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Sugared & Spiced 100 Monologues for Girls: Monologues for Girls |
Author: Mary Depner
Published: 2007-05-21 |
List price: $11.95
Our price: $9.56
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As of: January 08th, 2009 01:32:26 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 A fresh, inventive collection of Monologues
These are very smart monologues. This collection offers a fresh perspective. Excellent workshop material and a great read. I love the humor. Please write more! We need more great source material.
 Too Short
I ordered this book to use for auditions that require 1-2 minute monologues and was greatly disapointed. The 100 monlogues, although funny, are not ideal for what I was looking for. I couldn't find any serious pieces throughout the entire book. Another thing, was that there didn't seem to be any variety in the style of the writing. All in all I thought it was a good product, but not at all what I needed. [Hopefully this helped someone!]
Sugared and Spiced, 100 Monologues for Girls is excellent!
The suggestion in the Foreword about creating a personal back story is sophisticated and critical. Much of acting is communicating beyond the meaning of the words. I also like the focus on young women. For starters, I think it would be difficult to get a young guy to participate in monologues with the same fervor as girls. Secondly, I feel Mary Depner, an experienced former drama teacher, reveals in her other book "100 Echo Booming Monologues for Teens" that she has a better grasp on the female perspective than for the male. In any case I draw the same conclusion here as I did in reviewing that collection: There are real situations that happen outside of the classroom and the author is giving teenagers words they perhaps would have difficulty finding on their own to express how they feel.
At first I was worried that these might lack depth, but gradually the monologues worked into more difficult subjects. "I'd Rather Be" gets kids thinking not just about their fathers' jobs but what it means to be satisfied in life. "Under Where" explores the frustration of having a brother or a sister; "Ice Cream Sunday" describes a bittersweet memory the speaker has of the time when she was living with her mom. Grandfather's funeral, being an adopted child, having a brother confined to a hospital, mother's boyfriend who drinks too much--are among the many terrific topics.
Perhaps a few punch lines are overly clever, but I have to believe that might make the pieces particularly appealing to younger readers. My favorite of that type is "My Crazy Armpits." But one of the best of the hundred is "Wedding Bells" in which a girl worries about her mom's feelings at her father's remarriage: "She's acting like she's 100 percent okay with this. Just fine and dandy. But...I have this weird feeling that she is going to freak tomorrow, when she has to drop me off at the church. The SAME church that she and my dad were married in about 20 years ago!" Just reading this my heart is breaking.
As adults we think back on our education a little differently with each different stage of our subsequent life. When looking for a job, perhaps realizing the limitations of being an English major; when raising kids, wishing we had had more psychology. My ongoing regret is that I didn't have more theatrical experience when I was younger. The ability to get up in front of a group, hold their interest, and express feelings you and your audience have, are critical no matter what our profession, no matter what our stage in life. That's my monologue.
I don't like the "Sugared & Spiced" title. It sounds cute and passive for a collection that is so self-affirming and "real life." "Bet Your Dog, It's a Monologue" might have worked, though it doesn't reference the "girl perspective." A friend of mine did a performance piece at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival called "Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat." I rather prefer something like that because choosing and presenting a monologue has to be something like selecting a new dress. Each of the choices has some attractive feature, but some of the dresses may be more than that. The monologues, like dresses, may enable others to see the presenter in whole new ways. The absolute right one, make her feel special to herself.
This a wonderful book for girls who want to be an actress!
I bought this book for my daughter to help her with her drama class. It worked wonders for both of us. The stories were short and easy for her to play out different character traits with the lines. We had a lot of fun reading it. She now picks out a monologue every night and acts it's out for the family. This book was a tremendous boost for her.
A good source of material
I teach remedial reading and I think that the monologues in this book would be a great way to model reading for my students. The dialogue provides many emotive cues and they can practice reading these with themselves for a work period etc...
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