Interested in being on stage or working backstage?
You do not need to audition for a BA in Theatre. You do need to audition for the Musical Theatre concentration.
Auditions
ETSU THEATRE AND DANCE SPRING 2025 SEMESTER AUDITIONS
Students may access both scripts here.
AUDITION DAY 1
Wednesday, January 22 , Bach Theatre, Martin Center for the Arts
6:30 pm - Check-In
7:00 pm - Auditions Begin
If you are interested in a singing part, you will have 90 seconds for your audition.
If you are not interested in a singing part, you will have 60 seconds for your audition.
Audition Day 1 Notes:
Students may divide their audition time however they'd like. Examples include:
25 seconds song 1, 30 seconds Shakespearean monologue, 25 seconds song 2.
30 seconds contemporary monologue, 25 seconds Shakespearean monologue.
55 seconds Shakespearean monologue.
Monologue Information:
To be considered for a role in The Tempest, please prepare a Shakespearean monologue
(monologue from The Tempest preferred - please see below for details).
You do not need to present a contemporary monologue to be considered for a role in
The Wolves.
Song Information:
The Tempest: excerpt from a Celtic song preferred (song information detailed below
and attached; selecting one of these songs is preferred).
Sondheim: excerpt from a Sondheim production number preferred.
AUDITION DAY 2
Thursday, January 23, Bach Theatre, Martin Center for the Arts
6:30 pm - Check-In
7:00 pm - Auditions Begin
Audition Day 2 Notes:
Please dress in comfortable clothing for moving and dancing. Bare or socked feet are not permitted.
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm A dance combination from The Tempest will be taught. Character shoes or jazz shoes preferred.
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm Soccer drills from The Wolves will be taught. Sneakers preferred.
CALLBACKS
Students will be emailed by NOON on Friday, January 24 with callback lists.
Friday, January 24 The Wolves 7:00 pm Bach Theatre, Martin Center for the Arts. Dress for movement, wear sneakers. Callback will include soccer training and cold readings from the script.
Monday, January 27 The Tempest, 7:00 pm, Bach Theatre, Martin Center for the Arts. Call back will include cold readings from the script.
Tuesday, January 28 Sondheim, 7:00 pm, Bach Theatre, Martin Center for the Arts. Call back will include learning and performing Sondheim production numbers.
NOTES from the DIRECTORS:
The Wolves
The Wolves is a work of physical theatre, unlike any other play I have encountered. The performers need to have genuine soccer technique, which will require extensive foundational training. They will also need to have their lines down early, so they can quite literally be practicing soccer while speaking their lines. They need strong cardio endurance so they can be running and playing while delivering their lines with ease. This will require a sincere commitment to this production, as the rehearsal period is short. Performers will be required to attend the following training sessions at Johnson City Indoor Soccer:
Friday, January 31 8:15 am – 10 am
Monday, February 3 8:15 am – 10 am
Tuesday, February 4 8:15 am – 9:45 am
The Tempest
Memorize and perform one of the following monologues at auditions. Your choice. Be prepared to sing one of the following songs at auditions. Again, your choice.
CALIBAN
All the infections that the sun sucks up from bogs, fens, flats, on Prospero fall and make her by inchmeal a disease! Her piskies may hear me, and yet I needs must curse. But for every trifle they are set upon me, sometimes like apes that shriek and chatter at me and then bite me. Then like hedgehogs, which lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount their pricks at my footfall. Sometimes I am all wound with adders, who with cloven tongues do hiss me into madness. (Seeing Trinculo) Lo! Here comes a sprite of hers to torment me for bringing wood in slowly. I’ll fall flat. Perchance she will not notice me. (He lies down and covers himself with a cloth.) (Enter the Jester, Trinculo)
CALIBAN
This island was mine, left to me by Sycorax, my mother, which thou tak’st from me. When thou first came here, thou made much of me, wouldst give me water with berries in it, and teach me how to name the bigger light and how the less, that burn by day and night. And then, I loved thee, and showed thee all the qualities of the Isle of Scilly, her fresh springs, brine pits, and both the barren and fertile places. Cursed be I that did so! For here you force me to stay on this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me the rest of the island.
Sycorax is pronounced Sick or Rax. Scilly is pronounced Silly.
KING ALONSO
O, it is monstrous, monstrous! Methought the clouds spoke and told me of it; the winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, that deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced the name of Prospero. It did sing about my crimes. Because of them, my son in the ooze is bedded, and I’ll join him deeper than any anchor sounded, and with him there lie mudded. (King Alonso exits)
TRINCULO
(Noticing Caliban) What have we here, a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish, he smells like a fish—a very ancient and fishlike smell. A strange fish. If I were in Aremorio now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, many a fool there would give us a piece of silver. There, would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a penny to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead anything. (Studies Caliban) Legged like a man, and his fins like arms! Warm, to my touch! This is no fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. (Sound of Thunder) Thunder! Alas, the storm is come again. My best way is to creep under his gaberdine. There is no other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints us with strange bedfellows.
Aremorio is pronounced Are More’ Ree Oh
ARIEL (As a Harpy) (To King Alonso, Antonia and Sebastian)
You are three sinners, whom Destiny hath caused to belch you up, and on this island, where humans do not inhabit. You amongst all others being most unfit to live. I will make you go mad. (King Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonia draw their weapons) You fools! I and my kind are ministers of fate. The elements of whom your swords are tempered will not work against us. But remember! For that’s my business to you, that you three from Vannes did supplant good Prospero, and her innocent child. For this foul deed, the powers—delaying, not forgetting—have incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, against your peace. Thy son, King Alonso, they have taken; and do pronounce by me lingering perdition, shall step by step attend you and your ways. Only penitence for your sins against Prospero can save you.
