring a crane to take this one."

I was twelve and I thought he was talking about the porch.

He was not talking about the porch.

He was teaching me that you do not get to break once and call it a lesson. You break over and over and each time you come back with better nails. That is not optimism. That is not some motivational poster nonsense. That is math. You just keep showing up with better materials until the thing you build is stronger than whatever is trying to tear it down.

People look at where I come from and they see concrete. Just gray, flat concrete everywhere. But my father - he saw what could grow through it. He would point at a crack in the sidewalk where some little weed was pushing through and say, "Look at that. Nobody planted that. Nobody watered it. It just decided to exist."

I am trying to be that. I am trying to decide to exist so hard that the concrete has no choice but to make room.

Forty-Seven Seconds

Character: Elena · Genre: Drama · Female · 40s+ · 1-2 min

Best for: maternal strength, controlled grief, devastating stillness

The doctor said it took forty-seven seconds. That is how long it took for everything to change. Forty-seven seconds. I have spent longer choosing what to have for lunch.

And I keep doing this thing where I try to fill forty-seven seconds with something else. I will stand in the kitchen and count. One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi... all the way to forty-seven. And I will try to do something in that time. Make coffee. Check my email. Call someone. Just to prove that forty-seven seconds is nothing. That it is a blink. That it should not be allowed to hold that much weight.

But it does. Forty-seven seconds now contains my entire life. There is the life before and the life after and in between there is this gap that is exactly forty-seven seconds wide, and I cannot bridge it. I have tried.

People keep telling me I am strong. I hate that word now. Strong. As if I had a choice. As if I woke up and selected "strong" from a menu of options. There was no menu. There was just the next minute, and then the one after that, and you keep going because the alternative is to stop and if you stop you will feel all forty-seven of those seconds at once, and I am not ready for that.

I will be, maybe. Someday. But not today. Today I am just going to stand here and breathe and that is going to have to be enough.

The River

Character: Sam · Genre: Drama · Any gender · Teen · Under 1 min

Best for: youthful intensity, first heartbreak, coming-of-age vulnerability

Everyone keeps saying it gets easier. Like time is some kind of medicine and if I just wait long enough, I will wake up and not feel this anymore. But nobody tells you what to do with the waiting. Nobody gives you instructions for the middle part.

Because right now - right now I am standing in the middle of a river. That is what it feels like. The current is pulling and my feet are on the rocks and everyone on the shore is yelling advice but they are dry. They are dry and I am in the water and their advice sounds different when you are the one trying not to go under.

You were the first person who ever made me feel like I was not too much. Everyone else - my parents, my teachers, even my friends - they all have this look they get when I care about something too hard. This look like, "Why are you like this?" But you never looked at me like that. You looked at me like my too-much was just enough.

And I know it is over. I am not asking to go back. I just need someone to tell me that the version of me that existed when we were together was real. That I did not make it up. That for a little while, I was exactly right for somebody.

Because if that was real, then I can get to the other side of this river. If I was that person once, I can be that person again.

I just need to know it was real. That is all I need.

Glass Houses

Character: Diane · Genre: Drama · Female · 40s+ · 1-2 min

Best for: controlled fury, status and power, devastating precision

You think I do not know what they say about me? I built this department from nothing. I built it when nobody believed a department like this could exist in a company like this. I walked into boardrooms where I was the only woman, the only person under fifty, and the only person in the room who had actually read the data, and I smiled and I presented and I was perfect. Perfect.

And now - now that the department is successful, now that we are the highest-performing division in the company, now that my name is on the work that is paying for their golf memberships - now they want to talk about my "management style."

My management style. Let me translate that for you. I am direct. I have standards. I do not pretend that mediocre work is acceptable because it might hurt someone's feelings. And somehow, somewhere along the way, that became a problem. When David Chen runs his department the same way, they call him "exacting." They call him "a perfectionist." They profiled him in the company newsletter. I run my department the same way, and I get a meeting with HR.

So let me be very clear about something. I am not going to soften. I am not going to add more exclamation points to my emails. I am not going to start meetings by asking about people's weekends when there is work to be done. Not because I do not care - I do care, deeply, about every person on my team - but because caring about someone means holding them to a standard that makes them better.

If that makes me difficult, then I am difficult. And this difficult woman is the reason this company had its best quarter in fifteen years.

So the next time someone wants to schedule a meeting about my tone, tell them to check the numbers first. I will be in my office. The one with the view.

