In the above audio recording you will hear a cold reading of a speech written by Dwight L. Moody entitled What Think Ye of Christ? It was created in the nineteenth-century. It was the first monologue or story I performed as a member of the speech team back in middle school.
Returning to this work after so many years has given me an interesting perspective. It’s about a 16-minute-long speech, but we had to edit it to fit into the 10-minute limit. Performing this speech and others made me realize that it can be interesting to have creative control. Aside from memorizing the piece, the choice of voice inflections and props and other aspects were for the performer to decide. I feel like I had the creative freedom to showcase the speech in ways that I appreciated.
Going forward I am going to pay special attention to the creation of monologues. Dramatic writing that is compelling doesn’t always have to be a full-length script. Sometimes a speech or a one-act is enough to tell a story. I am looking forward to the opportunity of exploring the creation of monologues and speeches in the hope of developing original stories that matter.
