Titus Auditions
Titus Andronicus
Audition Informstion
Auditions for our next production of Titus Andronicus
will be held on Tuesday, January 28 @7:00pm
Brief Play Synopsis:
Titus is Shakespeare’s first tragedy; it’s also his bloodiest, with a total of 14 killings by the end of the show (we will have 13 since I’ve cut one of the characters who gets killed). Titus and his 4 remaining sons have just returned to Rome from a lengthy war with the Goths. They have brought the Queen of the Goths, Tamora; her sons, Chiron and Demetrius; and a Moor in service of Tamora (who is actually her lover), Aaron, with them as political prisoners; Tamora’s eldest son, Alarbus, is killed immediately. Titus is to be proclaimed Emperor of Rome, but he defers to Saturninus, the eldest son of the late emperor, to whom he also promises his daughter, Lavinia, in marriage. In short order, chaos reigns: Lavinia, who is betrothed to Bassianus, Saturninus’s younger brother, is whisked away by Bassianus and her brothers and Titus murders his youngest son, Mutius, in punishment and Saturninus marries Tamora, instead, proclaiming her Empress of Rome. By the end of Act One, two warring factions are established: Saturninus and Tamora (eager for revenge against Titus and his family) VS Titus, Lavinia, his sons, and Marcus, his brother. The rest of the play chronicles this nasty war of revenge, filled with dastardly deeds, acts of unspeakable cruelty, and characters who revel in their villainy.
About the Production
Theatre Fairfield Spring Production, April 20-25, 2020, Wien Black Box Theatre, Quick Center
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Producer and Director Dr. Marti LoMonaco, known as “Dr. L,” mlomonaco@fairfield.edu
Stage Violence and Intimacy Director, Prof. Dan Burke, known as “Dan,” danielburke336@gmail.com
Vocal Coach, Prof. Jennifer Foster, known as “Jennie,” j.m.foster@att.net
Stage Manager, Sam Millette, samantha.millette@student.fairfield.edu
Important Dates
Auditions:
Tuesday, January 28, 7:00 PM (come as early as 6:30 PM to begin filling out forms)
Faber Dining Common
Callbacks:
Thursday, January 30th, 6:30 PM, Faber Dining Common
First Rehearsal/Read-Through: Monday, February 3, 7:00 PM, Faber Dining Common
Production Dates:
Opening Night, Monday, April 20, 8 PM
Additional Evening Performances: Tuesday, April 21 through Friday, April 24 at 8 PM (note—there is not a Saturday evening show).
MATINEES: Friday, April 24 at 10 AM—this is a special school matinee for Norwalk, CT high schools; Saturday, April 25 at 3 PM—this is the final performance. Strike, required for all company members, will immediately follow the Saturday show.
Rehearsals:
Monday through Thursday nights, 7 or 7:30 to 10:00 or 10:30 (possibly as late as 11:00 PM closer to opening) and Sundays, 2:00-6:00 PM (4-hour block) at Faber Dining Common.
Tech Weekend and Tech schedule:
Our first tech rehearsals are Wednesday and Thursday evenings, April 15 and 16. We will have Friday, April 17 OFF—that will be our last day off before strike. Tech weekend is Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19, from 8:30 AM to 10:00 PM each day
Casting Information
We are casting 13 actors, 4 of whom will play at least 4 different roles each; there also may be some other doubling of roles. Actors will be cast in the role for which they are best suited; hence, we may have a lot of gender-bent casting (Titus and Aaron may be played by women; Lavinia and Tamora by men). The gender of the original characters will remain, however; if a woman is cast as Titus, the actor will play the role male.
Audition Material
Make BOLD choices in your interpretation of the characters and make sure your language flows both with understanding and power throughout. The first two monologues are in verse; the second two are prose. Since Titus has both, choose!
WOMEN’s MONOLOGUE
from Aristophanes’s Lysistrata
Heretofore we women in time of war have endured very patiently through it,
putting up with whatever you men might do,
for never a peep would you let us deliver on your unstatesmanly acts no matter how much they upset us,
but we knew very well, while we sat at home,
when you’d handled a big issue poorly,
and we’d ask you then, with a pretty smile though our heart would be grieving us sorely,
“And what were the terms for a truce, my dear, you drew up in assembly this morning?”
“And what ‘s it to you?” says our husband, “Shut up!”
--so, as ever at this gentle warning
I, of course, would discreetly shut up, and I do not deny it,
But when plan after plan was decided on,
so bad we could scarce believe it,
I would say “This last is so mindless, dear, I cannot think how you you achieve it!”
Monologue #1 (Unisex)
from Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
There was nothing in my life except my studies. I was obsessed with pursuit of the truth. I taught at the Greek School in Rome, which St Augustine had made famous. I was poor, I worked hard. I spoke apparently brilliantly, I was still very young, I was a stranger; suddenly I was quite famous, I was everyone’s favourite. Huge crowds came to hear me. The day after they made me cardinal I fell ill and lay two weeks without speaking, full of terror and regret. But then I got up determined to go on. I was seized again with a desperate longing for the absolute.
Pope Leo died and I was chosen. All right then. I would be Pope. I would know God. I would know everything.
MEN’s MONOLOGUE
from Aristophanes’s Lysistrata
Greater insolence than ever!—that’s the method she calls “better”—
if you would believe her.
But this threat must be prevented! Every man with both his balls must make ready—
take our shirts off, for a man must reek of male outright—not wrapped up in leafage like an omelet for sale!
Now or never we must grow young again and, sprouting wings over all our bodies, throw off this heaviness age brings!
For if any of us give them even just a little hold nothing will be safe from their tenacious grasp. They are so bold they will soon build ships of war and, with exorbitant intent, send such navies out against us as Queen Artemisia sent.
But if they attack with horse, our knights we might as well delete:
nothing rides so well as woman, with so marvelous a seat, never slipping at the gallop.
We’d better grab these women one and all, arrest them, get some wooden collars on their necks!
Monologue #2 (Unisex)
from Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
We come into hell through a big mouth. Hell’s black and red. It’s like the village where I come from. There’s a river and a bridge and houses. There’s places on fire when the soldiers come. There’s a big devil sat on a roof with a big hole in his arse and he’s scooping stuff out of it with a big ladle and it’s falling down on us, and it’s money, so a lot of the women stop and get some. But most of us is fighting the devils. There’s lots of little devils, our size, and we get them down all right and give them a beating. There’s lots of funny creatures round your feet, you don’t like to look, like rats and lizards, and nasty things, a bum with a face, and fish with legs, and faces on things that don’t have faces on. But they don’t hurt, you just keep going.
You may find more information about the production, auditions, casting, rehearsals, and more in the PDFs below!
