What Is a Monologue? Definition, Types and Examples for Actors

A monologue is a long, uninterrupted speech given by one character to another character, to the audience, or to themselves. Monologues show what a character wants, fears or hides, and they often move the story forward. For actors, a monologue is also the standard audition tool: a self-contained piece you can perform alone in two minutes or less.

That second meaning is why most actors go looking for a definition. Somebody asked you for “one contemporary monologue” and you want to know exactly what they mean. Here’s the whole picture, from the dictionary definition to the types you’ll meet in plays and the four categories casting directors actually ask for.

Monologue Definition and Meaning

A monologue is a speech delivered by a single character without interruption. Dictionaries also use the word for a comedian’s solo act (“the opening monologue”) and, informally, for anyone who dominates a conversation. In theater and film, it means one character holding the floor while everyone else listens.

The word reached English in the early 1600s from French, modeled on “dialogue.” It traces back to the Greek monólogos, meaning “speaking alone.” That root is a little misleading: most monologues are spoken to someone. “Alone” refers to the speaker, not the room.

What a Monologue Does in a Play or Film

Writers don’t hand a character a page of uninterrupted text by accident. A monologue usually does one of three jobs:

• Reveals inner life. The character tells us something no one else in the story knows, sometimes something they’ve never said out loud.
• Moves the story. A confession, a decision or a piece of news changes what happens next.
• Shifts power. One character takes control of a scene by refusing to let anyone else speak.

When you choose or rehearse a monologue, find out which job it’s doing. A speech that reveals plays very differently from one that takes control, even if the words look similar on the page.

Types of Monologues

Monologues fall into five types, based on who the character is talking to. That’s the first question to answer when you pick one up.

Soliloquy

A soliloquy is a monologue a character speaks alone onstage, thinking out loud. No other character hears it. The audience is let in on private thoughts.

The most famous example is Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be, that is the question,” from Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet. William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, and the play’s soliloquies are still among the most performed speeches in the world. Read Hamlet’s Act 3, Scene 1 monologue in our database, or get the full play.

Direct Address

In direct address, the character turns and speaks to the audience, aware they’re there. Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie, and its narrator, Tom Wingfield, talks straight to the house at the start and end of the play, stepping in and out of the story. Tom’s closing speech is a strong choice for actors who are comfortable holding an audience’s eye. Get the play.

On screen, the same device is called breaking the fourth wall. Fleabag builds a whole series on it, and our Fleabag monologue shows how intimate it can feel.

Monologue to Another Character

This is the most common type in modern plays and the one you’ll perform most often in auditions. One character speaks at length to someone else in the scene, and that listener matters. They react, resist or say nothing at all.

Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman. In it, Linda Loman confronts her sons about how they treat their father, insisting that “attention must be paid.” Her monologue shows why this type works so well in the room: you play against a listener you have to imagine, and your job is to change them. Get the play.

Dramatic Monologue (Poetry)

In literature classes, “dramatic monologue” means a poem spoken by a character to a silent listener, and it reveals more about the speaker than they intend. Robert Browning wrote “My Last Duchess,” the classic example. It opens with “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,” and the Duke goes on to expose himself line by line.

Actors rarely perform poems at auditions. Still, the form teaches the same skill a good stage monologue demands: let the character say more than they mean to.

Interior Monologue

An interior monologue lets us hear a character’s unspoken thoughts. In novels, it’s written as stream of consciousness. In film, it usually arrives as voice-over. Amy Dunne’s “Cool Girl” speech in Gone Girl is a well-known example. Read it in our Gone Girl monologue page.

Interior monologues are tricky to audition with, because the original performance wasn’t spoken to anyone. If you use one, decide who you’re talking to before you start.

Monologue vs Soliloquy vs Aside vs Dialogue

These four terms get mixed up constantly. The difference comes down to who’s listening.

	Monologue	Soliloquy	Aside	Dialogue
Who speaks	One character	One character	One character	Two or more characters
Who hears it	Other characters, the audience or both	Only the audience	Only the audience	The characters in the scene
Do other characters hear it?	Usually	No, the character is alone	No, even though they’re onstage	Yes
Typical length	Several lines to a few pages	Several lines to a page or more	A line or two	Back-and-forth exchanges
Purpose	Persuade, confess, reveal, take control	Private reasoning out loud	A quick private reaction or joke	Conflict and connection between characters
Example	Linda in Death of a Salesman	Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be”	Iago’s asides in Othello	Most of any scene

Every soliloquy is a monologue, but not every monologue is a soliloquy. If anyone else onstage can hear the speech, it isn’t a soliloquy.

