Audition Pieces-­‐ FEMALE Select ONE of the following to perform at your audition 1. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare A tragedy set in Verona, it is the story of two star crossed lovers. Juliet’s father has arranged a feast where Juliet will meet Paris, a young man who has asked for her hand in marriage. However, during the evening she meets and falls in love with Romeo, the son of the hated Montagues. Here Juliet has taken her nurse into her confidence and sends her to deliver a letter to Romeo. Juliet: The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse. In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so. O, she is lame! Love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams Driving back shadows over louring hills. Therefore do nimble-­‐pinioned doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-­‐swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the high most hill Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She would be as swift in motion as a ball. My words would bawdy her to my sweet love, And his to me. But old folks, many feign as they were dead – Unwieldy, slow, heave and pale as lead. (Enter Nurse and Peter) O God, she comes! O honey Nurse, what news? Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away. 2. The Monkeyhouse by Ryan Hughes Crystal (seventeen years old) tells us how ballet prepared her for life, and for her friendship with Angie. Crystal: I think it’s a question of how much you can take. Like in ballet. I was in ballet for like eight years. And the teacher was this old, old woman who couldn’t even dance, her spine was all twisted out of whack, like this. She contorts herself briefly. I guess she used to be beautiful, and she was this close to being famous, and some disorder or something started messing with her spine and it twisted her all around and made her useless. Useless was her word. She said if I was gonna be useless, to get out of her class, because she hated all useless people, including herself, that the Useless are what the Useful feed their dogs for treats. She wouldn’t call us ballerinas, we were just “girls”. When I was seven she screamed in my face, Contorts again. “You are not a real ballerina until you bleed through your pointe shoes!” And pointe shoes are so hard to bleed through. But I tried. I walked around at home on pointe. I scraped, grinded my toes into the stiff old carpet in the basement for half an hour before class. I cried, I was in pain, for months. One class I was gasping and sweating and I couldn’t hear the piano for the pain, and she was still screaming at me, my toes were sticky in my shoes, I could feel them, but not enough because the screaming, still, so when she looked away I kicked my toes into the FLOOR! And I was down, screaming into the floor, they dragged me into a corner, and the shoes were coming off, sliding away from my toes, I couldn’t stop screaming, it hurt so MUCH! And she was over me and she was smiling! She! Smiling! I was looking up at everyone looking down at me and she held up the bloody shoes and she said, “We have a BALLERINA!” A moment of suspension. She smiles, in great pain, and the memory fades. Pause. I don’t dance anymore. That moment went away, and it never came back. When I was twelve I met Angie and ballet didn’t seem as important, so I quit. Angie is more challenging. It’s that moment again and again with Angie. That moment forever. You just take it all, and bleed through your shoes, and smile. I should have quit sooner. Ballet, I mean. 3. My Secret Hiding Place by Marium Carvell A teenaged girl hides from her father in the basement during school hours. Flower: I need time to think. Why can’t people understand that I need time to myself sometimes? And this new teacher we got at school is the worst. He doesn’t understand what’s going on with me at all. Okay, I’m not like other children. I know that. He expects me to live up to this stupid name my parents game me; Flower. What were they thinking? People are much to expectant of a name like Flower. They all think you must be the most delicate girl in the world with a slender delicate face, ruby red lips, rosy high cheekbones, clean clear eyes with lashes till next Tuesday, and a slender body with a waist that would snap if you squeezed too hard. Well, I have a fat face, fat cheeks, bloodshot eyes, boring lashes, and I love to eat. So, the danger of anyone snapping my waist is very slim—which I know I’m not. But being different doesn’t mean I should be ostracized from the community. I’m not a witch. I’m just a pudgy girl who grasps things faster than the normal child, that’s all. Gifted, such a stupid word. It’s not a gift to be so smart—it’s a curse. