Short Comedic Monologue Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths: I was more confident than I have been the past few times I’ve performed, mainly because I’ve had more practice. The performance as a whole felt pretty natural, and using gestures didn’t seem as forced as it had before. I also thought that, besides the pacing, the blocking worked pretty well, and I “stuck the landing”, which I hadn’t done in previous performances.

Weaknesses: Something I noticed while watching the video was that my voice sounds a lot flatter than it does in my head. I could definitely work on adding more emotion to it and making it a little more varied than it is. I also saw that my pacing was a little weird somehow and it could be a lot more purposeful. Sitting down in the chair seemed a little too staged, mainly because I wasn’t completely sure where it was, but it wasn't a big problem and shouldn’t be too hard to solve.

Short Comedic Monologue

This is what I chose as my short comedic monologue:

Kim is so fed up with men approaching her with their one liners. In this comedy monologue, she talks to one of her good friends about the annoying men she randomly tolerates.

KIM: I don’t know what it is with me lately but I just get so UGH! when guys come up to me, with their cheesy lines, (imitating guy) “Hey, you have such a beautiful smile” or “Can I just tell you that you are so beautiful”.  Ugh!  It disgusts me.  I mean, who the hell does this guy or that guy think he is to give me such compliments?  What gives him the right?  I don’t do anything to give off any kind of interest whatsoever, I completely look the other way when I see eye contact happening and they STILL come over thinking they’re so suave and it’s simply repulsive.  You know what I’m saying??

What does a girl have to do these days?  Maybe if I just vomited on myself the guy would walk the other way but I bet even then, I’d get, “The way you vomit on yourself is just so, so delightful.”

…All I want is to be left alone.  I have a man, I love my man and I do my best to be polite but the irritation and the cheesy lines are getting to be too much.  Guys are blind, they really are, OBLIVIOUS to when a girl is not interested.  There are days when I’d rather be a man.

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1. Who is your character? 

Kim is a woman who is probably in her early twenties. She’s probably very pretty because men keep approaching her to compliment her, and she is very annoyed by it. She tries to tolerate it but eventually starts ranting to her friend, which is what happens during the monologue. 

2. What is the situation? Setting?

Kim is ranting to her friend, probably at her house or over a cup of coffee, and she begins to get more and more upset.

3. Why is your character delivering this monologue? What emotions are being expressed?

She wants to get it off her chest and rant to her friend (who probably does not care that much) and she goes from annoyed and gets gradually more agitated, eventually reverting to sarcasm and then ends a littl;e calmer but still annoyed. Even though she’s unhappy she still ends up bragging about herself a little, how she’s so pretty that men won’t stop noticing her.

4. What do you think happens right before and right after the monologue?

Kim had probably just been approached by some one who was going to compliment her while she was with her friend, and after he’s gone (or maybe he’s still there and can here her) she completely goes off, ranting about how this always happens. Afterwards she probably calms down a little and she and her friend start talking about something else.

5. What props or set pieces or costumes will you use?

Kim probably doesn’t wear anything too different from what other women wear, so whatever I’m wearing will probably fir her character. She does probably like to dress nicely, because again, she’s pretty and everyone notices her. There aren’t many props necessary, and it could be performed with or without the friend onstage. 

About Me

Hi! My name is Elena Parkerson, and I live in Cheshire, Connecticut. I am a Freshman and a day student. For the past three years I have run cross country for my school and I’ve also played two seasons of Ultimate Frisbee. I’ve been in probably every school play that has been offered to me, including the drama club plays we put on in middle school. My favorite shows are Hamilton, In the Heights, Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Come From Away, Les Mis, and Newsies (among others), and I just recently saw Waitress on Broadway.

One thing that you should know about me is that for six and a half year I lived overseas. When I was four my family moved to La Paz, Bolivia, and we lived there until I was almost eight. Then we moved to Kampala, Uganda, where we lived for two and a half years until we finally moved back to the U.S. where we have been living for about five years now. Living abroad has given me a much wider perception of the world, and I’ve loved experiencing things that most other American kids have not, like having monkeys run across the roof of my school like squirrels would here. Living in Bolivia means that I used to be completely fluent in Spanish, but as soon as we moved away I forgot most of it and am now relearning it. For the longest time soccer was “football”, counterclockwise was “anticlockwise” (it still is), and the date was written with the day before the month. Unfortunately I am now quite American (boring!) but really glad to have experienced other parts of the world for so long.

Another thing about me is that I love reading. Some of my favorite books and series are The Golden Compass, Harry Potter, Ms. Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Children, Shadowhunters, Watership Down, and The Book Thief, and I am currently reading The Hate U Give. The most tedious thing I have read is probably Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton (because I was a devoted Hamilfan!) which was 730 pages long and way too interested in describing the Federalist Papers, but since I have read it I understand the show a lot more than I would have had I not, even finding some quotes that were put directly into songs. I have also tried to convince my seven year old sister that she really loves reading too, so she thinks that she loves reading but really she doesn’t care that much.

The last thing about me is that for as long as I can remember my family has loved to go camping. The last two summers we camped on a tiny island in Lake Saranac in New York. We had to canoe all of our supplies over to our campsite, and we spent our time canoeing (and swimming!) between islands, going cliff jumping, and playing Werewolf. A couple of years ago we went on a backpacking trip in the White Mountains. We carried all of our food, clothes, and tents with us. We hiked up and stood at the peak of four different mountains during the trip. Because of adventures like these I have learned to love  nature.

                                         
I joined this class because I have always loved theatre, but it doesn’t really come naturally to me. I want to work on getting comfortable acting in front of people and feeling less self conscious, and hopefully working towards getting a larger role in future musicals.

Turtle