Audition Monologues: The Four Categories Casting Asks For

Outside the classroom, “monologue” usually means an audition piece. Casting notices, drama school applications and season auditions sort monologues along two lines: when the play was written, and its tone. Put those together and you get the four categories you’ll see in almost every notice.

Classical vs Contemporary

A classical monologue usually comes from a play written before the 19th century: Shakespeare, the Greeks, Marlowe, Molière. These speeches often use verse or heightened language, and casting uses them to hear whether you can handle the text.

A contemporary monologue comes from a modern play and uses plain, everyday speech. Casting uses it to see how naturally you live in a character close to your own type.

The years in between are a gray zone. Wilde, Ibsen and Chekhov count as classical for some schools and contemporary for others. When a notice is vague, follow its wording. If it still isn’t clear, choose something that sits firmly on one side of the line.

Comedic vs Dramatic

A comedic monologue gets its energy from what the character wants and how badly they’re going about getting it. The humor comes from playing it straight, not from playing it for laughs. A dramatic monologue (in the audition sense, not the poetry sense) puts the stakes up front: loss, anger, confession, a decision that can’t be undone.

Notices that ask for “two contrasting monologues” usually mean one of each: comic and dramatic, or classical and contemporary.

Category	Example	Source	Why it works in the room
Classical dramatic	Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5	Macbeth, William Shakespeare (get the play)	A clear decision builds across the speech, so you have strong places to shift
Classical comedic	Benedick, Act 2, Scene 3	Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare (get the play)	A man talks himself into love out loud, which is funny precisely because he means every word
Contemporary dramatic	Catherine	Proof, David Auburn (get the play)	Restrained, smart and specific; the emotion sits under the words
Contemporary comedic	Dotty Otley	Noises Off, Michael Frayn (get the play)	Farce rhythm and a character under pressure; tests your timing

How Long Should an Audition Monologue Be?

Plan for about two minutes unless the notice says otherwise. That’s the common default for professional and school auditions, and Equity Principal Auditions often ask for “a two-minute monologue.” Some calls ask for 60 or 90 seconds. Treat the time limit as a ceiling, not a target.

Time your piece out loud at performance pace, with your pauses. If it runs long, cut from the middle, not the ending. The end is usually where the character arrives somewhere, and that’s what casting needs to see.

How to Find the Right Monologue for You

The right monologue is one you could be cast in tomorrow. Start there, not with what you’d love to play in ten years.

• Match your age and type. Pick a character within a few years of your playing age and close to how you’re likely to be cast. You can stretch in class, but an audition is a sales meeting.
• Read the whole play. You can’t play what you don’t understand, and the person behind the table may know the play well.
• Watch out for the famous pieces. Speeches everyone knows invite comparison with performances everyone remembers. If you love one, do it brilliantly, but have a less familiar backup.
• Choose something with a turn. The best audition monologues change direction at least once: the character starts in one place and ends somewhere else.

Our monologue database lets you filter by age, gender, length and type, and each piece links to the full play. If you already know what you need, start with monologues for teens, Shakespeare monologues, comedic monologues for women or monologues from movies.

Once you’ve found one, keep your search organized. Create a free We Are Actors account and you’ll also get the Actor’s Week checklist every Monday: a short list to keep your audition prep, submissions and training on track.

How to Prepare and Perform a Monologue

Picking the piece is half the work. Here’s how to make it audition-ready.

1. Read the play, then summarize the moment. In one sentence, write what just happened before the speech starts. Your first line is a reaction to that, not a beginning.
2. Decide who you’re talking to and what you want from them. Name the listener, even if they aren’t onstage. Then name what you need them to do by the end: forgive you, leave, believe you, say yes.
3. Mark the turns. Find the two or three moments where the character changes tactics or realizes something new. Those shifts are what make a monologue watchable.
4. Memorize past the point of thinking about it. Run the words until you could say them while doing something else entirely. Nerves take up more of your attention in the room than you expect; plan for that.
5. Place your listener and rehearse the start and the finish. In auditions, put your imaginary partner just beside or above the casting team, not on them. Rehearse how you walk in, settle and begin, and how you finish and hold before you say “thank you.”

If you want feedback before a big audition, a private coach or a scene study class helps. Our New York acting studio directory compares studios by technique, location and class format. And if nothing published fits you, here’s how to write your own monologue. Check the notice first, though: many auditions require published material.