(Vannes is pronounced Van)
PROSPERO
(to Ferdinand) You do look, my son, as if something is bothering you. Worry not. Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all magical, and are melted into thin air. And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed. If you be pleased, retire into my cell and there repose. A turn or two I’ll walk, to still my beating mind.
PROSPERO
Ye Fae folk of the hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, and you, demi-puppets that by moonshine do make mushrumps, and then rejoice to see the mortals entering the fairy ring. By your aid I have dimmed the noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, and ’twixt the green sea and the azured sky set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder have I given fire, and burned Jove’s stout oak with his own bolt. The strong-based promontory have I made shake. Graves at my command have I opened, waked their sleepers, and let them sally forth by my potent art. I now need thy aid! Bring forth heavenly music, which I must have to work mine airy charm upon their senses
PROSPERO
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child and here was left by the sailors. Thou, my servant, as thou report’st thyself, was then her slave, and being a spirit too delicate to act her earthy and abhorred commands, she did confine thee, into a cloven pine. Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain a dozen years; within which space of time she died, and left thee there. Thou best know’st what torment I did find thee in. Thy groans did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts of ever-angry bears. It was a horrible torment. When I arrived and heard thee, it was my magical arts that let thee out.
MIRANDA
I do not know one of my sex, no young woman’s face can I remember, save, from my glass, mine own. Nor have I seen any good men, besides you. I have no idea what people look like in other places. But I swear by my modesty, which I value above all else, that I would not want any companion in the world but you. Nor can I imagine anyone else but you. But I prattle something too wildly, and my mother has often told me that this is not a good quality to have.
SONGS Choose one of the following:
1. SONG
The Drunken Scotsman
Oh, a Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fair
and one could tell by how he walked he'd drunk more than his share
he fumbled 'round until he could no longer keep his feet
and he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
CHORUS
ring ding diddle dliddle add E O
ring ding diddily I Oh
and he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Well about that time two young and lovely lassies passed him by
and one looked to the other with a twinkle in her eye
"Do you see yon sleepin' Scotsman so strong and handsome built?
Well I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilt"
CHORUS
ring ding diddle dliddle add E O
ring ding diddily I Oh
Well I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilt"
THIS IS ON YOU TUBE:
2. Song:
The Parting Glass
Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And of all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me
For all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
THIS IS ON YOUTUBE:
3. THE CUP SONG
Coming out of Intermission, the Piskies enter and perform the Cup Song in Gaelic
HERE IT IS IN ENGLISH. ENGLISH IS GOOD FOR THE AUDITION
WHEN I’M GONE (IN ENGLISH)
I got my ticket for the long way 'round
Two bottles o' whiskey for the way
And I sure would like some sweet company
And I'm leavin' tomorrow, what do you say?
… When I'm gone
When I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my hair
You're gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
When I'm gone
When I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my walk
You're gonna miss me by my talk, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
THIS IS ON YOUTUBE IN ENGLISH
When I'm gone (in Gaelic)
(Coming out of Intermission, the Piskies enter and perform the Cup Song in Gaelic)
Tá an ticéad a'am don bhealach fada
Dhá bhuidéal uisce don thuras
Is ba bhreá liom cara a bheith in éindí liom
Mé ag fágáil amárach, mbeidh tú liom?
Nuair 'tá mé imithe
Nuair 'tá mé imithe
Aireoidh tú uait mé 's gan mé ann
Aireoidh tú uait mé 's mo aoibh
Aireoidh tú uait mé 'chuile thaobh
Ó, aireoidh tú uait mé 's gan mé ann
Tá an ticéad 'am don bhealach fada
Tá an saol mór ag fanacht liom
Measc na sléibhte, taobh na habhann
Ait a bhíonn an t-aer breá úr
Beidh sé i bhfad níos fearr leat a stóir
Nuair 'tá mé imithe
Nuair 'tá mé imithe
Aireoidh tú uait mé 's gan mé ann
Aireoidh tú uait mé 's me ag caint
Aireoidh tú uait mé 's mé ag seinnt
Ó, aireoidh tú uait mé 's gan mé ann
WATCH THIS VIDEO!
THIS IS ON YOUTUBE IN GAELIC
THE TEMPEST – SCENES to be READ
1. Boatswain (Iris), Gonzalo, Sebastian. Master Mariner (Ceres)
Top of Play Act I Scene 1
2. Ariel and Prospero
Act I Scene 2. Begin with “Ariel thy charge exactly is performed”
To “Do so and after two days, I will discharge thee”
3. Sebastian, Antonia
Act II, Scene 1 . Begin, “Why doth it not our eyelids sink?” to “do you the like to fall it on Gonzalo”
4. Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo
Act II Scene 2. Begin with “This is some monster of the isle with four legs”
To “Thou art made like a goose”
5. Miranda and Ferdinand
Act III Scene 1 “This my mean task” to “A thousand, thousand goodbyes to you.”
6. Prospero and Ariel
Act V, Scene 1. Begin with “Say my spirit…” to “Ariel thou shalt be free!”
Production Technician, Assistant, or Designer
If you are interested in working as a production technician, assistant, designer, or any aspect of management, contact Zach Olsen (olsenz@etsu.edu) for more information!