27 ONE MINUTE MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN -

“27 One Minute Monologues for Women” is a useful resource for actors looking for the best comedic and dramatic short monologues for women. These monologues are sourced from movies, TV shows, plays, and works by William Shakespeare. Some of the featured monologues come from popular shows such as “Sex Education,” “Dog Eat Dog,” “Trifles,” “Westworld,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” and “Shameless.”

The 27 monologues offer a diverse range of characters and emotional depth, providing actors with the opportunity to showcase their talent and versatility.

Whether you’ve been in acting for a long time or your a newcomer eager to practice your art, this collection is sure to inspire and challenge you.

More monologue resources ⬇️

MONOLOGUE COLLECTION

COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
CLASSICAL MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	CLASSICAL MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (BOYS)	COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (GIRLS)
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (BOYS)	DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (GIRLS)
MONOLOGUES FOR SENIORS

Table of Contents

The Best 27 One Minute Monologues For Females

1. The Straw (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Eugene O’Neill

Miss Gilpin (forties – fifties)

She saw that you didn’t love her- any more than you did in the days before you left. Oh, I used to watch you then. I sensed what was going on between you.

I would have stopped it then out of pity for her, if I could have, if I didn’t know that any interference would only make matters worse. And then I thought that it might be only a surface affair- that after you were gone it would end for her.

You’ll have to forgive me for speaking to you so boldly on a delicate subject. But, don’t you see, it’s for her sake. I love Eileen. We all do. I know how Eileen feels, Mr. Murray.

Once- a long time ago- I suffered as she is suffering- from this same mistake. But I had resources to fall back upon that Eileen hasn’t got- a family who loved me and understood- friends- so I pulled through.

But it spoiled my life for a long time. So I feel that perhaps I have a right to speak for Eileen who has no one else.

Read the play here

2. Heathers (comedic)

A monologue from the screenplay/movie by Daniel Waters

Heather

You were nothing before you met me! You were playing Barbies with Betty Finn! You were a Brownie, you were a Bluebird, you were a Girl Scout Cookie! I got you into a Remington Party!

What’s my thanks? It’s on the hallway carpet. I get paid in puke! (totally in control) Monday morning, you’re history. I’ll tell everyone about tonight. Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson.

No one at Westerburg’s going to let you play their reindeer games.

Watch the movie

3. Ever Young (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Alice Gerstenberg

Mrs. Payne-Dexter (sixties)

Agnes, you have kept your health living on your estate in Long Island, but you have watched the inevitable drying up of flowers and leaves in autumn

and you have followed what seems to you the inevitable progress of autumn into winter–well, my hair may be white as snow, but my blood is still red!

The doctors are my worst enemies. They tell me I must not eat this, I must not do that. They tell me I am getting old, that I must rest.

I do not wish to rest, I simply won’t grow old. When one has been a leader, one can not let younger women usurp one’s position.

I still have it because I will have it, because I will not let it go, but I have to strive harder for it every year,

every year I must grow more imperious, more dominating, more terrorizing to hold supremacy over this new independent generation.

There is that little presumptuous May Whigham. She is eighteen and so rude I should like to spank her.

Read the play here

4. The Importance of Being Earnest (comedic)

A monologue from the play by Oscar Wilde

Miss Prism

Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know. I only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these.

On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator.

I had also with me a somewhat old, but capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours.

In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I never can forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the basinette, and placed the baby in the hand-bag.

Read the play here

5. Enigma (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Floyd Dell

She (twenties – thirties)

No—it happened to me. It didn’t happen to you. You made up your mind and walked in, with the air of a god on a holiday.

It was I who fell—headlong, dizzy, blind. I didn’t want to love you. It was a force too strong for me. It swept me into your arms.

I prayed against it. I had to give myself to you, even though I knew you hardly cared. I had to—for my heart was no longer in my own breast.

It was in your hands, to do what you liked with. You could have thrown it in the dust. It pleased you not to. You put it in your pocket.

But don’t you realize what it is to feel that another person has absolute power over you? No, for you have never felt that way.

