REMEMBER THAT TIME HANK GREEN RETWEETED STICK

HOLY SHIT

c-uil lilted: Hey man, my name is Hannah :) I am doing HSC drama this year and are coming up blank for ideas for my I.P. I actually stumbled across this blog okay I am not a stalker! Anyways, I have been looking at 'Stick' that you performed for ATYP but I was just curious as to what you did for your HSC/ what are some other good ideas? Thanks, I hope you had a lovely EAster :)

Hi Hannah! Welcome to the horrible process that is finding a HSC monologue. I remember it well, and I do not miss it.

Stick was written as part of program run by atyp’s Fresh Ink (which is the playwriting arm of the company) called The Voices Project. The purpose of the project is to produce new work by young Australian writers that meet the requirements of the HSC IP performance. So basically for the last three years, atyp has put on a show that contains around 10 monologues, for boys and girls, on different themes. The first year was called Tell It Like It Isn’t, about first love; second year was The One Sure Thing, about first death (which Stick is from), and this year was called Out of Place, about belonging (gross english I know)

I did my HSC in 2011, which was the first year of the Voices Project, and I used a monologue called Boot from Tell it Like It Isn’t, written by Joanna Erskine. It’s about a girl who was in a car accident, her best friend was driving drunk and three boys who were riding in the boot of the car were killed. It’s about the breakdown of their relationship, and is an amazing piece of writing, also based on a true story. There’s a video of a girl called Laura Hopkinson (who performed it in the stage show too) here. They made a short film version too, which you can find on that YouTube channel, but they changed the script a bit so that’s more accurate.

In 2012, they published all the monologues from the previous two years (including Stick and Boot), so I’d definitely check your library to see if it’s there. It’s called The Voices Project - here’s the Currency Press link. I think they’ve also published this year’s monologues in a separate volume.

In terms of what good ideas are for your monologue, it’s all about what kind of actor you are. Boot was really good for me because I felt really false trying to act as a Lady Macbeth or Blanche DuBois. Drama teachers will tend to try and get you to act as far away from yourself as possible, because they think that gets the marks, and that’s usually because the writing that’s out there for teenage characters are terrible. That’s why the Voices Project is great. I connected with it straight away because it could have much more easily have happened to me than what happened to Lady Macbeth. My drama teacher didn’t like it at first, and thought I couldn’t get the marks with it, but I hated him and he was hopeless and I got nominated for OnStage so he was obviously an idiot.

It’s not for everyone though. Monologues that are 8 minutes long are generally pretty hard to find, so if you go for one from a play, you need to splice bits of dialogue together, so take a dialogue and remove one character’s lines and react to them on stage and junk. As a general rule I wouldn’t recommend writing your own piece. I don’t think it’s worth all the extra work. A friend of mine did a monologue by Alan Bennett, from a series of monologues called Talking Heads, which was really long but she cut it down and it had a lot of substance. She did the one called Her Big Chance.

Another girl in my class did Joan from Joan of Arc.

I hope this massive essay helps! At the end of the day, it’s what you think is interesting and that you’d be good at (don’t take your teacher’s word as holy law!!). Please let me know if you have any more questions! Good luck :) xxx

Today we shot STICK! It was sweltering because none of the windows in the 20th century church opened urgh

but it was so much fun and I’m super excited about seeing the finished product next year!

“That was half a fucking Tim Tam!”

First Love by James Hartley

Remember how I was an extra in that short film that one time

The Voices Project: TO BE

Ten actors, one city, and the most famous monologue of them all.

Directed by the acclaimed Damien Power, TO BE launches a new brand of Australian theatre and film-making.

(My dad showed this to his colleagues at work and they said I had actors eyes. I’m not sure what that means, but Dad took credit for it because I have his eyes. Of course.)

Welcome to THE VOICES PROJECT

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