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if my stupid teacher didn’t keep calling my Dad and letting him know every new thing that astonishes him about me. It only makes my Dad hate me even more. Just be yourself. I hate those three words. My body is full of different selves. How can I be myself, if I haven’t found myself yet? 4. The End of Pretending by Emily Sugerman and Charlotte Corbeil-­‐Coleman Charlotte, fifteen, is spending the summer with her best friend Emily in a small town. Charlotte’s mother is dying and her form of denial is to hide it from Emily. Charlotte: If only it was that easy. If only we could be categorised into small boxes and properly labelled. If only I could just be out there, loud and friendly, instead of awkward, nervous, living in discomfort. Petrified of salespeople, of ordering. If only I didn’t shut off when I got to a certain point at a party when I couldn’t pretend anymore. If only mirrors wouldn’t glare at me, slowing driving me mad. If only I could have Emily’s class, confidence and ease. Her wit and her strength. If only my mother wasn’t so hard to spend time with. So painful that my fear of losing her stops me from breathing. If only panic attacks didn’t wake me up, cold sweat, my body waiting to lose something. If only I didn’t mistake the need to feel something besides dull numbness with the need for a relationship. If only I was more aware of what was happening when it was happening. If only I could understand, let alone explain, how the best summer of my life could also be the worst. How the tightest friendship won’t talk about one thing. Sometimes I wish I could say my life changed in a moment. I wish I had one moment to blame. One moment to hate, replay again and again. I have six years and a summer. Six years and a summer changed my life, sometimes drastic, those were the easier times. Sometimes small changes that crept up on me and you didn’t realise they were hardening a part of you. I can’t hate six years and a summer. I can’t blame one multiplying cell, not just one cell though, but every doctor, every friend, every sympathetic look, every family’s tears, every bad night, every piece of good from so many people. Pity food tastes awful; you can taste too many different kitchens. Every flower smell mixing together into a sour stench. Every card written creating a terrible play, each uncomfortable second between friends not knowing what to say. Each wonderful moment spent with her, hug, kiss, the taste of her temples, so sweet. Her fear. Her anger. Her love. These are what changed me, changed my life, not a moment. Six years and one summer. Audition Pieces MALE Select ONE of the following to perform at your audition 1. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare A tragedy set in Verona, it is the story of two star crossed lovers. Romeo is hiding out in Friar’s cell, when the Friar arrives bringing good news. The Duke has not imposed the expected death sentence, but instead has sentenced Romeo to banishment. He must leave Verona and Juliet. Romeo: ‘Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here, Where Juliet lives. And every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Lives here in heaven and may look on her. But Romeo may not. More validity, More honourable state, more courtship lives In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand And steal immortal blessing from her lips, Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. This may flies do, when I from this must fly. And sayest thou yet that exile is not death? But Romeo may not, he is banished. Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-­‐ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, But banished to kill me – ‘banished’? O’ Friar, the damned use that word in hell. Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-­‐absolver, and my friend professed, To mangle me with that word ‘banished’? 2. alterNatives by Drew Hayden Taylor About the dinner party from hell, where politically active Native people do battle over a moose roast with politically correct non-­‐Natives. Angel: Thanks. Ok, picture it. There’s this Native astronaut and he’s cruising at the edge of the solar system in his space ship. And he’s in a bad mood because back on Earth everybody is celebrating. The biggest party since… whenever, because the very last land claim has finally been settled. You gotta understand, this is about a hundred years into the future. It’ll take about that long. So everyone on every Reserve is partying it up while this poor guy is stuck alone somewhere out past Pluto. He picks something funny up on his scanners and goes to investigate. As he approaches the far rim of the solar system, in uncharted territory, he discovers a big space…thing. It’s covered in flashing