“We Call it a Blessin’ ”: Audition Monologues for The Diviners

Written by Ashleigh Gardner

September 12, 2018

Auditioning for Jim Leonard, Jr.’s The Diviners soon? Take a look at these amazing monologues chosen specifically for every character.

Auditioning for Buddy Layman


Herby Alice Counts Down to Yesterday by Nicole B. Adkins
Herby Alice, early to mid-teens, isn’t the most popular kid at school, but he’s a science genius. He’s talking to aspiring reporter Rose, same age.

Get the Monologue Here

Album by David Rimmer
In David Rimmer’s Pulitzer- finalist comedy, Peggy, Trish, Billy and Boo grow up. The changes they go through are hilarious and universal. A high school. June 1967. The Quarry.  Billy has a dream and a wish.

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Auditioning for C.C. Showers


Vagabond by Ricardo Soltero-Brown
Nate, who lives alone, has brought Shelley (Michelle), a homeless girl, home with him. He’s given her a place to stay, and he is, if not in love with her already, falling in love with her quickly. As he pours his heart out to her about the kind of person he is, she listens superficially, nodding and “Mhmm”ing to appease his need for response. But here, he genuinely needs her to listen. He explains that he’s still in the process of becoming who he has yet to be, and that end result can only be achieved with the right person by his side.

Get the Monologue Here

Different Animals by Abby Rosebrock
In this scene, Pastor Will is tearing into Molly for being hypocritical. She’s right that he hasn’t lived a perfect life, but Molly has wrecked and ruined so much more than he has.

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Auditioning for Ferris Layman or Basil Bennett


Murmurs & Incantations by Dahn Hiuni
BEN has returned to Poland to perform a piece at the gallery of an old family friend Eva. During his initial visit to the gallery, the ghost of his grandfather DOVID appears to him. DOVID was a rabbi in a nearby town who perished at the hands of the Nazis. His legacy of resistance haunts and inspires Ben to be the artist that he is today. DOVID has taken Ben to see the monument that was erected in his honor. He tells Ben what life was like prior to his death.

Get the Monologue Here

Nobody Don’t Like Yogi by Tom Lysaght
Yogi Berra has returned to Yankee stadium after 15 years of estrangement from the field.  George Steinbrenner took over managing the team in 1985 after questioning Berra’ s management abilities and accusing his son (who was on the team at that time), of drug use.  Berra is finally back in the stadium to throw the first pitch of the season, and answer many questions about George and his separation at a press conference. Berra paces the manager’s office, finding comfort in being “home” again.  He gets strength from the support of his wife, Carmen, and the memories and players that are commemorated in the office and clubhouse. Since this is a one man play, and sometimes you find him talking to people who are not present, many intentions for lines and moments are dictated in the stage directions.  In this monologue, Yogi lets the audience into the deep hurt he felt when getting fired back in ‘ 64. He was honestly just a good man, and an even better manager; wanting the best for the boys on the team, treating them well and never raising his voice.

Get the Monologue Here

Auditioning for Jennie Mae Layman


Frozen Stars by David-Matthew Barnes
Miss Carlisle is a high school guidance counselor. She has accompanied Lisa, one of her students, to a medical clinic where she reveals a part of her past.

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House of Angels by Jennie S. Redling
Autumn (19) is on the verge of a manic episode right before a tea party planned for her sister Helen’s fiancé whom she secretly loves. Autumn inherited her illness from her father who killed himself, and with whom she felt a natural kinship she cannot share with her mother, Amelia, and her sister.  When Autumn comes upon them discussing Amelia’s social ambitions, Helen lies and says they were just saying how sad that their father wouldn’t be present at Helen’s wedding. Autumn’s thoughts and speech instantly take flight.

Get the monologue here.

Get the Monologue Here

Auditioning for Luella Bennett


Antillia, or the Equestrian by Ricardo Soltero-Brown
Danielle’s apartment. Danielle is trying to sell her horse, Antillia, to Sarah. Sarah has come to Danielle’s apartment to negotiate the sale of the horse, but after Sarah asks what happens to the horse if she does not buy her, Danielle begins to insinuate her own history into the conversation. This is a topic Sarah is not concerned about, and she makes it very clear that she wants to hear absolutely nothing about Danielle’s past, even after Danielle has attempted to force her own story into the conversation multiple times. Sarah has had enough. It is irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Get the Monologue Here

Wishing Aces by Rosary O’Neill
This comedy concerns the emotional problems of married adults, both with their peers and with their children. In spite of a warning, Kitten, a runaway housewife, joins her Tulane professor, Beau, on a train trip through the Louisana swamp. They manage successfully until her son, Bunky, in an effort to punish her, shows up a stowaway on the train. As Kitten and Beau try to find themselves, a hurricane rages and the sadness of their false sophistication reaches them. This is a play about second love, about parents and teens, about blatant decency in the midst of struggle. Kitten and her professor work their way through their disappointments, and the futility of their lives, as a hurricane descends. Hetty, an old woman, describes to a young boy how the hurricane will hit.

