OUR TOWN Equity Principal Auditions - Huntington Theatre Company Auditions

OUR TOWN

– Local Equity Auditions by APPOINTMENT in Boston

Huntington Theatre Company LORT $566/week minimum.

Author: Thornton Wilder

Dir: David Cromer

1st reh: 11/13/12. Runs 12/7/12 - 1/27/13.

Local Equity Auditions by APPOINTMENT:

Thursday, February 9, 2012 Boston Center for the Arts/Calderwood Pavilion

10 AM – 6 PM 539 Tremont Street

Lunch from 1:30 – 2:30. Boston MA

Auditions are in Deane Hall.

For a 5-minute AEA-Member appointment, contact Rebecca Bradshaw at 617/273-1543 or


rbradshaw@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu. Leave a message with name, primary contact # and preferred audition time period. Equity Members without appointments are welcome, and will be seen from 10-12.

Please prepare EITHER two (2) contrasting monologues OR a short scene of your choice from the play. Those planning to read from the play should request an e-copy of the Theatre’s version of the script when requesting an appointment. Reader provided.

Please bring a photo and resume, stapled back-to-back.

Seeking:

Doc Gibbs (Frank):

40s. Frank is the (or one of a very few) town doctor in Grover’s Corners. Respected and heeded, he is emotionally distant and secretly afraid that he may have no idea what he’s talking about. Like a lot of people he is unsure how he ended up married with a bunch of kids. Like almost all citizens of Grover’s Corners, he avoids and is embarrassed by displays of emotion, not least of all his own.

Mrs. Gibbs (Julia):

40s. Housewife and mother of 2. Embarrassed that she harbors a secret desire to see Paris, France. Rather than discuss it with her husband (who tends to speak dismissively of anything in which he himself is not interested) she hints at it for many years, and dies never having actually stated her wish. Thorough and practical wife and mother. Like all parents, she is engaged in a lifelong exercise in calculated guessing.

Mrs. Webb (Myrtle):

Late 30s at beginning of play. Hard-working, effective housewife; mother of 2. Had no idea she would eventually fail to execute a fairly significant parental duty: that of informing her daughter what to expect on her wedding night. She probably benefits from living in a culture in which a parent’s rightness is rarely questioned.

George Gibbs:

Ages over the course of the play from 16-30. George is the star athlete in a town of 2,642. He is an ordinary young man of limited intellect and limited observational skills. He is consistently confronted over the course of the play with his own selfishness and self-involvement (which is due to carelessness rather than malice). When pulled off his high horse, he has a tendency to shrivel with shame.

Emily Webb:

Ages over the course of the play from 14-27. Emily is the smartest girl in her class in a town of 2,642. She should not be theatre-girl pretty, as she is the smartest girl in town, not necessarily the prettiest. She has the two conflicting forces that make up an American teenager; self-righteousness and self-loathing. Self-righteousness seems to win out. Nice girl, though.

Editor Webb (Charles):

40s. Owner and publisher of “The Grover’s Corners Sentinel”, with all the attendant authority that carries. Charles seems a little more interested in the emotional lives of his children than most. One might call him a bit of a smartass.

Simon Stimson:

Old enough to have seen a peck of trouble. Must play piano. Simon is the organist and choir director of the Congregational Church. He is the town scandal, with a commonly known but never-spoken-of drinking problem. He can only articulate his sadness and rage and isolation after his suicide.

Mrs. Soames (Louella):

Over 40. Grover’s Corners woman. Attends weddings as it presents an opportunity to publicly display emotion.

Howie Newsome:

Over 25. The milkman. The absolute, final, and unimpeachable authority on all things related to the weather in Grover’s Corners.

Rebecca Gibbs:

Ages from 11 to 25. George’s little sister. Loves money. Worries the moon may crash into the earth. She does not want George to get married. Eventually marries an insurance man in Canton, Ohio.

Wally Webb:

10 or so. A bizarre little boy.

Professor Willard:

40s. Professor at the local university; authority on the geological history of Grover’s Corners. He is not much of a speaker in or out of the classroom.

Constable Warren (Bill):

40s-50s. Ordinary, efficient but unhurried man. Duties include checking doors after sundown, flood watch, and dealing with that gang that hangs out down by the gulley.

Joe Crowell, Jr.:

Mid teens. Very bright young man who will graduate first in his class, be granted a scholarship to MIT, but die in France in World War I. He is resistant to change.

Si Crowell:

Mid teens. Delivers the “Grover’s Corners Sentinel” in 1904, after his older brother retires. Si, like all the Crowell boys, is resistant to change.

Joe Stoddard:

Over 40. Very typical Grover’s Corners citizen: informed about people’s business, disinterested in emotional displays and therefore expert at circumventing indulgent behavior. The town undertaker.

Sam Craig:

20s. Grover’s Corners boy who left town to go “Out West”. “Out West”, it seems, is Buffalo, NY.

Theatre’s statement: “Minority actors of all ages are [especially] encouraged to audition. The Huntington is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Boston-area actors are strongly encouraged to come in for this call.”