New Line Theatre Hosts Auditions For TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 10/11, 10/18

Auditions for New Line Theatre's production of TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, the rock musical from the composer of Hair, will be held on two successive Monday nights, October 11 and 18, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. at the Washington University South Campus, 6501 Clayton Road (formerly CBC High School), just east of Big Bend, in the second floor theatre. This is NOT on the Washington University main campus. Performers need to come to only one of the dates. The show will run March 3-26, 2011.

For details about the show, visit New Line's TWO GENTS webpage at http://www.newlinetheatre.com/twogentspage.html

New Line is looking for a multi-racial cast of 16 adult men and women. We do not cast anyone under 17. New Line is looking for intelligent singing actors who are willing to take risks onstage. Performers are asked to bring a prepared Contemporary Theatre song, preferably in rock or pop style, with printed piano music for our pianist (no tapes and no a cappella). There will be a dance audition. Performers may also be asked to sing from the score.

No roles in the show have been pre-cast. All roles will be cast through the auditions. To read New Line's helpful Audition Tips, go to http://www.newlinetheatre.com/audition-tips.html

With music from the composer of Hair, lyrics by the author of Six Degrees of Separation, and a book (more or less) by the guy who brought us Hamlet, TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA is a rowdy, carnal, thoroughly subversive comedy, set in Renaissance Verona and Milan -- or maybe it's New York City in 1971. Composer Galt MacDermot, playwright John Guare, and writer-director Mel Shapiro have taken one of Shakespeare's least produced plays and breathed outrageous, new, cross-dressing life into it. TWO GENTS is a romantic comedy that explores issues of race, gender roles, the politics of war, and the sad reality that most men are pigs. The story tells of lifelong friends Proteus and Valentine who leave their rural hometown of Verona to experience life in the big city of Milan. But the course of true love -- or is it just lust? -- never did run smooth...
Rolling Stone said the score sounds like "walking down the street in El Barrio with all the windows open and a different radio blaring out of each one." Clive Barnes wrote of the original off Broadway production in The New York Times, "The New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater is doing Shakespeare a power of good and turning Central Park into a place of celebration with its new production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. It is jeu d'espirit, a bardic spree, a midsummer night's jest, a merriment of lovers, a gallimaufry of styles and a gas. It takes off." After its move uptown, Barnes went further: "It has a surge of youth to it, at times an almost carnal intimation of sexuality, and a boisterous sense of love. It is precisely this that the new musical catches and makes its own. The musical also has a strange New York feel to it -- in the music, a mixture of rock, lyricism and Caribbean patter, in Mr. Guare's spare, at times even abrasive lyrics, in the story itself of small-town kids and big-town love. It also has a very New York sense of irreverence. It is a graffito written across a classic play, but the graffito has an insolent sense of style, and the classic play can still be clearly glimpsed underneath."

NEW AUDITION POLICY: If you have performed with New Line Theatre during the last eighteen months, you don't have to audition. Instead you just have to contact artistic director Scott Miller at scott@newlinetheatre.com, before the last night of auditions to tell him that you want to be considered. On the other hand, if you want to be considered for a role that's very different from what you've done for New Line before -- or in the case of Two Gentlemen, to show us you can handle both Shakespeare and Robin Bergber's choreography -- then you are more than welcome to audition and show us how perfect you are for the show.

Rehearsals will begin the first week of January, on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m., and also some Sunday afternoons for choreography, plus every night the week the show opens. Rehearsals are at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in St. Louis Hills. Performances are at the Washington University South Campus Theatre, 6501 Clayton Road. Performers will share a guaranteed 10% of box office receipts. Call 314-773-6526 or email info@NewLineTheatre.com for more information. No appointments are necessary. All performers should arrive for the audition before 7:00 p.m. New Line is a non-union professional theatre company and is always very eager to find a multi-racial cast.

To read New Line's Diversity Statement, go to http://www.newlinetheatre.com/diversity.html

To learn more about New Line, go to http://www.newlinetheatre.com/contact.html

AUDITIONS FOR BARE will be held March 14 and 21, 2011. Rehearsals will begin in early April, and the show runs June 2-25, 2011. No roles will be pre-cast. More details will be posted to the New Line website.

New Line Theatre is a professional company dedicated to involving the people of the St. Louis region in the exploration and creation of daring, provocative, socially and politically relevant works of musical theatre. New Line receives funding from the Regional Arts Commission, the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation, and the Missouri Arts Council. For more about New Line, go to www.newlinetheatre.com/contact.html

New Line opens its 20th season this fall with I Love My Wife, running Sept. 30-Oct. 23, 2010, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, at 8:00 p.m., at the Washington University South Campus Theatre (formerly CBC High School), 6501 Clayton Road, just east of Big Bend. Tickets are on sale now through Metrotix.com and all Metrotix outlets, including the Fox Theatre Box Office, the Edison Theatre at Washington University, and select Schnucks stores, or by calling 314-534-1111. I Love My Wife contains adult content.

For other information, visit New Line Theatre's full-service website at www.newlinetheatre.com. All programs are subject to change.