AUDITIONS - Spring Main Stage

Audition Dates:
General Audition: WE 1/18 and TH 1/19 6:00 – 10:00PM
Callbacks: FR 1/19 6:00-10:00

*auditions will be held on the Fir Acres Theatre Main Stage

Performance Dates:
FR 3/3, SA 3/4 7:30PM
SU 3/5 2PM
TH 3/9, FR 3/10, SA 3/11 7:30PM

How to Audition and What to Prepare:
Sign up for an audition slot on the theatre callboard in the lobby in the Fir Acres Theatre.

You’ll be asked to:

• read a short excerpt from the play - monologue and/or a scene (sides will be available before the actual audition)
• sing a song (any song, it doesn’t matter, and it can be sung well or badly, that doesn’t matter either)
• do some outrageous improvisation (I’ll come up with some scenarios)

Script availability:
There are several copies of the play in the Theatre Office; you can check them out for a three-hour period. I recommend, but not require, that you read the play before auditioning, so that you know what you’re potentially getting yourselves into.

Play description (sort of):
Moliere’s last play, the outrageously funny farce The Imaginary Invalid, tells the story of the rich and really unbelievably stupid hypochondriac Argan, who wants his daughter to marry a doctor so he can save on his medical bills. But she’s in love with someone else. Argan’s foolish and unshakable devotion to medicine is out of control, and it is up to Toinette, the family’s clever and perky servant, to set the household straight again. Much madness ensues… Our production, based on Constance Congdon’s adaptation of the play, will feature music, song, and dance, drag-inspired costumes, wigs and makeup, pillow fights, one-thousand ping-pong balls, edible scenery, and who knows what other unspeakable acts of insanity … It’s a mad mad world!!!

BRIEF CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

ARGAN, an imaginary invalid:  A mixture of Hugh Hefner, Donald Trump, and a slobbering ancient would-be tyrant. An unsufferable crybaby, needy as hell, and really, but I mean really stupid. Wears a toupee and is exuberantly flatulent.

BELINE, ARGAN’s second wife: Sort of a Melania or Ivana Trump mixed with a fairytale evil stepmother. On her seventh facelift, a cunning, scheming gold digger. A very nice person indeed.

ANGELIQUE, ARGAN’s daughter: A sweet thing. Naïve, young, and in love with Cleante. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but sincere. Seems to misunderstand the word “intercourse,” and uses it inappropriately.

CLEANTE, in love with ANGELIQUE: So so very much in love with Angelique! A man of many disguises, and the most tragic and romantic lover of all times. Sharp dresser, but a very bad singer.

DOCTOR PURGEON, ARGAN’s physician: Pompous ass. Also a schemer, in it for the money, and as far as his abilities as a doctor, I really wouldn’t want him to lay his hands on me under any circumstances. I’d rather go to a homeopath.

CLAUDE DE ARIA, PURGEON’s nephew, suitor to ANGELIQUE: An aspiring doctor. Knows nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing. Compared to him, everybody else in the cast is a genius. and a Nobel Prize candidate. Possesses an uncanny ability to squawk like a chicken, and does so often. I don’t know why and neither does he, apparently.

MONSIEUR FLEURANT, an Apothecary: A pompous ass but really quite sentimental, and easily offended. A legendary mixologist of the best enemas money can buy, and very proprietary of his concoctions.

MONSIEUR DE BENNEFOI, a notary: A very efficient and business-like bureaucrat, but I think he’s really a crook and is in cahoots with Beline, Argan’s gold digger second wife. Kind of slimy, shifty character.

TONIETTE, maid-servant to ARGAN: Really the star of the show. Witty, perky, quick, honest, takes no shit from anyone, and really doesn’t suffer fools. The only sane person in this whole human zoo that the play is putting on display.

Questions:
If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Šimek at simek@lclark.edu