Short Scenes and Monologues for Middle School Actors - Softcover

Mary Hall Surface is an internationally-acclaimed playwright, director and producer of theatre for young audiences and families. Her work has been presented at the Kennedy Center, Seattle Children's Theatre, Louisville's Stage One, Arizona's Childsplay, The Smithsonian, the California Theatre Center and at international festivals in Canada, Sweden, Japan, Scotland, Germany and France. She lives in Washington, D.C. with actor/designer Kevin Reese and their daughter, Malinda.

Grade 6-8-A welcome find for young actors in search of material for auditions. Drawn from Surface's own plays, the selections are predominantly contemporary slices of life, but there are a few pieces based on figures from history and folklore. The monologues take 1 minute or less in length; the scenes for 2-to-4 actors run 3-to-10 minutes, and those for groups, 7-to-20 minutes. The roles are geared specifically to performers ages 10 to 14, feature different ethnic backgrounds, and are gender balanced. Characters struggle with school, parents, and friends-situations with which students of this age can easily identify. Adolescent angst is very much in evidence, and characters frequently vacillate between the emotional peaks and valleys that mark relationships at this age. While this is in keeping with the middle-school personality, occasionally the changes seem somewhat exaggerated. Also, the treatment of a few themes is a bit hackneyed, such as those in the monologues of a girl who wants to find a boyfriend, and another who is embarrassed by her alcoholic mother. Still, the selections will appeal to most readers and may interest them in the original plays.
Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI
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