She Speaks: Monologues for Women - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887548288 ISBN 13: 9780887548284

Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press, 2006

Synopsis

A collection of contemporary Canadian monologues for women, intended for auditions, study or general interest and addressing themes of Adolescence, Body, Childhood Memories, Identity, Mothers, and Passion.

“A monologue must give voice to those who have been silenced. The speaker must urgently need to speak, to proclaim, to persuade, to incite, to inspire, to agitate, to fabricate, to contaminate or whitewash, to justify; the speaker needs approval, or absolution, or acclaim, or worship, or laughter or sympathy. The monologue can only happen if the speaker has an audience. The monologue is ultimately the electric interaction between the audience and the speaker.”
—from the introduction by Judith Thompson

About this title

From the Author:

"When I wrote my first play, The Crackwalker, I gave each of the characters a monologue, framing the play—and they were all audience addresses. "Who are they talking to?" the actors would ask, in frustration. And I could only reply "the audience." I hated the idea of a phony set-up with a social worker, or a psychiatrist, or someone in the "listening" professions—to justify a long monologue; never explain, the monologue is part of a long theatrical tradition, it is direct, it is intimate. And there is no looking away from it, we must go on the journey of the monologue with the character, even if he or she is breathing fire that burns the air we breathe." (2011-10-13)

About the Author:

Judith Thompson is a two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for White Biting Dog and The Other Side of the Dark. In 2006 she was invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada and in 2008 she was awarded the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play Palace of the End. Judith is a professor of drama at the University of Guelph and lives with her husband and five children in Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0887548288
• ISBN 13: 9780887548284
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 247
• Editor: Thompson Judith