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Auditioning for Norma Henshaw or Goldie Short


Loyal Women by Gary Mitchell
The living room of their house, Belfast. Brenda’s husband and Jenny’s father,Terry, has recently been released from prison after serving sixteen years for a crime that he did not commit. During the course of the play we discover that it was Brenda who killed a Catholic woman suspected of being a member of the IRA and in order to protect Brenda (and as Brenda suggests, in order to escape family obligations), it is Terry who falsely admits to the crime and is charged with the woman’s murder. On his release from prison,Terry maintains that he wants to resume where he left off – to join his wife and child and to live at last as a family, but as soon as he is out of prison he sleeps with another woman and Brenda is unable to forgive him. Meanwhile, Brenda has been coerced into further dealings with the women of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). She has been instructed to sort out a situation between a local Protestant girl and her Catholic boyfriend. Jenny is impressed by the women members of the UDA who visit Brenda and wants to join them, but Brenda regards them as thugs and wants Jenny to have nothing to do with them. Here Brenda attempts to explain to Jenny the truth about what happened, the truth about her father and their relationship and about the dangers of getting involved with the UDA and their rough kind of justice.

Get the Monologue Here

Carl aka Karl by DT Arcieri
This is a short flashback scene from Carl/Karl’s memory. Carl/Karl marches to the beat of his own drum, much to his uptight and money-obsessed mother Edith’s dismay. In this scene, she begins by criticizing his choice of clothing, and then criticizes his lack of ambition for continuing the family business and taking interest in its success. Here she is scolding him for not following in her father and grandfather’s footsteps, like his twin brother James is doing.

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Auditioning for Darlene Henshaw


Desperate Territory by Jennie S. Redling
Preparations for a yard sale surround Georgia’s New Jersey backyard. She lifts a picnic basket which summons a memory of the first time her marriage appeared to be suffering because she and Michael chose to share her late parents’ apartment with her brother. A quarrel sends Michael out and she tries to explain to Ben how she fell in love with him.

Get the Monologue Here

Another Kind of Love by Crystal Skillman
The kitchen in the home of the Singer family. Max has just found out that her aunt, KIT, is her mother. In a rage, Max begins to storm out of the house, but Kit stops her. They talk about their experiences with Kit’s sister and Max’s adoptive mother, Tanya, and Max’s rock-star grandmother, Melanie Singer. Then, Kit tells Max about the night before she chose to come visit Max. In the middle of one of her concerts, Kit hears a man request she play one of Melanie’s songs out of tribute to her dead mother. Kit becomes upset, and throws a bottle at him. The medics come for him, and the police come for her, but the man doesn’t press charges. Then, Kit makes the decision to venture to where she is now: sitting across from her daughter while her sister lies passed out in the next room.

Get the Monologue Here

Auditioning for Melvin Wilder or Dewey Maples


The Sunken Living Room by David Caudle
Chip’s girlfriend Tammy has just apologized for breaking a very expensive ashtray and is helping Wade, Chip’s younger brother, clean up the mess. She gives him a hard time for being so well-behaved, but she still treats him with more kindness than his parents or his brother do. In this monologue, Wade tells Tammy his favorite memory of his older sister Allison before she ran away, and reveals that Tammy is the first person to show him any respect or kindness since Allison’s departure.

Get the Monologue Here

Love (Awkwardly) by John Rotondo and Maryann Carolan
George soliloquies on his lost love, Laura.  George reminisces on how much happier he was when they were together.  After their break up, Laura removed any trace of him from ever existing in her life.  He is truly broken up about it, the irony being that she broke up with him partly because he wasn’t “sensitive enough.” Now, all George can do is feel all the things he should have felt before.

Get the Monologue Here



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Ashleigh Gardner received her AA in Theatre/Drama/Dramatic Arts from Valencia College and her Bachelors Degree in English Literature and Masters Degree in Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies from the University of Central Florida. She is a playwright and an actor.