The Big Book of Moliere Monologues: Hilarious Performance Pieces from Our Greatest Comic Playwright

A collection of over 160 of Molière's funniest monologues in new rhymed iambic pentameter versions by actor/author Timothy Mooney (author of "Acting at the Speed of Life" and "Molière than Thou"), drawn from new versions of seventeen of Molière's plays, including "Tartuffe," "The Misanthrope," "Don Juan," "The School for Wives" and "The Imaginary Invalid." The book works as introduction to the life and work of Molière, as well as providing a rare resource of new comic classical monologues for the actor preparing to audition. The text gives thorough introduction to each of the seventeen plays, with introductory plot capsules, as well as contextual information for each individual piece, making each monologue and each play easily graspable to the actor that needs to know why he or she is speaking these particular words, and to the scholar eager to find out why these plays caused such a sensation surrounding the man often dubbed as the "French Shakespeare." The book includes a distilled version of Mooney's acting text, with essential guides toward the performance of classical verse monologues, and provides stopwatch-timings of each piece, as a guide for actors who are working under specific time limits. The volume features a preface by William Luce (author of "The Belle of Amherst," and "Barrymore"), and illustrations by David C. Jensen.

From the cover:

Nail That Classical Audition!
Everyone has seen your Comic Shakespeare Monologue a million times!
MOLIÈRE TO THE RESCUE!
The Big Book of Molière Monologues brings you over 160 New Molière Monologues! Classical Monologues they haven't seen before!
You get winning insight into seventeen Molière plays, and an understanding of the funniest playwright who ever walked the boards!
With precise stylistic/acting advice from adaptor and master actor, Timothy Mooney, you can showcase your classical abilities a their very best!

Everything you need to know about Molière, and...

The Bourgeois Gentleman
The Critique of the School for Wives
The Doctor in Spite of Himself
Don Juan
The Flying Doctor
The Imaginary Invalid
The Learned Ladies
The Love Doctor
The Misanthrope
The Miser
The Precious Young Maidens
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Sganarelle or The Imaginary Cuckold
The Schemings of Scapin
The School for Husbands
The School for Wives
Tartuffe

"A masterwork... I've never seen a better compilation." (William Luce, Author, "The Belle of Amherst," "Barrymore")

"Mooney's translation may well be the star of the show... A comic theatricality that sweeps through Molière's panorama of humor-- from high to low." (Back Stage West)

"The listener can draw all the available pleasure from the splendid speeches penned by the man considered the French Shakespeare!" (Winnipeg Free Press)

"One of the most creative and refreshing pieces of classical theatre I've seen in years... Mooney's translations were crisp, stylized and sang with the comic genius of the playwright's original intent." (Chattanooga Pulse)

"The ingeniously constructed, teasing rhymes add a rich overlay of stylistic repartee... Mooney's impressive literary efforts make the ancient piece less stuffy and more theatrically alive... Molière would doubtless have enjoyed all of the contemporary guffaws that Mooney's irreverent version of this timeless comedy provokes from a modern audience." (Chicago Tribune)