Saratoga Shakespeare Company
APPOINTMENTS
Due to COVID-19 and Social Distancing Efforts, accepting Video Submission Auditions.
CONTRACT
SPT $309 (to be revised pursuant to AEA tier salary level increases for 2020)
SEEKING
Submissions from Equity actors for various roles in the upcoming season. See breakdown.
INSTRUCTIONS
Please submit your audition video to info@saratogashakespeare.org by Tues., March 31st. Please prepare a two-minute classical monologue and two-minute contemporary monologue, and give an introduction stating your name. Please include a headshot and resume as attachments when emailing your video submission.
Deadline: Tue, Mar 31, 2020
SUBMIT TO
PERSONNEL
Marcus Dean Fuller - Executive & Artistic Director, director for Much Ado About Nothing
William Finley - Untitled Beethoven Project director
Damian Lanigan - Beethoven Project playwright
OTHER DATES
Much Ado About Nothing - First rehearsal Tues., June 30th, Opening July 14th, Closing July 16th
Untitled Beethoven Project - First rehearsal Mon., July 20th, Opening July 31st, Closing Aug. 2nd
OTHER
www.saratogashakespeare.org
Equity’s contracts prohibit discrimination. Equity is committed to diversity and encourages all its employers to engage in a policy of equal employment opportunity designed to promote a positive model of inclusion. As such, Equity encourages performers of all ethnicities, gender identities, and ages, as well as performers with disabilities, to submit.
BREAKDOWN
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Marcus Dean Fuller
First rehearsal Tues., June 30th, Opening July 14th, Closing July 16th
Seeking
Beatrice - Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. Beatrice is “a pleasant-spirited lady” with a very sharp tongue. She is generous and loving, but, like Benedick, continually mocks other people with elaborately tooled jokes and puns. She wages a war of wits against Benedick and often wins the battles. At the outset of the play, she appears content never to marry.
Benedick - An aristocratic soldier who has recently been fighting under Don Pedro, and a friend of Don Pedro and Claudio. Benedick is very witty, always making jokes and puns. He carries on a “merry war” of wits with Beatrice, but at the beginning of the play he swears he will never fall in love or marry.
Claudio - A young soldier who has won great acclaim fighting under Don Pedro during the recent wars. Claudio falls in love with Hero upon his return to Messina. His unfortunately suspicious nature makes him quick to believe evil rumors and hasty to despair and take revenge.
Hero - The beautiful young daughter of Leonato and the cousin of Beatrice. Hero is lovely, gentle, and kind. She falls in love with Claudio when he falls for her, but when Don John slanders her and Claudio rashly takes revenge, she suffers terribly.
Don Pedro - An important nobleman from Aragon, sometimes referred to as “Prince.” Don Pedro is a longtime friend of Leonato, Hero’s father, and is also close to the soldiers who have been fighting under him—the younger Benedick and the very young Claudio. Don Pedro is generous, courteous, intelligent, and loving to his friends, but he is also quick to believe evil of others and hasty to take revenge. He is the most politically and socially powerful character in the play.
Leonato - A respected, well-to-do, elderly noble at whose home, in Messina, Italy, the action is set. Leonato is the father of Hero and the uncle of Beatrice. As governor of Messina, he is second in social power only to Don Pedro.
Don John - The illegitimate brother of Don Pedro; sometimes called “the Bastard.” Don John is melancholy and sullen by nature, and he creates a dark scheme to ruin the happiness of Hero and Claudio. He is the villain of the play; his evil actions are motivated by his envy of his brother’s social authority.
Margaret - Hero’s serving woman, who unwittingly helps Borachio and Don John deceive Claudio into thinking that Hero is unfaithful. Unlike Ursula, Hero’s other lady-in-waiting, Margaret is lower class. Though she is honest, she does have some dealings with the villainous world of Don John: her lover is the mistrustful and easily bribed Borachio. Also unlike Ursula, Margaret loves to break decorum, especially with bawdy jokes and teases.
Borachio - An associate of Don John. Borachio is the lover of Margaret, Hero’s serving woman. He conspires with Don John to trick Claudio and Don Pedro into thinking that Hero is unfaithful to Claudio. His name means “drunkard” in Italian, which might serve as a subtle direction to the actor playing him.
Conrad - One of Don John’s more intimate associates, entirely devoted to Don John. Several recent productions have staged Conrad as Don John’s potential male lover, possibly to intensify Don John’s feelings of being a social outcast and therefore motivate his desire for revenge.
Dogberry - The constable in charge of the Watch, or chief policeman, of Messina. Dogberry is very sincere and takes his job seriously, but he has a habit of using exactly the wrong word to convey his meaning. Dogberry is one of the few “middling sort,” or middle-class characters, in the play, though his desire to speak formally and elaborately like the noblemen becomes an occasion for parody.
Verges - The deputy to Dogberry, chief policeman of Messina.
Antonio - Leonato’s elderly brother and Hero's uncle. He is Beatrice’s father.
Balthasar - A waiting man in Leonato’s household and a musician. Balthasar flirts with Margaret at the masked party and helps Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro trick Benedick into falling in love with Beatrice. Balthasar sings the song, “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more” about accepting men’s infidelity as natural.
Ursula - One of Hero’s waiting women.
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UNTITLED BEETHOVEN PROJECT
Written by Damian Lanigan
Directed by William Finley
First rehearsal Mon., July 20th, Opening July 31st, Closing Aug. 2nd
seeking
Ludwig van Beethoven (male, early 30s, hard of hearing)
Giulietta (female, passes for 20)
Ferdinand Ries (male, passes for 18)
Doctor Schmidt (male, 50ish),
Count Lichnowsky (male, passes for 25ish)
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Equity’s contracts prohibit discrimination. Equity is committed to diversity and encourages all its employers to engage in a policy of equal employment opportunity designed to promote a positive model of inclusion. As such, Equity encourages performers of all ethnicities, gender identities, and ages, as well as performers with disabilities, to submit.
Videos
