National Theatre Connections Monologues: Speeches for Young Actors

For the first time, there is an anthology of monologues for young people available, taken from plays commissioned as part of the National Theatre Connections over the past 20 years.

Always drawing together the work of 10 leading playwrights - a mixture of established and current writers - the annual National Theatre Connections anthologies offer young performers between the ages of 13 and 19 an engaging selection of plays to perform, read or study. Each play is specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department and reflects the past year's programming at the venue in the plays' ideas, themes and styles. The plays are performed by approximately 200 schools and youth theatre companies across the UK and Ireland, in partnership with multiple professional regional theatres where the works are showcased.

This anthology of 100 monologues is the ideal resource for teenagers and young people attending auditions either in the amateur or professional theatre world; students leaving secondary school to audition for drama school; as well as teachers of English and Drama looking for suitable dramatic for their students to engage with and perform. It provides suitable scene-study books that are suitable and relevant to the student in terms of tone, style and content. Young actors who have searched for audition material written in the voice of teenage characters will welcome this resource.


About the Author
Anthony Banks is Associate Director for the National Theatre Discover Programme, where he commissions scripts for the Connections seasons, the Primary Theatre programme and Shakespeare Schools Festival, and curates a variety of projects and events for lifelong learning. He is also a professional director, and leads workshops on directing new plays and contributes to books and journals about theatre.