Hampstead Theatre’s Associate company The Mono Box has announced the launch of The Monologue Library, audio recordings of renowned artists performing their favourite theatrical speeches.
Available on themonobox.co.uk the Library features over 100 speeches by artists such as Sir Derek Jacobi, Denise Gough, Sheila Atim, Gina McKee, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Sir Simon Russell Beale. Speech Share Live monologues hosted by Hampstead Theatre will also be available on the Hampstead Theatre website. This new resource, The Monologue Library has been created during COVID-19 as a free digital content for theatre lovers and artists alike and is available from today.
The Monologue Library also features brand new recordings performed by artists in lockdown such as Vanessa Kirby, Youssef Kerkour, Marion Bailey, Paapa Essiedu, Siobhan Redmond and Gwilym Leewho were all due to perform at Hampstead Theatre this spring as part of The Mono Box’s Speech Share Live events.
The Speech Share Live is a public recording of The Mono Box’s podcast, Speech Share. Since becoming an Associate Company at Hampstead Theatre, The Mono Box has recorded a series of Speech Share Lives at the theatre. It is hosted by The Mono Box co-founders, Polly Bennett and Joan Iyiola and is an in-depth and engrossing podcast series with some of the UK’s most admired artists, discussing their experience of working within the theatre industry and a production that they have worked on. Each podcast ends with the artist performing their favourite monologue.
Talking about the news, Roxana Silbert, Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre said: “The Speech Share Live podcasts at Hampstead Theatre have been an inspiration to our audiences. We miss them. The collective experience of live performance can’t be replaced but The Mono Box has created a wonderful asset with an extraordinary ensemble of artists performing some of the world’s greatest speeches. Their combined generosity is a real audio treat for any theatre lover.”