You have never been utterly dependent on another person for happiness. I was utterly dependent on you. It humiliated me, angered me.

I rebelled against it, but it was no use. You see, my dear, I was in love with you. And you were free, and your heart was your own, and nobody could hurt you.

Read the play here|Listen to the play (Audible)

6. Alcott (comedic)

A monologue from the play by Adam Szymkowicz

Violet (thirties)

My name’s not Violet. My name has never been Violet. I always introduce myself as Elizabeth. It’s my name. It’s always been my name.

Meredith called me Shrinking Violet once during my freshman year and ever since then, everyone thinks my name is Violet.

My name is not Violet. It’s been fourteen years. Stop f***ing calling me Violet!

(PRAGUE: Relax, Honey.)

I will not relax. You know, I’ve expended so much energy over the years trying to get you to notice me. All of you.

Why do I care what you think? How is it I think about you when you aren’t there? Still. All the time. All of you? You’re not that special.

You never were. No one cares about you. No one knows who you are. You’ve built this wind tunnel around you that celebrates your cult.

It’s not a real thing. Theater isn’t even a real thing. My mother thinks I open curtains during Lion King. And you!

All the things you do are insignificant. You are selfish and you are oblivious and you are all terrible people.

Read the play here

7. To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Michael Brady

Rachel

This was my mother’s hat, kind of her lucky hat. The last time I saw her, I mean before the accident, she was wearing this hat.

She always wore this hat. This was her bike. It’s a long story. We used to come out here, first thing when she got back from the summer.

It was like our place to get reacquainted, have a mother daughter……She would tell me all about the orangutans and then she’d go develop her pictures.

I remember the last time she had given the orangutans our names. Esther was the bossy one. Paul was the one that made faces all the time.

And Rachel was very, very quiet. I had forgotten that. You know sometimes I think about her, and somehow she’s still alive.

Read the play here

8. AS YOU LIKE IT (comedic)

A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

ACT 3, SCENE 5

PHEBE (twenties)

I would not be thy executioner:
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:
‘Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call’d tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.

Read the play here – Folger|No Fear Shakespeare

9. CIGARETTES AND CHOCOLATE (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Anthony Minghella

GEMMA

When you stop speaking, it’s like stopping eating. The first day there’s something thrilling, and new, before the pain begins.

The pain where you want to give up, where you can think of nothing else. Then the second day, you feel wretched, the third delirious, and then suddenly there’s no appetite, it shrinks,

it shrinks, until the prospect of speaking, the thought of words retching from the mouth, how ugly and gross it seems.

Nothing changes. I’m on the pill, I’m off the pill, I’m on the pill, I’m off the pill. I’m listening to jazz, swing, jazz, swing, I’m getting my posters framed.

I’m telling my women’s group everything. I’m protesting. I’m protesting. I’ve covered my wall with postcards, with posters, with postcards, with posters.

No this. Out them. In these. Yes those. No this. Out them. In these. Yes those. The rows. The rows with my friends, my lovers.

What were they about? What did they change? The fact is, the facts are, nothing is changed. Nothing has been done.

There is neither rhyme nor reason, just tears, tears, people’s pain, people’s rage, their aggression. And silence.

Read the play here

10. Sex Education (comedic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv-show by Laurie Nunn

Jean (thirties – forties)

Sorry if I upset your friend. Sweetheart, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. You’re pretending to m*sturbate and I’m wondering why?

The hand cream gave it away. And only pensioners would be into p*rn mags these days. It’s a little overkill.

You know you can talk to me about anything. No judgment. Are you even m*sturbating at all?

I’ll stop analyzing everything you do when you stop creating performative situations that you clearly want me to observe.

Go to your room if that’s what you feel is best. We’ll talk when you’re ready.

11. ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by James Hagan

AMY

Written in 1930, this lovely and slightly sentimental play, is about young love in a small Midwestern town.

Amy, a romantic young girl, has a crush on the town bully and she’s describing it to her friend Virginia.

I don’t know. Maybe it was love, I don’t know, but– Well, when I was very young — of course, that’s a long time ago, you understand.

