The Best

[aqua4n6]

................

[tgjdlc]

For a Girl...
Multiple Personality Murder- from brookpub.com...what a fantastic piece...it gives the performer a chance to show her talent in making as many characters as she can pull off...very wierd but heart catching piece.

for a boy...
Confessions of a Nightingale...This is a little tough to do...as you are portraying one of the greatest playwrights of all time...Tennessee Williams...a guy must be able to be witty and not to flambouyantly gay...yes you must be gay. If cut and acted out right it could be again the national champion...there are so many ways to cut it.

[Jordan F]

Male:

Home Front by James Duff

The end scene of the play, Jeremy has was forced to go to Vietnam not only by his country, but his father. When he returns, he is not the same. It's thanksgiving day and Jeremy has changed his entire family in just one day. It's the end of the play, Jeremy and his Father are fighting, and Jeremy explains how comes he is the way he is, and what he saw in Vietnam, and what he thinks of his father. All of this with a gun to his dad's head.

Female:


Two by Rob Elisha

A play about the Holocaust, this is one girls story. Very powerful.

[dmcordon9]

I like "Heart of a Dog" but I think that Terry Galloway's "Out All Night and I Lost My Shoes" is better. It's basically the same monologue, but it's a different version. I really like it. A girl I coach did it this year and took sixth at state.

[aqua4n6]

................

[phillyone]

i personally love Tell-Tale for a guy, because we have all been in his situation (in one way or another)

for a girl....tough...shakespeare for my father..yes, overdone, but still a great monologue

[Ryan]

shakespeare for my father
Boring... even in Harvard Finals. Please don't do it. If you do, atleast have a good British accent. (Not saying that the Harvard finals girl didn't, she was great, just don't know if Harvard finals great)

[Josiahzacks]

shakespeare for my father
Boring... even in Harvard Finals. Please don't do it. If you do, atleast have a good British accent. (Not saying that the Harvard finals girl didn't, she was great, just don't know if Harvard finals great)

Agree entirely. Many of us who competed against her all year (in Mass.) are not big fans. It's just so canned and cheesy and blah. But I beat her at states, so it's all good.

[MRdbtr]

Hmmm....Just picking two pieces is rough. But here's my best go at it:

For a male:
"Blues for Mr. Charlie": One of my close friends did this piece last year, and it was simply incredible. It tells the story of a Southern preacher, who is black, and lives in a completely racially segregated town (His half is actually called 'Blacktown'). His son is murdered by a white man, who is not brought to trial, and the preacher fights with his conceptions with God and eventually denounces his entire faith. Immensely powerful. You must have a deep, earthy voice and a **** strong stage presence to pull this one off.

For a female:
"Gushi": Another one I was blown away by. This is the story of a woman who returns to her home, where her mother and mentally-retarded brother live, and the story between the three is amazing. Wow, when Steph Garrett (last person out of sems at nats this past year, 15th place) did this piece, she almost didn't recieve anything but a 1 until nats. 9 tournaments (only other one was state quals, go figure), state, nat quals...straight 1s all the way through. Incredible.

Adam

[phillyone]

shakespeare for my father
Boring... even in Harvard Finals. Please don't do it. If you do, atleast have a good British accent. (Not saying that the Harvard finals girl didn't, she was great, just don't know if Harvard finals great)

whoa whoa let us not judge my ignorance...i didnt really read this board..i figured we we're naming DIs we liked in general....i saw no shakespeare for my father this year whatsoever, i did not see all of harvard finals...the one i saw was finals at nfls 1 or 2 years ago...i thought she was really good...so i think the monologue is good, although she may be bad

i also think confessions of a nightingale was a really good monologue

[xxLusciousZechxx]

For the fellas:

QED by Peter Parnell and Tell Tale by Jeffrey Hatcher...

A guy from my school, Audie Morris, performed Tell Tale and got third at Nats in '99... Wonderful stuff... Another guy from my school, Ardie Hodges, performed QED last year, but never really got much credit for it... I think it was awesome.

For the schladies:

Blue by Michel Magee and other things non-Holocaust.

I love Blue, blow me if you don't... Down with female Holocaust DIs... Not to be sexist... I just see too many girls do Holocaust pieces...

[phillyone]

oh, audie went to your school....its funny, i used to watch that di tape all year last year, and when my coach suggested it this year i jumped on it because i loved the monologue, so i cut it my own way...and it took me two weeks to get rid of everything i saw audie do because it had been impressed upon me...it was funny, for two weeks no matter how hard i tried i would have all of these audieisms...

[xxLusciousZechxx]

I hope you didn't do the high-pitched laugh like him...

That got old.

But other than that.

Daaaaamn.

[JoeleDaCuban]

For a girl, I'd have to say "Bend" by Mark Frank. It is an amazing piece that was done by Ines del Toro this year. It is about this girl who is driving to New York to blow up a building. On the way there, she picks up some hitchhikers. When the gets pulled over by a cop.... she starts to realize that she is crazy, and then everyone in the story is made up; she made them up. It is absolutely, by far my favorite for a girl.

