I’m considering participating to a Greek & Latin recitation contest next month. I couldn’t decide on what to read. What do people usually read in these contests? I want to be a bit original though, I don’t want to come up with Homer or Aeneid, or Catilina for Latin prose. What would you suggest?
If you don’t want to go for Cicero, you could opt for some Neo-Latin oratory. 
Check out for example Giambattista Vico’s orations - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QMGAtLneiPcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=giambattista+vico+orationes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVvtjR6qvhAhUQShUIHSz4DdsQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q&f=false.
It has been argued that Seneca’s tragedies were declaimed rather than acted on stage. Although I disagree with this many passages would be suitable for such a competion. Try the opening of Thyestes or Atreus’s first speech or the Chorus 546- . Atreus’s megalomaniac “Aequalis astris gradior et cunctos super/altum superbo vertice attingens polum”. 885- is another candidate.