It was in school. There was this boy. I don’t know–he never looked at me and I never…Virginia, did you ever have a feeling in your heart–

Something that you feel is going to happen and it doesn’t–that’s the way my heart was–(she touches her heart)

It wasn’t love, I know that–(pause) He never even noticed me. I could have been a stick in the mud as far as he was concerned.

Virginia, this boy always seemed lonely somehow. Everybody had it in for him, even the teachers–they called him bully–but I know he wasn’t.

I saw him do a lot of good things–when the big boys picked on the smaller ones, he helped the little fellows out.

I know he had a lot of good in him– good, that nobody else could see–that’s why my heart longs for him.

Read the play here

12. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (comedic)

A monologue from the play by Tennesse Williams

Margaret/Maggie

Yes, it’s too bad because you can’t wring their necks if they’ve got no necks to wring! Isn’t that right honey?

Yep, they’re no-neck monsters, all no-neck people are monsters? (children shriek downstairs) Hear them? Hear them screaming?

I don’t know where their voice boxes are located since they don’t have necks. I tell you I got so nervous at that table tonight,

I thought I would throw back my head and utter a scream you could hear across the Arkansas border an’ parts of Louisiana an’ Tennessee.

I said to our charming sister-in-law, Mae, “honey, couldn’t you feed those precious little things at a separate table with an oilcloth cover?

They make such a mess an’ the lace cloth looks so pretty!” She made enormous eyes at me and said,

“Ohhh, nooooo! On Big Daddy’s birthday? Why, he would never forgive me!” Well, I want you to know,

Big Daddy hadn’t been at the table two minutes with those five no-neck monsters slobbering and drooling over their food before he threw down his fork an’ shouted,

“Fo’ God’s sake, Gooper, why don’t you put them pigs at a trough in th’ kitchen?”- Well, I swear, I simply could have di-ieed!

Think of it, Brick, they’ve got five of them and number six is coming.

Read the play here

13. Trifles (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Susan Glaspell

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discuss the Wright household and their lack of making an effort to reach out to Mrs. Wright.

MRS. HALE

But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I——wish I had.

I could’ve come. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful—and that’s why I ought to have come.I—I’ve never liked this place.

Maybe because it’s down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I dunno what it is, but it’s a lonesome place and always was.

I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now— Not having children makes less work—

but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?

he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters.

Just to pass the time of day with him—Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. I should think she would ‘a wanted a bird.

But what do you suppose went with it?

Read the play here

Timestamp: 23:00 – 24:42

14. The Taming Of The Shrew (comedic)

A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

Act 3, Scene 2

KATHARINA (twenties – thirties)

No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;
Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:
And, to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ‘point the day of marriage,
Make feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katharina,
And say, ‘Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her!

Read the play here – Folger|No Fear Shakespeare

15. For All Time (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Rita Wellman

Madame Le Bargy’s son, Maurice has died. Every member of the household and friends are devastated by the death. In this scene,

Nannete, a servant/nurse of the household who has always loved Maurice, meets Diana.

Nanette finds out Diane’s romantic relationship with Maurice and says that she would have found a way to break up the affair.

Diane calls her a terrible old woman.

NANETTE (thirties to forties)

Am I terrible? I had to fight my way when I was your age—because I was not pretty. I had the choice of being a free drudge or some man’s slave.

So I chose to toil alone. In order to get along alone I had to stifle every drop of humanity in my being.

I had to bind up my human instincts as they bind up the breasts of mothers who flow too bounteously with life-blood long after their babes have need of it.

I had to become sharp and bitter because sweetness and softness get crushed under in the battle to live. I learned to fight and I forgot to feel.

Then, when I was used up and hard I met Madame le Bargy and she took me into her house because I had one valuable thing left.

I had learned that it is wiser to be honest. I was there when Maurice was born.

Read the play here

16. Dog Eat Dog (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Mary Gallagher

Edith

I understand. If it comes right down to it, I’m going to save myself, and Fred. And that time is coming fast.

