Auditions:
Sunday, February 8 at 7:00pm and Monday, February 9 at 7:00pm
Details: The director will provide sides from the play for auditioners to use in cold readings. Auditioners need not prepare a monologue. Even though all actors will sing a cappella during the show, there will not be a vocal audition. All actors should be comfortable singing on stage. Auditioners are not required to attend both nights of auditions, but they may do so if they choose. Actors will not use accents.
Rehearsals will generally be scheduled Sunday through Thursday evenings starting at 6:30 or 7:00 and ending before 9:00. Rehearsals may run longer during the last two weeks before we open. Because all four actors are onstage for most of the play, almost all rehearsals will be all-calls. For the same reason, please be absolutely certain of your conflicts before you come to auditions and report them on your audition form.
SYNOPSIS (from the script): Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie-Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It's a true story—or a total fiction—or a play within a play—or a raucous resurrection . . . that ends in a song and a scaffold.
CHARACTERS: This play features four women, so any female-identifying actor is welcome to audition. I enthusiastically encourage actors of any race/ethnicity to audition for roles except Marianne, who must be played by a black actor. Three characters—Olympe, Charlotte, and Marie-Antoinette—were actual historical figures. The fourth, Marianne, is a composite inspired by several historical women including Suzanne Simone Louverture, the first lady of Haiti. The following character descriptions—mostly excerpted from the script—therefore include not only the actual age of each historical woman but also a broader age range that I will consider. The script requires two limitations: Charlotte must be young enough to contemplate marrying and having children, and the other three characters must play older than Charlotte.
OLYMPE DE GOUGES – (Female-identifying, historically 38 years old; will consider actors reading 20 to 60). Badass activist playwright and feminist. Theatre nerd, excitable, passionate, a showman. Widowed and never remarried to ensure her personal freedom.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY – (Female-identifying, historically 25 years old; will consider actors reading 16 to 40). Badass country girl and assassin. Very serious, hardened by righteousness, never been kissed. Has a pocket watch she keeps checking. Also plays Fraternité in a mask.
MARIE-ANTOINETTE – (Female-identifying, historically 38 years old; will consider actors reading 20 to 50). Less badass but fascinating former queen of France. Bubbly, graceful, opinionated, totally unaware, unintentionally rude, and oddly prescient. Never had a real friend. Also plays Fraternité in a mask.
MARIANNE ANGELLE – (Female-identifying; will consider actors reading 20 to 60). Ethnicity: Black. A badass Black woman in Paris. She is from the Caribbean, a free woman, a spy working with her husband, Vincent. Tough, classy, vigilant, the sanest one of them all.
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