I just auditioned for "The Bacchae"!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just got back from my audition. While I was waiting for my turn, I was talking with the Theater Majors who were also auditioning. I got interested in auditioning through a Theater History class I am taking. It fulfills upper division English requirements for my English major, but everyone there are Theater Majors (it goes toward their major too). For quite a while, I kind of felt like an ‘outsider’ because I was the only one in the class who wasn’t part of that department, and being Theater geeks, the students in the class were very close-knit with each other. While some of them totter on the vain/arrogant end of the scale, everyone has been very friendly and supportive of my efforts.

People were auditioning for two plays: Of Mice and Men, and The Bacchae. I was curious about the people I’d be running against for a part, and was quite surprised that 90% of the people that were there were auditioning for Of Mice and Men. This made me feel a little more confident- at least I wouldn’t audition alongside 50 Theater Arts Majors! :eek: I talked with some classmates, who gave me some pointers on my monologue. I’ll be quite honest- my heart was racing as I said the monologue to the Director and Producers. I used my naturally loud and projecting voice to my advantage, trying to fill the theater with my monologue. I didn’t get any feedback at the time, but I definitely felt my voice ‘resonating’ through the theater. :slight_smile:

Because 2005 is pretty much up in the air (I should be done with school by then, so I won’t have any long-term commitments) I have the time to come in every day from 6 to 10 and rehearse. I gotta say, I haven’t been this excited about anything in a long time. I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but never did it, and always kicked myself for not acting on my desire :smack: Here is my last chance to do something fun and meaningful in college before I graduate, and I really look forward to it. Callbacks are tomorrow, and I know full well there is no guarantee I will get a part. But at this point, with so much freedom in store for me in the New Year, its honestly a win-win situation: I get the part, and have my evenings busy till April. Or, I don’t get the part, and have my evenings free to pursue some job prospects I’ve been planning on applying for after graduation.

I can’t wait to see the callback list tomorrow! :smiley:

2

That’s exciting! Is it OK to say good luck, since it’s not about the actual staging of the play? If so, Good Luck! If not, Break A Leg! :slight_smile:

3

Hey, Incubus - I think you misspelled “The Bachelor”. :smiley:

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Yay! Sounds as if the delivery style you chose was appropriate to the piece they were casting - Greek theater should be delivered pretty - um - theatrically (unless the directer has some newfangled notions, but it’s a good default position.)

I’m glad you chose this on over Of Mice and Men. Not only would the competition be much stiffer for Of Mice and Men, but there are few roles in it suitable for inexperienced actors. It’s a pretty stong ensemble piece, and you really need actors who work well together and (preferably) are familiar with one another prior to casting. (Except for Curley, but he’s not much fun as a role, anyway.)

Is it a men’s school, by any chance? Not a lot of female roles this semester, apparently.

What did you use for your monologue?

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Tell us about “The Baccae”. What is it about?

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My monologue piece was from “The Fisher King”. It basically described an Arthurian legend told by what I believe is a college student (imagine the irony there :wink: ). When I tested out my monologue to my classmates, they were impressed with my delivery and told me I made a good choice. I was nervous going into it, just because this is my first time at this, and there is very little I know what to expect.

Not a men’s school, in fact there are quite a few women competing for what few female roles are present. Of Mice and Men has only one female character, and all the women I talked to wanted that part :eek: The Bacchae will have six women as a choir, but not as many women seemed interested in this; perhaps because it didn’t seem as much as a ‘role’ for them. :confused:

Anyway, I should find out whether I am getting called back by this afternoon. If I am, I’ll go back in the evening (thank god I have time! I didn’t even know how the callback thing worked- it just happened to fall on a time I was available! Whew!)

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“The Bacchae” is a tragedy by Euripides, a Greek playwright. Its about how Dionysus, a normally jubiliant son of Zeus, can become a total ‘vengeful god’ if you piss him off. He directs his wrath to one particular town, by driving the women crazy and sending them off to go mutilate cattle (and people! :eek: ). Being Greek theater, all the violence is implied/told, and most of the play is dialogue between only 2 characters, and often one character describing a series of events to another.

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“Euripides* pants, I rippa your face!” <------ lame joke my high school director used over and over and over again! :rolleyes:

*cause it’s pronounced “You-rippa-deese”. No, it’s really NOT funny, even if you get it.

9

Sweet! The Bacchae is fantastic! I saw a college production of it w/ my Latin class in high school. Did you audition for a specific part?
I always regretted the fact that I was too chicken to audition for plays at college, though I did plenty in high school. Good for you!
Break a leg!

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Strike that - this was actually a production at the American Repertory Theatre in Boston. We went to a lot of plays in that class…

Dionysus was my favortie character, the guy that played him did a great job

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Yay! Please come back and let us know how everything turned out. I’ve got my fingers crossed for you. Figuratively. 'Cause it is kind of hard to type with crossed fingers. But if I didn’t have to type, it would be definite literal finger crossing. Okay. Shutting up now.

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“Bacchae” looks entirely too similar to “bukkake” when you’re skimming a forum and not paying too much attention.

I was very dissapointed when I read the OP.

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I got called back! :eek: :smiley:

No guarantee I got the part; I’m among fourteen guys who are auditioning for the 6 (7 if the Guard counts as a part) male roles in the play. I’m kinda hoping some of them won’t come back, if anything just to help my chances of getting a part :wink: Regardless, I know that whether I get the part or not, it will be based on my own merit and skill as a storyteller.

