(sixty seconds.)

One-minute monologues for women

For the sixty-second slot: a general, a showcase, a self-tape that asks for one minute and means it. Everything here finishes inside it.

Search all of them Start rehearsing

1
Michelle from 12
Nikita Mikhalkov · film · dramatic · 0:56 min
2
Nora Helmer from A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen · play · dramatic · 1:03 min
But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to…
3
Beatrice from The Changeling
Peter Medak · film · dramatic · 1:00 min
4
Eleanor of Aquitaine from The Lion in Winter
Anthony Harvey · film · dramatic · 0:46 min
5
Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:56 min
No Shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced To give my hand opposed against my heart Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen; Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure. I…
6
Cordelia from King Lear
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:53 min
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more nor less. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I Return…
7
Mrs. Allonby from A Woman of No Importance
Oscar Wilde · play · comedic · 1:02 min
When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I…
8
Myra Arundel from Hay Fever
Noël Coward · play · comedic · 1:02 min
Well I’m not going to spare your feelings, or anyone else’s. You’re the most infuriating set of hypocrites I’ve ever seen. This house is a complete feather-bed of false…
9
Judith Bliss from Hay Fever
Noël Coward · play · comedic · 0:58 min
I’m much more dignified on the stage than in the country--it’s my milieu. I’ve tried terribly hard to be “landed gentry”, but without any real success. I long for excitement and…
10
Cleopatra from Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:56 min
Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; If idle talk will once be necessary, I'll not sleep neither: this mortal house I'll ruin, Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I…
11
Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre
Cary Joji Fukunaga · film · dramatic · 0:44 min
12
Miranda from The Tempest
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:58 min
If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the…
13
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:57 min
Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and…
14
Juliet from Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare · play · romantic · 1:03 min
Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight; It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden, Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere…
15
Nurse from Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 1:02 min
Faith, here it is. Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you. Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case…
16
Desdemona from Othello
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:50 min
That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdued Even to the very quality of my lord. I saw…
17
Desdemona from Othello
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:59 min
I prithee do so. (Exit Iago.) Something sure of state, Either from Venice, or some unhatch’d practice Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him, Hath puddled his clear spirit, and…
18
Goneril from King Lear
William Shakespeare · play · defiant · 0:54 min
Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir, I had thought,…
19
Goneril from King Lear
William Shakespeare · play · defiant · 1:03 min
This admiration, sir, is much o’ the favour Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you To understand my purposes aright: As you are old and reverend, you should be wise. Here do…
20
Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare · play · romantic · 0:56 min
Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,…
21
Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 1:05 min
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies, For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes. How came her…
22
Hermia from A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:55 min
Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse, For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse. If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the…
23
Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:56 min
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, To follow me, and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Demetrius, Who even but now did spurn me with his foot, To call me…
24
Calphurnia from Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare · play · dark · 0:55 min
Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. A…
25
Queen Margaret from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · defiant · 0:50 min
And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me. If heaven have any grievous plague in store Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, O, let them keep it till thy sins be…
26
Duchess from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 1:02 min
Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow As I had title in thy noble husband. I have bewept a worthy husband’s death, And lived by looking on his images; But now two mirrors of…
27
Queen Margaret from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:52 min
Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard killed him. From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death: That dog, that had his teeth before…
28
Duchess from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:51 min
Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror, Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish And never more behold thy face again. Therefore…
29
Queen Elizabeth from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:54 min
Cousins, indeed, and by their uncle cozened Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life. Whose hand soever lanced their tender hearts, Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction. No…
30
Queen Elizabeth from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · anguished · 0:53 min
Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers, A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave “Edward” and “York.” Then haply will she weep. Therefore present to her—as sometimes…

Length is estimated at a spoken pace of about 150 words a minute. Public-domain pieces are printed in full on their own page; copyrighted ones list the character and the source.

Not the one yet?

Describe the piece the way you would to a coach and the search reads the whole corpus, not this shelf. Free to start, no credit card.

Search the corpus Start rehearsing