lights, and is just hovering out there, evidently trying to attract attention. The astronaut’s sensors are going nuts. The thing wants to be understood but his scanners can’t make heads or tails out of its communications. But gradually, the thing understands that the astronaut speaks English and in translation the thing begins to spell out a message. So this Native astronaut reads the very first message from an alien civilization. This big flashing thing suddenly says, in English, “For Sale”. You get it, it’s a huge interstellar billboard. Evidently the solar system is up for sale. The astronaut stares in disbelief. Then suddenly the sign slowly begins to change. It now says “Sold”. Somebody’s just bought the solar system. The Native astronaut mutters to himself “Not again.” The end. 3. Andrew’s Tree by Martha Brooks Four months ago Patrick Devereaux’s five year old brother, Andrew, was struck down and killed by a car. Patrick is caught in an endless merry-­‐go-­‐round of guilt and denial. He has withdrawn from both family and friends, unable to express his grief. Patrick: I get bad dreams all the time. Every night it’s the same dream. I’m standing in front of Andrew’s tree—just looking. All of a sudden it becomes a merry-­‐go-­‐round, with painted horses dancing in a slow circle. Their smiling mouths are red as apples, and I choose one—a sky blue stallion. (jumps into the circle). It takes me into its circle. I’m looking for Andrew. I search all the faces in the crowd. I know he’s out there…somewhere. If I could only get my horse to break loose. To break free. But all it knows is the circle. So I have to keep going around and around. Waiting. Hoping. And just when I think I’ll never see him—there! Out in the crowd. His blue hat. Andrew—over here! (waves) Wait for me okay? Don’t go away this time. (twists his head as he circles past) I said, Wait! (Patrick jumps out of the circle). Come back…Andrew? Then, I’m awake. I stare up into the dark in my room. And I hear the wind rattling the trees outside my window. And then I remember all over again. My brother wasn’t really there. It was just another dream. And I go back to sleep. (beat). I wonder what it’s like—to sleep and never wake up. 4. I Am Yours by Judith Thompson Mack describes the discovery of a bee’s nest in his childhood home. Mack: When I was nine I was stung by a thousand bees; one hundred fifty-­‐seven stingers in my nine-­‐year-­‐old body. I was on a respirator for three days. I can still feel it, hear it. My mother, Joy, was a cleaning fanatic, obsessed; every time you opened our front door, you’d hear vroooooooom, she vacuumed twice a day, you’d almost pass out from the fumes of the bleach and the Pine-­‐sol. I always slipped on the over-­‐waxed floor. She’d have done three or four loads of laundry before she woke up my sister and me at seven; she washed the kitchen floor with straight bleach every day. I remember the first, the first bee, I was about nine and I was having a glass of milk after my soccer game, in the kitchen, she was standing over me waiting to clean it, and there was this buzzing. Bzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz, my mother looked around, bzzzzz, and then it stung her, on the hand. Her hand swelled up badly, she ran the cold water. Bzzzzzz, I spotted another, by the fridge, and then another on the ceiling, she was frantic. We opened the pantry and although everything was, like, perfectly stored and packaged there were four or five or six of these bees buzzing around. One of them came after me, it actually chased me. I ran to the third floor, it chased me all through the house and then stung me hard on the lip, it hurt so much. My mother, she stood in the pantry like a cat, watching the walls trying to figure out where they were coming from. I’m watching TV, suddenly wham bash, I run to the pantry and there is my mother, my clean mother smashing in the pantry wall with my baseball bat. Down came the plaster, filling the air with dust, and then the lath, and then she’s tearing away the pink insulation, sobbing and choking, and I’m trying to see through all this dust. The buzzing sound was deafening like the bass of an electric guitar turned way up, bzzzzzzzz, and there it was….huge, majestic, a shimmering tower of bees, a six-­‐foot honeycomb, dripping, behind our wall, hundreds, no thousands of bees swarming around it protecting their queen, all for the queen, and they swarmed us, stung us, over and over, the honey poured thick from the hive, into our pantry, into our house, unstoppable over bleached linoleum floor and into the hall, seeped in the carpet…And since that time I have thought, I have known that there is something deadly, yes, but I don’t know really…glorious behind every wall.