Comedy

The Understudy

Character: Vivian · Genre: Comedy · Female · 20s · 1-2 min

Best for: comedic timing, theatrical energy, self-aware humor

Do you know what an understudy really is? It is someone who gets paid to hope that another person gets sick. That is the job. I show up every night, I do my vocal warm-ups, I stretch, I go through the blocking in my head, and then I sit in a little room and I wait for someone to come tell me that Rachel has food poisoning.

Which, by the way, would not happen if Rachel would stop eating gas station sushi before a show, but that is between Rachel and her gastroenterologist.

I have been understudying for eleven months. Eleven months! I know every line. I know every beat. I know the lighting cues better than the lighting designer, and that man has been doing this for thirty years. I even know the sound that the trap door makes when it sticks - it is a kind of "CHHK-GNNK" - and I have a whole backup plan for it that involves a pivot and a joke about the set being haunted.

And the thing is - I would be brilliant. I am not saying that to be arrogant, I am saying it as a fact, like gravity or the speed of light. I would walk out on that stage and I would be so good that people would leave the theater and immediately call their mothers. They would weep. They would re-evaluate their life choices. One man in the third row would quit his accounting job and become a potter.

But no. Rachel has the immune system of a cockroach and the stamina of a marathon runner, and she has not missed a single show.

Until tonight. Because tonight - tonight Rachel just texted the stage manager, and I cannot read the whole thing because my hands are shaking, but the first word is "Sorry" and the second word is "sushi" and I think this is my moment.

Where is my costume?

Best Man

Character: Darnell · Genre: Comedy · Male · 30s · 1-2 min

Best for: warm charm, physical comedy potential, lovable chaos

Alright, before I give this toast, I need everyone to know that I was specifically told - by the bride, the groom, and the groom's mother - not to tell the Detroit story. So I will not be telling the Detroit story. You are welcome, Mrs. Patterson.

But I will say this. I have known Kevin since we were fourteen years old, and in that time I have watched this man do some of the most questionable things a human being can do and still get invited to Thanksgiving dinner. I have seen him try to cook a turkey in a dishwasher. I have seen him argue with a GPS. Not like, get frustrated with it - I mean a full argument. He told it "You do not know my neighborhood like I do" and then took a turn that added forty-five minutes to the trip.

And I have watched him fall in love. And I need to tell you - it was the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. Because Kevin does not do anything halfway. When Kevin decided he loved Maya, he did not just fall. He cannonballed. He showed up to her job with flowers on a Tuesday for no reason and almost got arrested because apparently you cannot just walk into a hospital with a dozen roses yelling someone's name. That is a thing I learned.

But here is what I actually want to say, underneath all of this. Kevin is the best person I know. Not the smartest - sorry, Kev - but the best. When my mom was sick, this man drove four hours every weekend and just sat with her. Did not say much. Just sat there. And when I tried to thank him he said, "That is what we do."

That is what we do.

So Maya - welcome to this. Welcome to the dishwasher turkeys and the GPS arguments and the man who will drive four hours just to sit beside you.

To Kevin and Maya.

Customer Service

Character: Priya · Genre: Comedy · Female · 20s · Under 1 min

Best for: deadpan delivery, escalating absurdity, workplace humor

Thank you for calling. My name is Priya and I will be assisting you today with a smile in my voice, which, for the record, is a thing my manager actually wrote in my training manual. "Smile with your voice, Priya." As if my vocal cords have teeth.

I have been on this call for forty-three minutes. The customer wants a refund for a product we do not sell. I have explained this nine times. Nine. I know because I have been making tally marks on a sticky note, and I am running out of sticky note.

He keeps saying "But I bought it at your store." Sir, we are a software company. We do not have a store. We exist exclusively on the internet. He says, and I quote, "Well somebody there sold me a blender."

A blender.

And I cannot hang up. I literally cannot. My calls are monitored for "quality assurance," which is corporate speak for "we are making sure you do not say what you are actually thinking." And what I am actually thinking is: sir, you have dialed the wrong number and wasted forty-three minutes of both of our lives, and in that time I could have helped eleven real customers, eaten my lunch which is getting cold, and maybe - maybe - had one moment of peace in this eight-hour shift.

But instead I say, "I completely understand your frustration. Let me see what I can do."

I cannot do anything. There is nothing to do. But I will pretend to look into it, and he will feel heard, and my manager will give me a three out of five on my performance review, and tomorrow I will come back and do it all again.

Smile with your voice, Priya.

The Renovation

Character: Jackie · Genre: Comedy · Any gender · 40s+ · 1-2 min

Best for: exasperated energy, storytelling charm, relatable frustration

We were told it would take six weeks. Six weeks. That is what the contractor said, standing in my kitchen, looking me in the eye, with the confidence of a man who has clearly said this before and will say it again. Six weeks.