Now... for a guy... I really had to think about this one. But I came up with "Inside Al".... it's about this guy who has Cerebral Paulsy. In the stage play, there are two people, and they represent one person. One is very normal, and the other is the one with cerebral paulsy. It's a very interesting piece if you haven't seen it before.

The other guy DI that I think is awesome is "So I killed a few People"... the name of the piece just speaks for itself. Won Florida states last year. Awesome. One.

[aqua4n6]

................

[DCdisco]

shakespeare for my father
Boring... even in Harvard Finals. Please don't do it. If you do, atleast have a good British accent. (Not saying that the Harvard finals girl didn't, she was great, just don't know if Harvard finals great)


I was NOT impressed with Harvard Finals girl. AT ALL. Though I am biased, because I used the same piece this year, even at Harvard....

BUT.....it was her cutting......it just........well.......it was awful. Made Lynn Redgrave out to be a cheesy nostalgic, reminiscent middle aged woman. But she was SOOOOOOOOOOO far off....Plus, that entire play has SO MANY GOOD THINGS HAPPENING!!! She used some of the worst parts to use. I am nearly offended that she made it to finals. She was the only one there that didn't deserve to be there. Not by a long shot. There is a reason she got last in finals. :evil:

*steps off soapbox*

[inyrfacemckelvey]

I honestly think that Here Lies Henry is the best ever...possibly because having read it 200 plus times I think that it is absolutley the best play/work of literature ever.

Yes I perform it so I may be biased (I am by no way implying that my performance of it is one of the best...nor that I do a better performance of this peice than anyone else, but simply that because I perform it...I am aware of , everything (i like to think) of what goes on in the play)

It is a hard peice to perform...like if you are not totally on it just doesnt feel right...like at harvard some of my break rounds felt so good...utnil semis when I just didnt feel like I had it in me.

Regardless...it is my fav peice ever...I think because I understand the character more than I have ever understood one before.

Other DI's...Sammi Kriegstein's performance of Carepackages this year is undoubtedly the best performance I've seen. I hit her in double octs, was blown away, and immediatly knew she would win.

But there are so many different elements that people can be good at.

Julie Brown has the best speaking voice I have ever heard.
Lauren Erlich's character differentiation..without being trite is phenomenal.
K Bahlke's cutting of Wit is fantastic

The fact that the rest of the elemtns in these competitor's performances are phenomenal to doesn't hurt.

JMHO

[karma]

guys- I Might be Edgar Allen Poe. the only really intelligent insanity DI i've read. patient thinks he's the reincarnation of edgar allen poe. flashback sequences reveal the reason for his insanity (failed attempt to save a baby from a fire). i think what sets this apart from other insanity pieces is the fact that we really feel sorry for the guy wheras most insanity monologues stop at being simply creepy. i think this is the kind of piece that puts mediocre interpers ahead of really good ones cos the material carries itself so well that you could basically deadpan it and still do well.

gals-13 things about ed carpoloti. the sweetest monologue EVER. simple story about a simple woman in debt after her husband dies. BEAUTIFULLY written.

[Cinderella]

McKelvey - I TOTALLY have to agree with you, Here Lies Henry IS the best piece EVER. Just because I can't perform it (well, theoretically I COULD but that would probably be a bit akward) doesnt mean it cant be my favorite as well.

[lilmcd86]

guys- I Might be Edgar Allen Poe. the only really intelligent insanity DI i've read. patient thinks he's the reincarnation of edgar allen poe. flashback sequences reveal the reason for his insanity (failed attempt to save a baby from a fire). i think what sets this apart from other insanity pieces is the fact that we really feel sorry for the guy wheras most insanity monologues stop at being simply creepy. i think this is the kind of piece that puts mediocre interpers ahead of really good ones cos the material carries itself so well that you could basically deadpan it and still do well.

i'm doing ed poe....thanks for adding on the pressure... :P

[FunkyChicken]

BUT.....it was her cutting......it just........well.......it was awful. Made Lynn Redgrave out to be a cheesy nostalgic, reminiscent middle aged woman.


She has a habit of doing cheesy pieces. Last year as a novice she did Disturbed...and may I say that I am very happy I beat her at States. :-P

[Josiahzacks]

ewww... she's just......ewwww. So glad I beat her at states. If I hadn't, I would have lost any claim of interp skill I posess.

[DCdisco]

she looked like a novice! what the %&*^ was she doing in HARVARD finals?????????????

Not only did her cutting SUCK (she took the worst cutting out of that beautiful pseudo-monologue) but she also didn't even ATTAMPT to portray LYNN.

I guess I am uber-biased, since i did that piece too. But at least I studied Lynn Redgrave, became her, and went to states with it.........i TRIED. she didn't. she made a mockery out of a wonderful piece.

I was LIVID watching her in Finals at Harvard... :evil:

OH! and congrats to any and all of you that creamed her this season :lol: And my deepest sympathies to those of you that were ousted by her.....