It could be worse- in the Of Mice and Men auditions, five women are vying for the sole female part in the play. There are also about two dozen-odd more women who will be trying to get one of the six choir parts in The Bacchae. They have to not only speak, but sing and dance :eek: so perhaps I have gotten off easy by comparison :slight_smile:

I’m hoping to play Teiresias, the blind seer, but would also be more than willing to play as the Herdsman or the Messenger. To play as Dionysus would be very ambitious, though there are two other guys trying out for that part, and they act so much like Dionysus in real life it would be hard to compete with actors who could play the part so naturally. Though if the Director says, “Incubus, I want you to be Dionysus” I would be more than willing to accept the offer. ight now I am reading The Bacchae, to prepare for when I have to read lines in front of the Director. Hopefully this way I will not mispronounce words or stumble through lines when I go back this evening.

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Woo hoo! Congrats! Knock 'em dead!

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Bona fortuna, Incubus! (Yeah, yeah. I know it’s Latin. I don’t know how to say it in Greek.)

Classical Greek drama, if properly done, can still be riveting. I stood for over an hour in the rain and watched a group of my classmates perform Euripides’ The Trojan Women on a wharf in Nafplion (the modern name for the port of Argos). No sets, street clothes for costumes, minimal props, a well-translated script, and some awesome acting talent. Cassandra’s mad scene still gives me chills.

And The Bacchae contains one of the most horrifying fates I can imagine – the Prince of Thebes (the poor slob who has defied Dionysius) is literally torn to pieces. By his own mother. :eek:

Between The Bacchae, Oedipus Tyrannis, and Elektra, I’d say that those old dead Greek males had some serious issues.

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Yeah but the guy kind of had it coming to him! :stuck_out_tongue:

There seems to be some message in there about voyerism too…if you peep on women they will mutilate you and play hackeysack with your gonads :eek:

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Yay!!! Congratulations. Keep us posted.

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Update: Just returned from the second round of auditions. What a rollercoaster!

The Director told the callbacks to come in at 6 this evening. Being horribly naive about this whole process, I thought I could go in, do my thing, and be reasonably on time for my 7 PM class. Boy was I in for a rude shock!

First the Director had all the women audition- they were mainly auditioning for the Choir. This required them to dance, sing, and recite lines from the play. I caught a glimpse of them auditioning for the ‘dancing’ part. You ever see a woman dancing in Dionysian rapture? You ever see 20 women dancing like this, each one trying to ‘out do’ the other? It was very hot. :eek: Seeing this made me want the part even more, just to get to watch all these sexy women dancing to Greek music every day :smiley:

While this was going on, all the guys were given a packet of various folk tales. The idea was to pick one story, remember the ‘gist’ of it, and go up and tell the story. I chose “The Lad and the Devil”. We had, what I felt, was way too much time, probably because it took so long for the Director to finish with the girls. I feel kind of sorry for them though, because she was making them dance for 90 minutes straight, mixing and matching different groups, seeing whose voices ‘blended’ together the best, who looked the sexiest wiggling their bodies around (They ALL looked sexy! :smiley: ).

Finally, the guy’s got their turn. At this point I was rather alarmed to see many people from the previous play (As You Like it). I thought I was in trouble…I mean, a lot of these people could be on Whose Line is it Anyway? or some other comedy show- they were really creative and had been doing this for years, and I was going into it blind. I told my story, being as expressive as I could. Some people really went overboard- one guy told his story sung to the tune of Fiddler on the Roof and Phantom of the Opera, and chewed up 15 minutes running around the stage :smack:

When that was done, we did cold-reading. Now, originally I thought that was ALL we were going to do, so I prepared- I read through passages of the play that were likely candidates for cold reading. This worked out really good for me, because not only did I get to do a part I wanted (The Herdsman) but I knew the context of what I was saying. Some people there hadn’t even heard of The Bacchae, didn’t know anything about Greek Theater. This is, I think, the only real edge I had on anybody. Oh, it also helps that the Director is my professor in my Theater History class, and despite being the only non Theater major in there, I’m always in the middle of the discussions, and really share the Professor’s love of Greek drama. When I did my part as the Herdsman, I remembered a classmate’s suggestion the day before, “The Professor is looking for people whose voices can be heard. PROJECT your voice, and make your character larger than life”. Up on the stage, I wasn’t some jittery English major, the Outsider among them, I was imagining myself as an Ancient Greek actor. My voice had to resonate through the entire ampitheatre, over the din of people loudly eating, slurping wine, crying babies. My anxiety helped give my voice the sense of awe and terror I imagined the Herdsman to feel when telling his story. Now it is up to my professor, the Director of the play, to decide if my voice convincingly follows her vision of this production. Some people there were also auditioning for Of Mice and Men, and right now I’m REALLY hoping they’ll ditch The Bacchae for a ‘meatier’ role in the other play. Just whatever it takes to get a part in this production! :frowning:

The cast list will be up as early as tomorrow, and no later than Monay morning. Tomorrow after a dentist appointment I am driving to school just to see if it is up; the outcome of this audition will have a major impact on what I spend the next year doing with my life…:eek:

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That’s great Incubus. Keep us posted. We’re all hoping that you get that part. I still remember having to recite various passages from Sophocles’ Antigone (in Ancient Greek) when I was at school.

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I’m really really really excited. In fact I’m so excited I can’t sleep, its 11 PM and I’m all amped up from the audition. :stuck_out_tongue:

Even if I don’t get the part, I’m definitely going to go see it. The Director had told me in class a month ago that she was trying to think of ways to make The Bacchae appealing to modern audiences (Without butchering it, of course :wink: ). I’m really curious about what the end result will look like. I’m even more curious if I’m a part of it :slight_smile: