Showcase your acting talents with contemporary, challenging monologues written especially for women over 40
Explore the 14 monologues below – including a new short play/scene titled Taking the Plunge, for a group of four older female actors.
You’ll find more than 60 monologues on this site, with many of them written so make you explore the other posts under Monologues, especially Turning Points, which offers more than 40 monologues about key points in women’s lives.
Writing for older women is such a joy, as their range of life experiences is rich and inspiring. In this ageing Australian population, their stories are particularly relevant.
Yet, as more than 100 UK actors recently attested, women over 45 are poorly represented in the film and theatre, which means female actors have a “limited shelf-life”.
The Acting Your Age Campaign (AYAC) is seeking a parity pledge, with equal representation between male and female actors over 45.
For more about the campaign watch this: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBf_AhxI4dW/
Part of the problem, of course, is the lack of roles for women over 40.
As actor Juliet Stevenson said in The Guardian recently, “The perception of women of my age is so reductive, that they are considered invisible and less interesting. The reverse is true. The breach between your life experience and available parts gets wider. I’m on the up escalator – life is getting more and more interesting – but my parts are on the down escalator, getting less interesting. That’s frustrating.”
I hope to ease such frustration with roles that put women on the up escalator.
Three of these monologues below are from published plays – e-baby, d-baby and Uked! – The first play-along ukulele musical, while the remainder were written as stand-alone monologues or scenes.
The monologues are available for FREE on the following conditions:
*That you let me know where you are located. I keep an online map to keep track of where my work goes.
*That you let me know how you are using them and in what context. e.g. audition, reel, class, workshop etc.
*That you send any photos or feedback. This helps me to know what works and what doesn’t and to improve my work.
Please respect these conditions as I can’t continue to offer this free service unless I can keep track of my work.
Thank you for visiting my site. Since I first made my monologues and short plays free three years ago, they’ve been performed in more than 60 places around the world.
I love hearing from actors, directors and students, so don’t be shy about letting me know how my work and your performance was received! All feedback is helpful to me as a writer and I’m very grateful to you all for choosing and showcasing my work.
Comment here, or email me at jane.cafarella@gmail.com. If you like my writing and want to know more about me, check out my memoir CLEAVED.
Do you have an idea for a monologue you’d like written? Let me know!
Click on the links in the descriptions below to read each monologue:
- FOR WHEN SHE COMES – CATHERINE 45, talks secretly to her unborn child. A monologue from e-baby.
- THE RIGHT TIME – JUNE, 60, finally tells the truth to her donor-conceived daughter. A monologue from d-baby.
- THE LAST MINUTE – MARY, 40s, tells her husband why she won’t be hanging around for Christmas this year
- SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH – SUE, 60, tells a depressed neighbour why growing old is not so bad after all.
- SOMETHING DIFFERENT – LINDA, 40s, pays a life-changing visit to the hairdresser.
- THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT (from UKED!) – KARLA, 50, buys herself a special present after being dumped on her 50th birthday.
- FLOWERS – SOPHIE, 50s, tells the police officer why she was picking flowers from a public garden.
- MAKE HIM SUFFER – ANGELINA, 40, pleads with the authorities to release her husband from a WW2 Internment camp for enemy aliens in Victoria, Australia.
- ADVICE TO YOUNG LOVERS ON VALENTINE’S DAY – OLIVE, 50s-60s, a flower shop owner gives advice to a customer on Valentine’s Day.