Alterman - 2 Minutes & Under, Volume 2 59 Short Character Monologues for Actors

2 Minutes and Under
VOLUME 2

2 Minutes and Under
VOLUME 2

More Original
Character Monologues
for Actors

Glenn Alterman

MONOLOGUE AUDITION SERIES

A Smith and Kraus Book

Published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.

Hanover, NH 03755

SmithandKraus.com

Copyright 2002 by Glenn Alterman

All rights reserved

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the plays represented in this book are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproductions such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Inquiries concerning all rights should be addressed to Glenn Alterman, 400 West 43rd Street, Suite #7G, New York, NY 10036.

First Edition: November 2002

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover and text design by Julia Hill Gignoux, Freedom Hill Design

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Alterman, Glenn, 1946

2 minutes and under 2: character monologues for actors/

Glenn Alterman. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-10 1-57525-324-0 / ISBN-13 978-1-57525-324-4

1. Monologues. 2. Acting. [1. Monologues. 2. Acting-Auditions.]

I. Title. II. Title: 2 minutes and under 2.

PN2080.A443 2002

812.54dc21 2002030915

THE AUTHOR

GLENN ALTERMAN is the author of The Perfect Audition Monologue, Sixty Seconds to Shine: 101 Original One-Minute Monologues, Street Talk, Uptown, Two Minutes and Under (volumes 1, 2, and 3), The Job Book: One Hundred Acting Jobs for Actors, The Job Book 2: One Hundred Day Jobs for Actors, What to Give Your Agent for Christmas, Two-Minute Monologues, Promoting Your Acting Career, Creating Your Own Monologue, and An Actors Guide: Making It in New York.

Two Minutes and Under, Street Talk, Uptown, Creating Your Own Monologue, The Job Book (1 and 2), and An Actors Guide: Making It in New York City were all Featured Selections in the Doubleday Book Club (Fireside Theater and Stage and Screen Division). Most of his published works have gone on to multiple printings.

He wrote the book for Heartstrings: The National Tour (commissioned by the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS), a thirty-five city tour that starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Ron Silver, Christopher Reeve, Susan Sarandon, Marlo Thomas, and Sandy Duncan (among others).

His plays have been performed at Primary Stages, Circle in the Square Downtown, the Turnip Festival, HERE, LaMama, the Duplex, and Playwrights Horizons, as well as at many other theaters around the country.

Altermans play The Sealing of Ceil recently won the prestigious Arts and Letters Prize in Drama. His play Nobodys Flood won the Bloomington National Playwriting Competition as well as being a finalist in the Key West Playwriting Competition. Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda won the Three Genres Playwriting Competition three consecutive times (including publication of the play in three separate editions of the Prentice-Hall college textbook). It has received several productions around the country. Spilt Milk received its premiere at the Beverly Hills Rep/Theater 40 in Los Angeles and was twice selected to participate in the Samuel French One-Act Festival; its had over twenty productions. The Danger of Strangers won Honorable Mention in both the Deep South Writers Conference Competition and the Pittsburgh New Works Festival and was a finalist in the George R. Kernodle Contest. There have been over fifteen productions of it, including Circle Rep Lab and the West Bank Downstairs Theater Bar, starring The Sopranos James Gandolfini.

His plays Like Family and The Pecking Order were optioned by Red Eye Films (with Alterman writing the screenplay). His play Solace was produced Off-Broadway by Circle East Theater Company and presently has several European productions. Solace was recently optioned for European television. Other plays include Kiss Me When Its Over (commissioned by E. Weissman Productions), starring and directed by Andre DeShields; Tourists of the Mindfield (finalist in the L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Competition at New Dramatists); and Street Talk/Uptown (based on his monologue books), produced at the West Coast Ensemble. Goin Round on Rock Solid Ground, Unfamiliar Faces, and Words Unspoken were all finalists at the Actors Theater of Louisville.

He is one of the countrys foremost monologue and audition coaches, having helped thousands of actors in their search for (and preparation of) monologues for auditions, as well as developing cold-reading skills for auditions. He recently was voted first runnerup as the best private acting coach in New York by the readers of Backstage newspaper.

Alterman has lectured and taught at such diverse places as the Edward Albee Theater Conference (Valdez, Alaska), Southampton College, Governors School for the Arts (Old Dominion University), the School for Film and Television, Western Connecticut State College, Broadway Artists Alliance, the School for Professional Actors, Star Map Acting School of Long Island, the Dramatists Guild, the Learning Annex, the Screen Actors Guild, the Seminar Center, and in the Boston public school system, as well as at many acting schools and colleges all over the country.

In 1994 he created The Glenn Alterman Studio (www.glennalterman.com) and through its auspices has worked privately as a monologue/audition coach and at colleges, universities, and acting schools all around the country.

Alterman presently lives in New York City where he coaches actors; writes plays, books, and screenplays; and acts in TV commercials and film. He can presently be seen in an American Airlines commerical opposite James Gandolfini.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Glenn Alterman wishes to thank the following people for their help in the development of these monologues: Leslie H. Raskin, Circle East Theater Company (Michael Warren Powell, Artistic Director) Emerging Artists Theater Company (Paul Adams, Artistic Director, Jonathan Reunning, literary director), Jimmy Georgiades, Scotty Bloch, Kit Flannigan, Anna Ewing Bull, Nelson Avidon, Wynne Anders, Carter Inskeep, Judy Hiller, Jim Ireland, Nell Mooney, Delphi Harrington, Robert Groder, Blanche Cholet, Rachel Lee Harris, Rebecca Hoodwin, Ed Moran, Jeff Riebe, Chris Weikel, Meg Anderson, Katie Carol, Elaine Rinehart, and of course, Eric Kraus, Marisa Smith, and the staff at Smith and Kraus Publishers.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the people of the City of New York. And to the actors who come to New York to pursue their dreams. May their dreams and the lights on Broadway never dim.

Foreword

An audition monologue is a marketing tool. Its main purpose is to help get you an acting job or an agent. But finding just the right monologue can be a very frustrating experience. Believe me, I know, Ive been there. When I was actively pursuing acting, Im sure I logged in hundreds of hours going through plays, monologue books, and movie scripts searching for that perfect piece. I wanted a monologue that had an engaging story, a beginning, middle, and end, emotions I could relate to, a character I wanted to play, and a journey I was willing to take. Finding a monologue that met all those criteria, I discovered, was a daunting experience. So, out of my frustration I decided to write my own audition monologue. I let my imagination guide me, and somehow, after much trial and error, I turned out a pretty good piece. I tried it out in acting class and received a very enthusiastic response. That first monologue led to a whole new career for me. I began writing monologues with a fervor; all types, all kinds. At first, just for myself, and later on for fellow actors. Writing audition monologues has been the main focus of my writing career for over eleven years now. I was recently dubbed The Monologue Man in a newspaper article discussing my work. After all these years I still find each new monologue to be an exciting challenge, a new adventure. And I still get a charge whenever I see an actor give a knock-out audition with one of my pieces. All in all I suppose Ive written well over four hundred audition monologues. Many of them appear in my five published books of monologues (most of them with Smith and Kraus).