About the Author:
Playwright/Editor JOCELYN A. BEARD, a veteran of NYU's film school and the Yale School of Drama, has edited almost forty monologue books for Smith and Kraus. Her Screenplay, Igor and the Lunatics, was made into a feature film and subsequently listed in Heavy Metal magazine as "One of the 10 Sleaziest Movies Ever Made!" Notwithstanding, Jocelyn lives in an old haunted house in the Hudson River Valley with her husband, Kevin Kitowski, their beautiful daughter, Blythe, and lots of dogs.
Review:
The actor's presentation of a monologue is frequently all a director can depend on for an initial valuation of talent. It is therefore of paramount importance that the monologue material suit the specific qualities of the actor.
Editor Jocelyn had come up with two winners here; over 50 audition pieces in each volume, for men and women, works that have not been done and overdone to the point of oh-no-I-can t-stand-this-one-more-time!
Selections for men include the writings of Paul Zindel, Reynolds Price, Ira Levine, Larry Gelbart, Jimmy Breslin, and Eric Bogosian, strong talents all, unique selections indeed.
The volume for women offers the work of Peter Shaffer, Lisa-Marie Radano, Elizabeth Egloff, Jane Margin and Jules Feiffer, among others.
Monologues selected are brief; include dramatic as well as comedic possibilities and present character studies for roles ranging from sixteen to seventy. The material is interesting; in a wide range of literary styles and each voice selected is a unique creation, something for the actor to work from. For the serious professional to the beginning talents, these two volumes should be essential reading. Very well done. --A.R. Coast Book Review, June 1992
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.