It has been nine months. I have gestated an entire renovation and it is still not done. If this kitchen were a baby, it would be crawling by now. It would have teeth.

Do you know what it is like to wash dishes in a bathroom sink for nine months? Because I do. I am an expert. I could teach a class. "Bathroom Dish Hygiene 101: How to Rinse a Colander in a Space Designed for Hands."

And the contractor - Gerald - Gerald keeps saying "We are close." Close. What does close mean, Gerald? Are we close like the finish line is in sight, or are we close like the sun is close to the Earth, which is to say ninety-three million miles?

He also keeps finding "surprises." That is his word. "We found a surprise in the wall." Gerald, a surprise is a birthday party. A surprise is flowers on your doorstep. A surprise is NOT a load-bearing beam that apparently does not exist where the blueprints say it does.

My spouse has set up a hot plate in the garage and calls it "camping." We are not camping. We are refugees in our own home, eating canned soup next to a lawnmower and pretending this is an adventure.

But I will tell you what keeps me going. Gerald says we are two weeks away. And I believe him. Not because he has earned my trust - he absolutely has not - but because at this point, believing Gerald is the only thing standing between me and a very public breakdown at the hardware store. And the people at the hardware store have been through enough.

Two weeks, Gerald. Two weeks.

Classical

Before the Throne

Character: Lysander · Genre: Classical · Male · 30s · 2+ min

Best for: heightened language, commanding presence, moral conviction

You would ask me to kneel. You, who have never bled for this land, who have never felt the frost bite through your armor on the northern watch, who have never held a dying soldier and lied to his face that it would not hurt - you would ask me to kneel.

I have served this crown since I was old enough to hold a blade. Not because the crown deserved it, but because the people beneath it did. Every farmer who tills soil that is not his own. Every mother who sends her son to a war she did not choose. I served for them. Not for this throne. Not for you.

And now you sit there, draped in silk that was bought with their sweat, and you tell me that loyalty means silence? That honor means obedience? Then your definitions are as hollow as your promises.

I watched you sign the Eastern Accord. I stood in this very hall and I watched you trade three provinces for a trade route. You called it diplomacy. The people who lived there called it abandonment. And when they sent messengers begging for aid, I watched you have those messengers turned away at the gate. You did not even read their letters. I know this because I found them. Unopened. In the fire grate.

So, no. I will not kneel. Not today. Not to a crown that has forgotten what it was forged to protect.

If that makes me a traitor, then let history judge which of us betrayed whom. I will sleep well enough with my answer. I wonder if you can say the same.

The Vessel

Character: Serena · Genre: Classical · Female · 30s · 1-2 min

Best for: mythic weight, fierce femininity, transformative power

They told me the gods speak through us. That we are vessels - empty, waiting, grateful for the filling. But I have listened to the silence inside me, and it is not empty. It is full. Full of every word I swallowed. Every scream I turned into a smile. Every truth I buried because it was not my turn to speak.

My mother was a vessel. Her mother before her. An unbroken line of women pouring themselves out for something they were told was sacred. And maybe it was. Maybe there is holiness in sacrifice. But there is no holiness in erasure. And that is what they asked of us. Not sacrifice - erasure. Be less. Take up less space. Want less. Need nothing.

I watched my mother disappear into her duty like water into sand. And everyone praised her for it. "What a devoted woman," they said, as she became thinner and quieter and smaller. They called it grace. I call it a vanishing.

I will not vanish.

Let them say I am ungrateful. Let them say I am dangerous. A woman who refuses to be empty is the most dangerous thing in any kingdom, and they know it. That is why they built the temples and wrote the laws and told us our silence was a gift.

But I have opened my mouth now, and the sound that is coming out is not a prayer. It is not a hymn. It is my own voice, saying my own name, and it is shaking the walls of this place.

Let it shake. It was built on our silence. It deserves to fall.

Meridian

Character: Orin · Genre: Classical · Any gender · 20s · Under 1 min

Best for: poetic delivery, existential searching, lyrical physicality

I stood at the edge of the known world and looked out at nothing. Not darkness - nothing. The place where the mapmakers gave up and drew monsters instead of admitting they did not know.

And I thought: what a beautiful confession. To draw a monster where the knowledge ends. To say, "Here is the boundary of everything I understand, and beyond it, there be dragons." At least they were honest about the not-knowing. At least they gave it a shape.

