What’s new in the Exams anthologies?

Our new LAMDA Exams publications – Monologues and Duologues for Young Actors and Monologues and Duologues for Teenage Actors – are designed to provide options for Learners’ own-choice pieces, and to spark your curiosity beyond the LAMDA Exams set piece selections. But what can you expect to find in these new anthologies?

Structure

These two new anthologies replace our 2016 publication, Monologues for Young Actors, and break down the material into Young Actors and Teenage Actors. This time, each anthology is split into themes rather than specific grades, allowing teachers and Learners greater freedom when it comes to choosing and approaching the material. Themes in the new anthologies include ADVENTURES, ANIMALS, HOME, IDENTITY and EDUCATION in the Young Actors edition, and LOVE, LOSS, IDENTITY, SOCIETY and CHANGE in the Teenage Actors edition. 

Authors

You’ll find an exciting range of writers and voices in the new publications, with contemporary authors featured, as well as brilliant pieces written by LAMDA Examiners. Excitingly, we’ve also included work by LAMDA alumni who are now professional playwrights, such as Anna Jordan and Sophie Wu.

Range of material

These publications are more representative in terms of gender, race and disability. Many Learners who come through LAMDA Exams require reasonable adjustments, and these books provide material written specifically for SEN characters. With LAMDA Exams taken across the world, the anthologies include material that speaks to different cultures, heritages and voices.

What we hope, above all, is that the material will empower LAMDA Learners – that they will see themselves in or identify with the characters included – and hopefully be inspired not only to continue with their Exams, but by the world of performance around them.

Engaging with the curriculum

In choosing pieces for the new anthologies, the LAMDA Exams team has tried to engage with what Learners are likely to be taught in schools, with extracts from texts like The Free9 by In-Sook Chappell, Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock and Princess & The Hustler by Chinonyerem Odimba – all of which can be found on the national GCSE syllabus.

Similarly, material has been selected with an eye on engaging with the wider world from a young person’s perspective, with pieces that address climate change, the pandemic, and war.

E-Books

This is also the first time LAMDA Exams will be publishing their anthologies as e-books! You’re able to purchase and download the anthologies from the LAMDA online store to read straight from your device. 

Explore the anthologies further:

Find out more about the books    Order in paperback

These new publications contain optional pieces and can act as a starting point to discovering new writers, but they are not compulsory to use during LAMDA Exams.