Fall Play Auditions — The Experience

“During the auditions, everyone already knows the scene before hand,” said actress Mary Shay McWeeney ‘15. “When you first go in, you get to choose who you audition with and try to make the scene as natural as possible.”

This year’s auditions involved a “morning scene”, in which actors played members of two different families that were causally interacting. Auditioners do their best to make the make the show come alive.

  

Standing up in front of anyone to sing, dance, and act can be a daunting task. Doing it well enough to get a part in this year’s SHC production of “Our Town” can be downright terrifying.

“It’s always scary even if you know Ms.TK but it is also fun at the same time,”  said actor Nick Lazar ‘16, who earned the role of Joe Crowell during last week’s auditions.

Year after year, the SHC Drama Club stages productions with dozens of actors and performers. The shows require many late nights and countless hours of hard work from both the actors and the crew. The process begins with students demonstrating their acting capabilities to production director Francine Torres-Kelly during the auditions.

During the recent orientation for parents with students in the play, Ms. Torres-Kelly explained that she does not pick performers based solely on talent. Rather, she looks for the most prepared and organized students. These students, she said, will work the hardest and scene imitate everyday life.

“The play is about life and death. When your life is taken away from you, you go back and look back on what you did in the past, wishing you had appreciated what you had in your life more,” McWeeney said. Actors were tasked with expressing this feeling in the audition scene.

Performers remained optimistic throughout auditions. “The thing about theater is that it doesn’t matter what part you are during your audition just as long as you’re in it,” Lazar said.

Following auditions, the actors felt relieved, but still nervous about whether or not they made the cut.

David Katz ‘15, who will be playing a stage manager in Act three of the production, expressed that he always feels good after an audition if he thinks he did well. “Then I anticipate what role I might get.”

Though the play was cast and some actors received different parts than the ones they initially wanted, they still felt like a part of the community and an important part of the production.

Evonji Summer-Luaulu, who will play “a man in the audience”, noted the importance of this mindset: “It is good to stay confident and accept any role.”

“Our Town,” will premiere Saturday, November 15th.