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Audition Packet
The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Director: Anika Thompson
Anika Thompson has worked as a theater director and designer in Duluth for 10 years. Her directing credits include The Pillowman, Red, Marie Antoinette, and Eccentricities of a Nightingale. She is excited to work on this classic comedy at the Underground Theater.
Audition Information
AUDITIONS: Saturday, November 5th from 4:30-6:30pm CALLBACKS: TBD. ● Auditions will be held at the Playhouse Conservatory (230 West Superior St; entrance on 3rd^ Ave. West between Superior and Michigan St) If you cannot make these auditions contact Anika Thompson at antawrite@gmail.com to arrange another time. ● Read the Script. Available for checkout at Playhouse office ($5 deposit, 3 days) ● Bring a picture and resume. Sample picture resumes are available on our website ( duluthplayhouse.org/auditions ). ● The Duluth Playhouse and Underground auditions are open to all actors and actresses, including those who may be auditioning for the first time and professional or Equity actors and actresses. ● WHAT TO PREPARE: o Familiarize yourself with the language of Oscar Wilde o Come prepared to make strong character choices
Rehearsal and Performance Information:
Rehearsals begin April 10th – Rehearsal days and times will vary Performance Dates: May 18th-27th, Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 PM
The Importance of Being Earnest : Synopsis and Character Breakdown Synopsis Thought to be Wilde's best work, The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, is a hilarious and poignant satire of Victorian era social hypocrisy. A comedy of manners, Earnest is witty and smartly plotted. Filled with memorable characters; all centred on ‘Ernest’, the fabricated brother of Jack Worthing. In 1890's England, two young gentlemen use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities. Their exploits set off a series of unlikely events that has Jack and others caught up in a web of misunderstandings all the way to the end. It is a comedy of manners from start to finish. Character Breakdown: John "Jack" Worthing, Male, 25-35: is a seemingly responsible and respectable young man who leads a double life. At his country estate, Jack is known as Jack. In London he is known as Ernest. As a baby, Jack was discovered in a handbag in the cloakroom of Victoria Station by an old man who adopted him and subsequently made Jack guardian to his granddaughter, Cecily Cardew. Jack is in love with his best friend Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax. Algernon Moncrief , Male, 25- 35 : Algernon is a charming, idle, bachelor, nephew of Lady Bracknell, cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing. He is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral, and given to making delightful paradoxical and epigrammatic pronouncements. He’s a hedonist with an invented friend named ‘Bunbury’ whose status as a permanent invalid allows Algernon to wriggle out of unpleasant or dull social obligations. Gwendolyn Fairfax, Female, 18-30: Lady Bracknell's daughter, a model and arbiter of high fashion and society, Gwendolen is sophisticated, intellectual, cosmopolitan, and pretentious. She is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest. She appears self-centered and flighty, desiring nothing but to marry someone named Ernest. Cecily Cardew, Female, 18- 30 : Jack's ward, lives with him in the country, young and pretty. She has fallen in love with Jack's "brother" Ernest. Like Gwendolen, she is only interested in marrying a man named Ernest. Intriguing to Algernon, he pretends to be Jack's brother Ernest to gain her favor. Lady Bracknell, Female, 40- 65 : A dominating woman, the stately mother of Gwendolyn and determined she make a proper match. She is cunning, narrow-minded, and authoritarian. She blocks the two potential marriages in the play; not allowing Gwendolen to marry Jack when she finds out he is an orphan, and disliking Cecily for her nephew Algernon until she learns that Cecily is wealthy.Like her nephew, Lady Bracknell is given to making hilarious pronouncements, but where Algernon means to be witty, the humor in Lady Bracknell's speeches is unintentional. Miss Prism, Female, 35- 55 : Cecily's governess, obviously loves Rev. Chasuble, though the fact that he is a priest prohibits her from telling him so directly. Miss Prism is an endless source of pedantic platitudes and clichés. Despite her rigidity, Miss Prism has a softer side. She speaks of having once written a novel whose manuscript was "lost" or "abandoned". Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D., Male, 35- 55 : a rector who frequently visits Jack's country house to see Miss Prism, though he is celibate, he has more than a little interest in the well educated Miss Prism. Lane/Merriman, Male, 35-60: Lane is Algernon's butler who delivers a number of droll lines which show that he is far from a passive servant. Merriman is Jack's butler in the country.
