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Audition glory this week, both the ones we won and the ones that got away. We share tales of auditions that went spectacularly well and gloriously bad, and talk about how to shake it off, survive in the room, and live to audition another day. Featuring disasters, success stories, a special appearance by Conor Lastowka from the Citation Needed Podcast and Rifftrax.com, and secrets to putting your best foot forward. (Length 25:54)
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Richard Schoch discusses Shakespeare’s House: A Window Onto His Life and Legacy, his wonderful new history of not only the building in Stratford-upon-Avon that William Shakespeare was born in, but how that building survived and became ground zero in the Shakespeare tourism industry. Schoch reveals how he discovered the dual focus of his book; how it took almost 200 years for people to realize the treasure that still stood in their midst; the shenanigans played by people who first depicted Shakespeare’s birthplace; the important distinctions between restoring a house and remaking it; the trick of hitting that sweet spot between writing an academic history and a popular one; and how the most important person in Shakespeare’s birthplace is not Shakespeare but the visitor. (Length 18:52)
Joel H. Morris discusses his debut novel All Our Yesterdays – no, not the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Original Series – which tells the compellingly plausible story of the events that lead up to William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Morris reveals his multiple inspirations, both literary and personal; how investigations into the actual historical couple Shakespeare based his play on informed his novel; the ways in which writing is a process of discovery; how he balanced the political and the personal, the natural and supernatural; how he summoned the courage to explore one of literature's most famous characters; and the wonderful inability to let go of characters that won’t let you go. (Length 22:56)
What's Shakespeare's best speech? That question gets answered on this epic episode by director Nate Cohen and actor/educators Elizabeth Dennehy and Gregory Linington, who agonize over every match-up in this Sweet 16 selection of soliloquies and monologues. Highlights include remorse over the many speeches that didn't make the tournament; the differences between speeches and soliloquies; how Juliet is the female Hamlet; origins of the phrase “rolling thunder;” the unsurprising dominance of fulcrum speeches; a brief “Rap Othello” interlude; and most importantly, how a full March Madness field of 64 would have included many many more of your favorite Shakespeare monologues. (Length 1:22:47)
2 Comments
austin · April 24, 2012 at 11:58 am
Excellent moral. Thanks for sharing!
Kalin Jordan · April 24, 2012 at 11:52 am
A few summers ago I was auditioning for a really awful show about the environment. The show would travel to various elementary schools and we would sing, dance, and show them all how to recycle. O, yes, and we would all be playing cows. I had not prepared well for the audition, and a few days before I had contracted pink eye – a whole other story. As I drove to the audition, my car broke down. I had to call the director and push back my time. My mom picked me up and drove me, forty minutes to this audition. I looked in the mirror before walking in, one of my eyes was swollen shut completely and the other would just open enough for me to see. I went in as confident as I could. The director was very nice, but I could tell that he was shocked by my appearance. I assured him that I was on my way to the dr. after this and I’d be fine in a week. I proceeded to sing, “Good Morning Baltimore”. Trying to maneuver on the stage with only one good eye was pretty damn difficult. I tripped a few times on various props that were lying on the stage. I then had to recite a monologue from the show, which I butchered. Before I could even get to the second paragraph the director interrupted me “Thank you. We will be in touch.” The kiss of death for any actor. Needless to say I did not get into that show, but an audition I had go on the week before – pre pink eye, I did get. Moral of the story – if you have pink eye, just stay home.