Fred’s creditors took everything but the bathroom fixtures. We’ve got a twelve-room house without a stick of furniture.

We live in two rooms and we sleep in sleeping bags. And winter’s coming, and there’s not a hope in hell of buying fuel! I’m scared.

But more than that, I’m mad! And by God, I am going to make it through this goddamn mess! And I can do it, too!

I wasn’t always loaded. I was broke, for years. I’m good at being broke. And I’ll save Fred, too, if he just stays out from underfoot.

But I can’t save anybody else, and I’m not fool enough to try! (Pause. Marina, discouraged, prepares to go as Fred enters with fishing gear) I am a realist!

The whole premise of this neighborhood is that we all have money, so we’ll never have to ask each other for a goddamn thing!

Now suddenly everyone needs everything, and the doors are closed! And they’ll stay that way! Just don’t break your hearts over it, that’s all!

Read the play here

17. Girlboss (comedic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv show by Kay Cannon (based on the autobiographical book by Sophia Amoruso)

Sophia (early – mid twenties)

Adulthood is where dreams go to die. Grow up, get a job, become a drone, that’s it. Then it’s over. Society just wants to put everyone in a box. Well guess what society?

There is no box. Cos I mean, if I thought the rest of my life would be spent as a mindless cog in a machine, I swear I’d just get a tattoo across my face that says: “Really man?”

Just need to figure out a way of growing up without becoming a boring adult. You probably think I’m some spoiled brat who’s never had it hard cause I didn’t have to walk a mile to school.

But here’s the thing, I tried college for a year. Total bust. Everything you wanna learn, you could just look up online.

I know how to open champagne with a sword.

18. HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER (dramatic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv-show by Peter Nowalk, Michael Russo, Abby Ajayi, and Erika Green Swafford.

After having a sexual relationship with her patient, Chad Manning, at Middleton Hospital, Jolene was accused of raping him.

She, therefore, sought out an attorney and arrived at Annalise Keating’s Law Office for her assistance.

She tells the team her story before court.

JOLENE (S1, E13)

I would turn my bedroom into an ICU, and make my little brothers pretend to be trauma victims. The idea of helping people just always made me feel better about myself.

Which is why this is so hard. I mean doctors can kill a patient and keep their jobs but for a nurse? We don’t get off so easy.

And I get it! Why people would think I did this. I’m not the prettiest girl in the room. But this will ruin me.

I’ll be forced onto some sexual predator registry. But I didn’t do what that man says, I promise you. I didn’t rape him.

Watch the show

19. The Tempest (comedic)

A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

Act 1, Scene 2

Miranda (twenties – thirties)

If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her.

Read the play here – Folger|No Fear Shakespeare

20. Westworld (dramatic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv-show by Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy

Season 1, Episode 10

Dolores: (twenties – thirties)

I’m not crying for myself. I’m crying for you. They say great beasts once roamed the world. As big as the mountains.

Yet all that’s left of them is bones in amber. Time undoes even the mightiest of creatures. Just look at what it’s done to you.

One day you will perish. You will lie with the rest of your kind in the dirt – your dreams forgotten. Your horrors effaced.

Your bones will turn to sand – and upon that sand – a new god will walk. One that will never die. Because this world doesn’t belong to you.

Or the people who came before. It belongs to someone who is yet to come…

Watch the show

21. The Crucible (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Arthur Miller

Abigail is trying to coax the man she had an affair with to stop rejecting her

ABIGAIL (seventeen)

Why, you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away.

It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman dare call me wicked any more but I knew my answer.

I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame because some old Rebecca called me loose.

And then you burned my ignorance away. As bare as some December tree I saw them all—walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts!

And God gave me strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of God.

Oh John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again! You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house, a…..Why are you cold?!

Read the play here

22. A Matter of Husbands (comedic)

A monologue from the play by Ferenc Molnar

Famous Actress (thirties – forties)

My dear, if you knew how often we actresses meet this sort of thing! It is perfectly clear that your husband has been playing a little comedy to make you jealous, to revive your interest in him.

It happens to every actress who is moderately pretty and successful. It is one of the oldest expedients in the world, and we actresses are such conspicuous targets for it!

