PYGMALION – Submit Photo / Resume for NYC Appointments
Producer: JCG Arts (NYC) Equity Stage Reading; Small Stipend
Artistic Director: Jason Summers
Casting Director: Devon Caraway
Playwright: George Bernard Shaw
Performance Date: Sunday, 12/4/11, 7PM at a private residence on Park Ave & the upper 70s.
Rehearsal: Sunday, 12/4/11, from 10AM – 2PM at the performance space (Entire Cast). There will be additional rehearsals scheduled within 14 days of the reading, as we will be adhering to the Equity Stage Reading Guidelines. (
Auditions will be held in NYC by appointment only on Thursday, 11/3/11.
For consideration, please email Casting Director, Devon Caraway, at Indicate in the subject line: “Pygmalion” and the Role(s) you are submitting for.
Notes: Those asked to audition will be emailed sides. If you are auditioning for the roles of Henry Higgins, Mrs. Higgins, Colonel Pickering or Mrs. Eynsford-Hills, please prepare your sides in a Heightened R.P. dialect. If you are auditioning for Alfred Doolittle please prepare your sides in Cockney.
Seeking Equity and Non-Equity performers:
Henry Higgins:
(40s): Higgins is a professor of phonetics and is Eliza's Pygmalion; he transforms her Cockney into RP through the science of speech. Higgins is well bred and a bachelor. Shaw describes him as an “energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and other people, including their feelings. His manner varies from genial bullying to stormy petulance, but he is so entirely frank and voiced of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.” Henry sees Eliza merely a project that he's taken on in order to win.
Mrs. Higgins:
(over 60): Henry’s mother. Well bred and living in the realm of society. Shaw says she once “defied the fashion in her youth, but now is long past taking the trouble to dress out of the fashion.” She is constantly annoyed with her son and publicly points out his lack of manners. She is also very concerned for Eliza's future and demands that Henry and Pickering consider what is to be done with Eliza after their work together ends. She is 100% on Eliza's side in Act V. Despite her frustration with the men, she remains composed and polite in front of her guests.
Mrs. Eynsford-Hills:
(mid 40s - late 50s): Shaw describes her as “well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means.” She scolds her daughter, Clara, when she is being rude and outspoken, but she makes excuses for her telling Mrs. Higgins: “We are so poor. She gets to so few parties and doesn't quite know.” Mrs. Hills is considered old fashioned by the other characters as she is shocked by Eliza's 'new small talk' in Act III.
Colonel Pickering:
(elderly gentleman): Shaw describes him as “the amiable military type.” He is a student of Indian dialects and recently came from London to meet Higgins. He proposes the bet to Higgins; if Higgins can train Eliza in phonetics well enough to pass her off as a lady at the Ambassador's garden party, he will say Higgins is the best teacher around. Pickering, being wealthy, pays for Eliza's dresses and speech lessons. He also makes quite an impression on Eliza, calling her Miss Doolittle, offering her a chair, etc. so that in Act V Eliza compliments him: “I owe so much to you...it is from you that I’ve learnt really nice manners. And that is what makes one a lady, isn't it?”
Alfred Doolittle:
(mid 50s-60s) Eliza's father. Shaw describes him as “an elderly but vigorous dustman. He has well marked features and seems equally free from fear and conscious. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve.” He comes to Higgins’s house in Act II not because he is worried for Eliza’s welfare, but in order to touch Higgins for money. He refers to himself as “the undeserving poor” and says (“I never brought her (Eliza) up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap now and then.” In Act V, Alfred Doolittle arrives at Mrs. Higgins home in fashionable wedding attire. He complains that Higgins is responsible for his newly acquired middle class status, and he claims that ‘middle class morality’ has made him severely unhappy. Still, he says that he is ‘too intimidated’ to give his newly acquired riches away. Finally, Doolittle announces that he is about to be married to Eliza’s 6th stepmother, and he invites Eliza, Pickering and Mrs. Higgins to attend the wedding ceremony.
http://www.actorsequity.org/docs/codes/Stage_Reading_Guidelines.pdf)
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