Echo Booming Monologues: 100 Monologues for Teens

By Mary Depner

100 fresh monologues for teens running the gamut from drop-dead dramatic to seriously funny. 100 reasons for you to get the part you deserve! This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1604025298
• ISBN13: 9781604025293
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Jelliroll, Inc
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Echo Booming is excellent!

After only a few of these one hundred monologues for teens, it is very obvious this former drama teacher is in touch with her audience. And it seems to me adolescents need to start by expressing their real feelings (in and out of plays) instead of grasping for the larger issues of Love, Death and God they seem to think gain them more attention (I only found one of these here, a child talking to his or her dead mother at her gravestone). Each of these monologues has a built in drama playing up the opposites possibilities of its subject matter in a way to make and audience wonder what will happen. And each builds to a climax that would allow the actor to show off his or her strengths. Some of the monologues struck me as more poignant that others--"A Favor" in which a young person asks a friend if the speaker can sleep over at the friend's house because his or her father is acting strange; "Thanks, I Think" where a guy gets a ring from his aunt but worries that it might be designed for a girl; and "Jerk" in which the speaker finds his or her birthmother but that person doesn't want to speak to her child. These made me think 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. That seems very healthy and worthwhile in itself. Isn't it the same reason we, as adults, go to plays, read books and attend thoughtful movies? They help us express what we cannot. When the monologues dip into the vernacular they seem less genuine to me: "I came home from work and she was out of there man. No, man. Yeah, it kind of sucks, but that's cool. No note, no nothing. Yeah, dude I'm sure. Dude, I looked all over the place. You think I don't look all over the place? She's my mother, man." But there are cut-ups I knew in my high school teaching days that I can hear doing "Money" with its quirky logic and ironic conclusion. And were I the teacher of students doing these, I would certainly ask why they chose the particular ones they did. I can see many an active class discussion following their answers. I didn't really spot any clinkers. These monologues seem thoughtful, field-tested and great tools for teachers of drama, English, creative writing, and some classes in sociology that involve self-discovery. And what would happen if after reading and performing these you asked kids to write some of their own? I just bet they would include teacher/student interaction, sex, drugs and rock music--conspicuously absent in this collection (probably because administrators and parents would object). But there is plenty here and it is terrific. Plus, what a great title for the book, whatever the "Echo Boomer" term may mean about the audience's generation. This is a very worthwhile tool for students and teachers. As "Use It" says: "I know I'm only fifteen, but I'm smart enough to know that a lot of the crap you're going through right now, it's gonna c

Powerful Messages

Sensitive, powerful messages, reflecting teen Echo Boomer daily life, values, tribulations and triumphs and will to succeed.

Bull's-Eye

Echo Booming is a soul searching look into the lives of today's youth. Humorous, insightful, and for delivery straight to the heart, these monologues hit a Bull's-Eye!