About the Author

Glenn Alterman is a multi-award-winning playwright, the author of twenty-five theater-related books (including eight books of original monologues), a screenwriter, an actor, and a highly respected monologue/audition acting coach.

His books include An Actor’s Guide—Making It in New York (and a completely revised second edition), The Perfect Audition Monologue, Two Minutes and Under (Original Monologues for Actors, Volumes 1, 2, and 3), Street Talk (Original Character Monologues for Actors), Uptown (More Original Monologues for Actors), Glenn Alterman’s Secrets to Successful Cold Readings, Sixty Seconds to Shine—101 One-Minute Monologues, Creating Your Own Monologue, Promoting Your Acting Career, The Job Book: One Hundred Acting Jobs for Actors, The Job Book 2: One Hundred Day Jobs for Actors, What to Give Your Agent for Christmas, and Two-Minute Monologues. Two Minutes and Under, Street Talk, and Uptown, all number one best-selling books of original monologues, were chosen—along with Creating Your Own Monologue, Promoting Your Acting Career, The Job Book, and The Job Book 2—as “Featured Selections” in the Doubleday Book Club (Fireside Theater / Stage and Screen Division). Most of his published works have gone on to multiple printings.

As a playwright, Mr. Alterman is the recipient of the first Julio T. Nunez Artist’s Grant, the Arts and Letters Award in Drama, and scores of playwriting awards, including being a three-time finalist at the Actors Theatre of Louisville Ten-Minute Play Competition.

His play The Pain in the Poetry was collected in 2009: The Best Ten-Minute Plays for Two or More Actors (Smith & Kraus) and published by Playscripts.

His play After was published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2011 (Smith & Kraus), and his latest ten-minute play, Second Tiers, appears in 2012: The Best 10-Minute Plays (Smith & Kraus).

Mr. Alterman’s plays Like Family and The Pecking Order were optioned by Red Eye Films (with Alterman writing the screenplay). His play Solace was produced Off-Broadway by the Circle East Theater Company (formerly Circle Rep Theater Company). Nobody’s Flood won the Bloomington National Playwriting Competition and was a finalist in the Key West Playwriting Competition.

Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda won the Three Genres Playwriting Competition two years in a row. The prize included publication of the play in a Prentice Hall textbook used in college theater departments all over the country.

Mr. Alterman wrote the book for Heart Strings: The National Tour (commissioned by DIFFA, the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS), a thirty-five-city tour that starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Ron Silver, Susan Sarandon, Marlo Thomas, and Sandy Duncan. Other plays include Kiss Me When It’s Over (commissioned by E. Weissman Productions), starring and directed by André De Shields; Tourists of the Mindfield (finalist in the L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Competition at New Dramatists); and Street Talk/Uptown (based on his monologue books), produced at the West Coast Ensemble.

Goin’ Round on Rock Solid Ground and Unfamiliar Faces were finalists at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s playwriting competition. Spilt Milk received its premiere at the Beverly Hills Rep/Theater 40 in Los Angeles and was selected to participate in the Samuel French One-Act Festival. The Danger of Strangers won Honorable Mention in the Deep South Writers Conference Competition, was a finalist in the George R. Kernodle Contest, was selected to be in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and has had over 35 productions, including at Circle Rep Lab, the West Bank Downstairs Theater Bar (starring James Gandolfini), the Emerging Artists Theater Company’s one-act marathon, the Vital Theater Company in New York, and, most recently, with the Workshop Theater Company. There have been several major productions of his original monologues play, God in Bed, both in the United States and in Europe.

Mr. Alterman’s work has been performed at Primary Stages, Ensemble Studio Theater (EST), Circle in the Square Downtown, HERE, LaMaMa, in the Turnip Festival, at the Duplex, at Playwrights Horizons, at several theaters on Theater Row in New York, and at many theaters around the country.

Mr. Alterman has been a guest artist and given master classes and seminars on monologues and the business of acting at such diverse places as the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, Virginia; the Edward Albee Theater Conference (Valdez, Alaska); Southampton College; Western Connecticut State College; Broadway Artists Alliance; the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the Dramatists Guild; the Learning Annex; the Screen Actors Guild; the Seminar Center; in the Boston public school system; and at many acting schools and colleges all over the country.

In 1993, Mr. Alterman created the Glenn Alterman Studio, where actors receive monologue/audition coaching as well as career preparation. He was named “Best Monologue/Audition Coach in the Tri-State Area” by Theater Resources Magazine and first runner up as “The Best Private Acting Coach in New York” by the readers of Back Stage. He presently lives in New York City, where he’s finishing his twenty-fifth book, tentatively titled Monologues for Every Audition (Smith & Kraus), and several new plays; coaching actors; and occasionally freelancing for film companies in the acquisitions department, helping turn plays into movies.

On the Web, he can be reached at www.glennalterman.com.