Soundzine, an online literary journal of sound and spoken-word, is seeking male and female readers to join our in-house, merry troupe of staff readers. Responsibilities would include recording/interpreting poetry, prose, and/or voice-acting in play productions.

To audition, please choose and record one (or two) of the following selections, then either email the recording(s) as an attachment to auditions@soundzine.org, or send a link to the recording to the same email address (or note it to ~Soundzine)

Don't be shy. It's loads of fun, and we don't pay, so what have you got to lose?



Male Monologues

LOTH: My father was a boilermaster. We lived hard by the factory and our windows gave on the factory yard. I saw a good many things there. There was a workingman, for instance, who had worked in the factory for five years. He began to have a violent cough and to lose flesh . . . I recall how my father told us about the man at table. His name was Burmeister and he was threatened with pulmonary consumption if he worked much longer in the soap factory. The doctor had told him so. But the man had eight children and, weak and emaciated as he was, he couldn't find other work anywhere. And so he had to stay in the soap factory and his employer was quite self-righteous because he kept him. He seemed to himself an extraordinarily humane person.--- One August afternoon -- the heat was frightful -- Burmeister dragged himself across the yard with a wheelbarrow full of lime. I was just looking out of the window when I noticed him stop, stop again, and finally pitch over headlong on the cobblestones. I ran up to him -- my father came, other workingmen came up, but he could barely gasp and his mouth was filled with blood. I helped carry him into the house. He was a mass of limy rags, reeking with all kinds of chemicals. Before we had gotten him into the house, he was dead.--- Scarcely a week later we pulled his wife out of the river into which the waste lye of our factory was drained. And, when one knows things of that kind as I know them now -- believe me -- one can find no rest. A simple little piece of soap, which makes no one else in the world think of any harm, even a pair of clean, well-cared for hands are enough to embitter one thoroughly.

From the play Before Dawn, by Gerhart Hauptmann

_______________________________


OLDBUTTON: Why, sir, I'll give you my opinion. Of all failings, that of an idle curiosity is the most abject and contemptible: it is generally found in those whose utter littleness of mind prevents their engaging in any useful or honourable pursuit, and who, thus incapable of action themselves, seek to be distinguished by meddling in the affairs of others. A curious man is, in my opinion, a species of thief. Men are so branded who enter our abodes and abstract our property; and is not the individual who violates every law of decency and social life, and seeks to clandestinely possess himself to the secrets of another, only a robber in a different degree? Such I man I think you, Mr. Pry, and I should feel as little compunction in throwing you over the bannisters were I to catch you in my dwelling-place, as I should a swindler or a house-breaker.

From the play Mr. Paul Pry, by Douglas William Jerrold

__________________________________

DOOLITTLE: Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: 'You're undeserving; so you can't have it.' But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth. Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he's brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she's growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

From the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

__________________________________



Female Monologues

MARTHA: In the beginning, I am mean and greedy and selfish. This is symbolized by three things, A: There is a half-finished sculpture of an angel in my garage. B: There is a hungry little boy that sleeps on my doorstep every night that I call the police on. And C: I have a dying father that I haven't talked to in years. Then one day I see the error of my ways. I don't know how, I don't know. But I see it. Then: [Pause, a little smile.] The song comes on. And in the three minute duration of this song. I make all of the changes I need to in my life. They are symbolized by A: I finish the angel sculpture in my garage, and incidentally it is a masterpiece. B: I feed the little hungry boy on my porch, I bring him in the home and incidentally he becomes a senator and loves me. And finally C: I call my Father and tears stream from our eyes as we tell each other we love one another, and incidentally moments later he dies. But I tell him in time. And then moments later all is right in the world and this is symbolized by an ambient, light that my soul generates. [She is choked up.] Excuse me. Excuse me. It's just so dramatic. I do all that in the duration of a three minute song. It frustrates me so that I can't change like that. It is amazing how the people whose stories are told by movies, during the duration of one song, can switch their whole life around. I want a dramatic life like that.

From the play Charge, by Eric Kaiser

_____________________________________


JOY: [Looking up into the sky.] Hello? Mother Moon? It's me. Joy. Can you hear me?

[Pause.]

Hello?

[Pause.]

I know you're up there. I can see you, but ... you're so far away. Why are you so far away?

[Pause.]

I just want to talk for a few minutes. Like we used to. Do you remember how we used to talk? It was such fun! What ... what was it we used to talk about? I've forgotten. Beautiful things, I ... I know that, but ... I can't ... I can't quite ...

[Pause.]

I don't even remember how I got here. Isn't that strange? I know I came from someplace warm. Warm and dark. And water. There was water. I remember floating in the night sky ... or ... or deep in the ocean. And I remember voices. Big soft angel voices. They told me things. Secrets. They sang to me. Beautiful songs! About ...

[Pause.]

I ... I can't remember what they were about anymore. I try, but ... they're gone. Won't you tell me, Mother Moon? Won't you whisper in my ear just one more time? Please?

[Pause.]

Why won't you answer me?

[Pause.]

What have I done wrong?

From the play Fading Joy, by Walter Wykes

________________________________


CAT: Hear that song? I love this song. It’s one of those songs you always hear, but you never know who plays it. I’ll probably never know. I don’t want to know now. It would probably ruin the feeling. Whenever I hear this song I always feel there should be credits rolling you know? Like it’s the end of something. The end of a movie. It just brings up so much… that guitar. It’s concluding something. It’s talking. The credits are rolling over the lead actor’s dead body facedown in a gutter. The camera pans back. The rain is pouring down. And all that guitar can say is “Oh well.” “That’s Life.” “Whatever.” Every time I hear this song from now on I will remember this day and what happened and what I did. And I will remember this moment in time, right now, this exact place, the smell, everything… and the scene will freeze and the credits will roll. I never want to know who plays this song. It would ruin everything.

From the play Ohio, by Nick Zagone.