Question

Why should an actor have several monologues ready at any time?

Answer 1

So if an actor is at an audition, and is asked to perform a contrasting monologue of the one they just performed, they could do so. For example, If you just performed a comedy monologue that the director liked, and they wanted to see how you portray drama, they would ask "Now can you show me a contrasting monologue?" If the actor has multiple monologues memorized, he/she could perform a contrasting one instead of saying "I only prepared this one for the audition...".

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