Even with the guidelines mentioned in previous posts, typing oneself can be a confusing task. One of my recent students, Amanda Goodyear, came up with a brilliant way to identify her type, IMDb.
She browsed the actor section and eventually she realized that she was a Mary-Louise Parker type, which I thought was right on the money in terms of look and quality of energy.
On Mary-Louise Parker’s IMDb page she, of course, found all of the movie and TV projects that Parker had done to date and this gave her a starting place to look for monologue material. All you have to do is either rent the video or purchase a movie script or teleplay on line. However, because Parker is also a stage actress, Amanda Googled Parker’s theater work and found the titles of the plays that Parker had performed in. This gave her another resource. She could review the plays to see if there were any monologues associated with the roles that Parker had played. If you’re not sure if the actor you’re researching has done theater, the best place I’ve found to look is Wikipedia.
In tracing Amanda’s steps through this process I was surprised to see that Parker had played Hedda Gabler in New York in 2009. This gave Amanda the opportunity to find a monologue from a theatre classic that would fit her type.
Amanda’s approach may seem like a long way to go to get a monologue that matched her type, but it’s really not. Just like every big time actor or agent or director or producer you have to search out the good material, the material that’s right for you.
Next... Monologues that make you better.
Labels: IMDb monologues