Selections from 43 plays staged in 2004 feature monologues designed to help male actors enhance their audition and performance skills.

This latest in Smith and Kraus¿s popular series contains only material from published, readily available plays, all first published or produced in 2005¿2006, and most appropriate for use by student actors and working actors in need of audition material.A partial list:After Math Jonathan DorfBoy Julia JordanBug Tracey LettsMonkey Soup Don NigroOrson¿s Shadow Austin PendletonThe Scene Theresa RebeckTouch Toni Press-CoffmanSix Years Sharr WhiteExits and Entrances Athol FugardMoonlight and Magnolias Ron HutchinsonD. L. LEPIDUS is a freelance critic and editor who has covered the New York theater scene for more than twenty-five years. Since 1993, his work has appeared in theater columns for Chelsea Clinton News and the Westsider.

This latest in Smith and Kraus's popular series contains only material from published, readily available plays, all first published or produced in 2006/2007, and most appropriate for use by student actors and working actors in need of audition material. A partial list:BEL CANTO by Renee Flemings BFF by Anna Ziegler BLOOD ORANGE by David Wiener CAROL MULRONEY by Stephen Belber DARK PLAY; OR STORIES FOR BOYS by Carlos Murillo THE DARLINGS by Susan Eve Haar DEDICATION; OR by THE STUFF OF DREAMS by Terrence McNally DIRECT FROM DEATH ROW THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS by Mark Stein DISCONNECT by Rob Ackerman DRACULA RIDES AGAIN by Jeff Goode THE FIRST ANNUAL ACHADAMEE AWARDS by Alan Haehnel HOME FRONT by Greg Owens. Also gender-specific are The Best Men¿s Stage Monologues of 2007, and The Best Women¿s Stage Monologues of 2007, both edited by Lawrence Harbison. Some of the playwrights represented are familiar (Theresa Rebeck, A.R. Gurney, Terrence McNally), but much of the material is from new and emerging authors ¿ once again giving the performer access to well crafted, but not overexposed works. Stage Directions - Off The Shelf, May 2008

Contains forty-three monologues for men, selected from some of the best plays published or produced during the 2004-2005 theatrical season, most for characters under the age of forty.