ENGAGING SHAW Submission - The Old Globe Theatre Auditions
The Old Globe Theatre
LORT B
ENGAGING SHAW - Photo / Resume Request
The Old Globe Theatre San Diego, CA LORT B; $750/week minimum
Artistic Associate: Bernadette Hanson
Casting Director: Samantha Barrie
Director: Henry Wishcamper
Playwright: John Morogiello
1st rehearsal: 7/5/11. Runs: 7/29/11 – 9/4/11
New York auditions will be held late-April, by appointment only.
For consideration, email (preferred method) picture and resume to:
Please indicate in the subject line of your email:
“Engaging Shaw – New York auditions”
If you do not have email access, you may mail to:
Engaging Shaw Casting / The Old Globe Theatre
PO Box 122171
San Diego, CA 92112
Deadline for submissions: April 18, 2011
Character Descriptions and Notes:
These roles WILL NOT be understudied.
Sidney Webb:
Caucasian Male. Mid 30s-early 40s. Energetic, short, working class accent. Shortly after their first meeting Beatrice Webb described her future husband as “A remarkable little man with a huge head on a very tiny body, a breadth of forehead quite sufficient to account for the encyclopedic character of his knowledge, a Jewish nose, prominent eyes and mouth, black hair, somewhat unkempt, spectacles [pince nez] and a most bourgeois coat shiny with wear. With his thumbs fixed pugnaciously in a far from immaculate waistcoat, with his bulky head thrown back and his little body forward he struts even when he stands, delivering himself with extraordinary rapidity of thought and utterance and with an expression of inexhaustible self-complacency. But there is a directness of speech, an open-mindedness, an imaginative warmheartedness which should carry him far. He has the self-complacency of one who is always thinking faster than his neighbors, who is untroubled by doubts, and to whom the acquisition of facts is as easy as the grasping of matter; but he has no vanity and is totally unselfconscious.” To Shaw, Webb was the most efficient and brilliant man on the planet aside from himself.
Beatrice Webb:
Caucasian Female. Mid 30s-early 40s. Sidney’s wife, upper class accent. Her parents were middle class graduates to the nouveau riche. With dark hair and eyes, Beatrice is exceedingly handsome despite what contemporary psychologists would diagnose as her anorexia. Her family considered her much too pretty for the life she chose to lead. She was the last of eight girls and was never forgiven by her mother for not being a boy. She prefers the company of serious, powerful men to that of any woman. She tries to direct all of her sexual energy into her work with Sidney, but without complete success. She once tried to commit suicide when she was much younger, but you would scarcely know that now. Perhaps this inner sadness is the reason for her dedication to the optimistic picture painted by Fabian Socialism. Despite her contempt for frivolity, she takes girlish delight in matchmaking.
Bernard Shaw:
Caucasian Male. Early 40s. An Irish music and drama critic who dabbles in playwriting.Tall and skinny as a rail with red hair and beard, and eyebrows combed straight up. He wears a reddish brown, wool, Jaeger suit, which practically matches the color of his hair and beard, and he speaks with a kind Irish lilt. He feels compelled to immediately take charge of every situation--especially impossible ones-- yet is perhaps the most optimistic and good-natured man in the world. Even his most cutting statements are said with a puckish gleam in the eye. No one is more aware of his own superiority, and he is proud to flaunt it without provocation. Invariably he is correct, which makes him all the more entertaining and infuriating. His one failing is an utter disregard for emotions, his own and others.
Charlotte Payne Townshend:
Caucasian Female. Early 40s. An heiress from Ireland. According to Beatrice Webb, “Charlotte Payne-Townshend is a wealthy unmarried woman of about my own age. Bred up in second-rate fashionable society without any education or habit of work, she found herself at about thirty-three years of age alone in the world without ties, without any definite creed, and with a large income. For the last four years she has drifted about--in India, in Italy, in Egypt, in London, seeking occupation and fellow spirits. In person she is attractive--a large graceful woman with masses of chocolate-brown hair, pleasant gray eyes [they’re green], ‘matte’ complexion which sometimes looks muddy, at other times forms a picturesquely pale background to her brilliant hair and bright eyes. She dresses well--in her flowing white evening robes she approaches beauty-at moments she is plain. By temperament she is an anarchist--feeling any regulation or rule intolerable--a tendency which has been exaggerated by her irresponsible wealth. She is romantic but thinks herself cynical. She is a socialist and a radical, not because she understands the collectivist standpoint, but because she is by nature a rebel. She has no snobbishness and no convention: She has ‘swallowed all formulas’ but has not worked out principles of her own. She is fond of men and impatient of most women, bitterly resents her enforced celibacy but thinks she could not tolerate the matter-of-fact side of marriage. Sweet-tempered, sympathetic and genuinely anxious to increase the world’s enjoyment and diminish the world’s pain.” She is also Irish.
