LORT
THE RIVALS – Photo / Resume Request
Baltimore Centerstage (Baltimore, MD) LORT B; $765/week minimum
by Richard Binsley Sheridan
Director: David Schweizer
Casting: Janet Foster
1st Rehearsal: 9/2/11. Runs: 9/28 - 10/30/11
NYC auditions will be held June 8 & 9, by appointment only
Seeking submissions from Actors' Equity Members only for these particular auditions.
For consideration, email picture and resume to Janet Foster at:
janet@janetfostercasting.com
Indicate in the subject line: “The Rivals / AEA member self submission”
NOTE: THE RIVALS narrowly preceded Sheridan's even more celebrated SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
but set his distinctive comic voice in motion in 1775. The play requires actors who relish language as a
source for both the endless delight of wordplay for its own sake, and also as an eloquent engine for
wildly energized romantic shenanigans. THE RIVALS company should welcome all ethnicities and
physical types with the common mutual gift of great comic timing and brave, inventive physical
dexterity. Only those who savor a certain brand of timeless, blatant theatricality and impassioned stage
clowning need apply...the production will exploit the idea of a period play while enjoying the energy
and behavioral incongruities of modern day.
SEEKING:
Sir Anthony Absolute:
50s (or older). Hilariously pretentious, mood-swingy, patriarch of the play. He is given to intense reactions to almost any situation. Wonderfully gullible, yet quick to become outraged.
Captain Jack Absolute:
20s to 30s. He is a rakish, debonair leading man, both genuinely passionate yet highly manipulative. He is clever, resourceful, but sometimes reduced to a bundle of nerves. He must be some idea of handsome or at least dashing.
Faukland:
20s to 30s. He is snobby, petulant and ridiculously sincere – so much so that he is, of course, inadvertently funny. He is a man who is incapable of trusting and consumed with longing as a suitor. He is so full of feeling that he nearly explodes, and is, of course, a wreck as a result.
Acres:
30s – 40s. This is a take on the country bumpkin comes to the big city. He is wildly eager to please - nearly always behind the eight ball. The humor here is in his ludicrous efforts to fit in. This part could be some extreme physical type.
Fag:
Endlessly resourceful servant. Fag is the faux sophisticated “city” one. One of the characters that
guides the physical scheme of the entire show.
David:
Endlessly resourceful servant. David is the rustic, country one. One of the characters that
guides the physical scheme of the entire show.
Sir Lucius O'trigger:
At least 40. He is a fabulously belligerent Irishman; proudly displaying many of his national traits including an extreme temper and surprising sense of honor.
Lydia Languish:
20s. She is not really languishing. This feisty heroine has s strong-willed, stubborn nature combined with a wildly alluring appearance. She is prone, of course, to attacks of passionate romanticism due to her reading and she is ready to live those scenarios about which she has read.
Mrs. Malaprop:
At least in her 50s. Older is fine. A legendary, glorious starring character role. Mrs. M. mauls both language itself and any sort of rational feeling in her search for what she deems to be the way life should be lived. She is both wildly romantic and absurdly pretentious and dictatorial. There is a reason why this character has inspired a whole idea about misused language for centuries.
Julia Melville:
20s. She is Sir Anthony's ward and the most centered of the women. She has a noble spirit and is capable of real tenderness and candor. She shares many of the play's quick shifts of circumstances that cause even her level-headedness to disappear into confusion and outrage.
Lucy:
Could be 20s, 30s or 40s. She is the clever, wily, wise-beyond-years or station ladies' maid. A kind of spokesperson for many of the plays themes and as such needs an actor with real presence.
Videos