I have been walking toward this edge my entire life. Every book I opened, every question I asked, every night I stayed awake staring at the ceiling and wondering if the universe ends or just curves back on itself - all of it was leading me here. To the edge.

And the edge is not what I expected. It is not a cliff. It is not a wall. It is more like a breath. A pause between one sentence and the next. The world does not end - it just stops being sure of itself. And I find that beautiful.

Let others build their kingdoms in the center of the map, where everything is labeled and known. I will live here. At the meridian. Where the monsters are. Where the not-knowing has teeth and wings and the honesty to show its face.

Contemporary

The Algorithm

Character: Casey · Genre: Contemporary · Non-binary · 20s · Under 1 min

Best for: sharp intelligence, dry humor, millennial/Gen-Z naturalism

I got an ad today for a coffin. A coffin. I am twenty-six years old and the algorithm decided I needed to see discount caskets at competitive prices.

And you know what the worst part is? I almost clicked on it. Not because I need a coffin - obviously - but because I wanted to know why. Why did the sum total of my online behavior lead a computer to conclude that this person needs to start thinking about their final resting place?

Is it the three AM doom-scrolling? Is it the fact that I have googled "what happens after you die" more times than any living person should? Is it because I ordered soup four times this week and the algorithm thinks I am eighty?

My therapist says I spend too much time online. My screen time report says I spent eleven hours on my phone yesterday. Eleven hours. That is almost a full shift. I am putting in overtime on being distracted from my own life.

But here is the thing nobody talks about. Logging off does not fix it. Because the world offline is the same world that made me want to log on in the first place. It is just quieter. And the quiet is where the real scary stuff lives.

So yeah. I did not buy the coffin. But I bookmarked it. Just in case the algorithm knows something I do not.

Exit Interview

Character: Thomas · Genre: Contemporary · Male · 40s+ · 2+ min

Best for: quiet authority, disillusionment, dignified exit

Twenty-two years. You have a form for that? A little checkbox that says "two decades of showing up"? Because I would like to see where that fits on your exit interview questionnaire.

You want to know why I am leaving. That is question number three, right there, right after "Were you satisfied with your compensation?" and "Did you feel valued by your team?" And the honest answer to all of these is the same: I do not know anymore. I genuinely do not know.

I used to know. I used to walk into this building and feel like I was part of something. Not something grand - I am not naive. I knew we were selling insurance. But there was a version of this place where people knew each other's names. Where someone would leave a note on your desk if you had a rough day. Where the coffee was terrible but you drank it anyway because the conversation was good.

Now I sit in a pod. Not an office, not a cubicle - a pod. Like I am being grown in a lab. And my manager is twenty-eight years old and very smart and very kind and has absolutely no idea what this place used to be, and I do not blame her for that. How could she know? She inherited the after.

The thing that finally did it - and this is the real answer to question three - is the birthday thing. We used to do birthdays. Cake in the break room, a card that everyone signed. Simple. Human. Last month it was my birthday and I got an automated email from HR that said, "Happy Birthday, Thomas! You are valued!" With an exclamation point. An algorithm valued me. With punctuation.

So, no, I am not angry. I am not burned out. I am just done pretending that an email is the same as a card and a pod is the same as a place where people actually know you.

I will sign whatever you need me to sign. And I hope - sincerely - that someone eventually asks why this keeps happening. Because I am not the first person to sit in this chair, and I will not be the last.

Opening Night

Character: Ray · Genre: Contemporary · Male · Teen · Under 1 min

Best for: nervous energy, earnest heart, adolescent sincerity

Okay, so here is the thing about stage fright that nobody prepares you for. They tell you about the sweating, the shaky hands, the forgetting your lines. They do not tell you about the moment right before you walk on, when your body tries to convince you that you are literally about to die. Like, evolutionary panic. Like a saber-toothed tiger is behind the curtain and not thirty-five parents with iPhones.

This is my first show. I know, I know - everyone has a first show. But this is mine and it is happening in approximately four minutes and I can hear the audience and they sound like a lot of people. More than I expected. I think the whole school came and that is either the best thing or the worst thing and I will not know which until I am out there.

My drama teacher said, "Use the fear." Use it. Like it is a tool. Like I can just pick up my terror and build something with it. She makes it sound so easy. She has been doing this for twenty years. I have been doing this for six weeks of rehearsal and one very bad dress rehearsal where I walked into a wall.

But I am going to go out there. Because here is what I figured out in the last four minutes: being scared means you care. And I would rather care too much and be terrified than not care and be comfortable.

So. Okay. Okay okay okay.

Is that my cue? That is my cue. That is definitely my cue.

Here we go.