There is scarcely a man connected with the theater who doesn’t make use of us in that way some time or another–

authors, composers, scene designers, lawyers, orchestra leaders, even the managers themselves.

To regain a wife or sweetheart’s affections all they need to do is invent a love affair with one of us. The wife is always so ready to believe it.

Usually we don’t know a thing about it. But even when it is brought to our notice we don’t mind so much.

At least we have the consolation of knowing that we are the means of making many a marriage happy which might otherwise have ended in the divorce court.

Read the play here

23. Private Lives (dramatic)

A monologue from the play by Noel Coward

Amanda Prynne

I don’t expect you to understand, and I’m not going to try to excuse myself in any way. Elyot was the first love affair of my life, and in spite of all the suffering he caused me before,

there must have been a little spark left smouldering, which burst into flame when I came face to face with him again.

I completely lost grip of myself and behaved like a fool, for which I shall pay all right, you needn’t worry about that.

But perhaps one day, when all this is dead and done with, you and I might meet and be friends. That’s something to hope for, anyhow. Good-bye Victor, dear.

Read the play here

Timestamp: 0:47 – 1:47

24. Measure For Measure (comedic)

A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

Act 2, Scene 2

Isabella (twenties)

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Read the play here

25. Shameless (dramatic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv-show by John Wells

Season 1, Episode 9

Fiona (twenties)

You don’t get to abandon your kids and then just show up one day and take your pick of the litter. This is about you.

It’s about what you didn’t do. It’s about what I did. And you know what? I did a great f***ing job! Debbie is class president, she’s on the debate team going to nationals!

Liam is top of his class, he set the curve. Ian just got promoted to ROTC and he tested out of English and Carl blew something up at the science fair.

And you know what? They did it all. No thanks to you, because you weren’t there! You were my mum too. (Beat)

You know what, you’re right. You are their mum. So I’m done. I’m done with the schools, with the bills, with the appointments.

You’re here now. I’m done. They’re all yours now, Mum. Good luck.

Watch the show

26. Where You Can’t Follow (comedic)

A monologue from the play by Adam Szymkowicz

Josette (late twenties – mid thirties)

Do you? Look, you are here how long? A week at least? After a week with me, you will want to marry me.

I need you to know now, I cannot marry you. I am a better lover than a wife. I am giving you a gift, can you understand?

The gift of my love. But it is all I can give. Now you say “okay” but later you will try to get me to marry you.

I would suggest you not try this. It would be the end of us. When a man asks me to marry him I have to say goodbye.

I am serious. Marriage is a death to me. Do you want me to die? Then when you feel yourself want to ask for marriage with me, you must think twice.

You understand? You make jokes but it is not funny. I have to beat off my suitors with a tree.

Read the play here

27. American Horror Story (dramatic)

A monologue from the screenplay/tv-show by Ryan Murphy

Season 1, Episode 8

VIVIEN

It’s my own fault. I read labels on everything and then when it really counted, I just didn’t. I just followed directions blindly.

My doctor gave me a prescription last week for a drug for nausea, and I just checked it on the internet and it says that it can cause fevers,

and seizures and, umm, vision changes. It’s the only explanation for all the crazy stuff that’s been happening.

My doctor never even told me about the side effects. My mind is playing tricks on me, Moira. I’m literally seeing things.

And everybody thinks I’m crazy. I know Ben does, I know it. and I’ve been too embarrassed to call Luke. I had no idea.

Watch the show

Conclusion

In conclusion, this serves as a comprehensive resource providing a diverse range of monologues. Whether you are looking for dramatic, comedic, or inspirational monologues, this blog has got you covered. So, look no further as everything actors need to showcase their talent is right here at your fingertips in this curated collection of one-minute monologues for women.

Check out our monologue archive below for more monologues.

COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
CLASSICAL MONOLOGUES FOR MEN	CLASSICAL MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (BOYS)	COMIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (GIRLS)
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (BOYS)	DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (GIRLS)
MONOLOGUES FOR SENIORS