WAM THEATRE ANNOUNCES AUDITIONS FOR FALL PRODUCTION
Auditions to be held May 13 in Pittsfield
WAM Theatre is delighted to announce the Northeast Regional Premiere of Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson as its fall production. The production will run November 7-24 at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage at 36 Linden Street in Pittsfield.
Equity and non-Equity auditions for Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight will be held on Monday, May 13 from 4pm-9pm at the Barrington Stage Mainstage.
Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight had its world premiere in 2009 at South Coast Repertory Theatre. The play has been described as ‘fiercely inquisitive and joyfully sexy’ (The San Francisco Chronicle), ‘an evening of humor and heartbreak’ (BroadwayWorld) and as an ‘ambitious, highly theatrical romp that literally crackles with electricity’ (LA/OC Examiner).
Although today she is best known for her fifteen-year liaison with Voltaire, Emilie Du Chatelet (1706-1749) was more than a great man's mistress. She was one of the leading interpreters of modern physics in Europe, as well as a master of mathematics and linguistics, during the Age of Enlightenment. After marrying a marquis at the age of eighteen, she proceeded to fulfill the prescribed-and delightfully frivolous-role of a French noblewoman of her time. But she also challenged it, conducting a highly visible affair with a commoner, writing philosophical works, and translating Newton's Principia while pregnant by a younger lover. In this play Emilie must defend her life by tallying her achievements in Love and Philosophy—and searching for a formula that will convince the world of her worth.
Lauren Gunderson is an award-winning playwright living in San Francisco. She studied at Emory University and NYU's Tisch School of Performing Arts where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her work has been produced and developed at companies across the US including South Cost Rep
(Emilie, Silent Sky), The Kennedy Center (The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful And Her Dog!), Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks, Crowded Fire, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre, The Magic, Actors Express, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Second Stage, Playwrights Foundation, Impact Theatre, The Lark, and The O'Neill. Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight is published with Samual French. The first two plays in her Shakespeare Cycle, Exit, Pursued By A Bear and Toil and Trouble are now published by Playscripts. She is a Playwright in Residence at The Playwrights Foundation, and a proud Dramatists Guild member. Los Angeles Times calls Gunderson someone who ‘possesses an antic imagination that seeks to invent its own rules. As soon as we’re drawn in, she shakes and whisks us 10 or 15 paces ahead’.
Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight will be directed by Kristen van Ginhoven, WAM Theatre’s Artistic Director. For WAM Theatre, Kristen’s directing credits include: The Old Mezzo (World Premiere), The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls and Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play. She recently was a director for the 10x10 New Play Festival at Barrington Stage Company, where she also was assistant director for Sleuth andAbsurd Person Singular. Elsewhere as a director, Kristen has worked at the Stratford Festival of Canada, Capital Repertory Theatre, Majestic Theatre, Cohoes Music Hall, and Emerson College. Kristen is a participant of the 2013 Lincoln Center Director’s Lab.
More information about auditions below and at
www.WAMTheatre.com
Equity and non-Equity Auditions: Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends her Life Tonight
Date:
Monday, May 13, 2013
Location:
Barrington Stage Company Mainstage, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield, MA
Time:
4:00pm-9:00pm
How to Book an Audition:
Email photo and resume to Kelly Galvin, Assistant to the Artistic Director, at
Kelly@wamtheatre.com.
Audition Preparation:
Please prepare a monologue or short scene from the play for the audition. Script and side information will be emailed to those auditioning. Please bring picture/resume, stapled together to audition. A reader will be provided.
Character Descriptions:
Emilie du Châtelet – forty, dresses in no particular era, confident and curious
Voltaire (V)– fifty, dresses immaculately in 18th Century fashion, charming, boyish
Players:
Soubrette - A young woman, mid twenties, plays Emilie and others: Mary-Louise – simple and stupid, Daughter – direct and strong
Gentleman- A handsome man, thirties, plays Jean-François and others: Jean-François – young and doting, sincere, The Marquis – serious but warm, very formal, Maupertuis – sexy and academic, Marain – snide and proud
Madam – A slightly older woman, fifties, plays Mother and others: Mother – serious and wounded, Madam Graffigny – obnoxious and rich
About WAM Theatre:
WAM Theatre is a theatre company based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Capital Region of New York State. Inspired by the book ‘Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide’ by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, WAM Theatre was founded in 2009 by professional theatre artists Kristen van Ginhoven and Leigh Strimbeck. WAM’s philanthropic mission is two-fold; first, producing theatrical events for everyone, with a focus on women theatre artists and/or stories of women and girls; second, to donate a portion of the proceeds from those events to organizations that benefit women and girls. WAM has donated over $7000 to its beneficiaries by creating professional theatre for everyone that benefits women and girls.
www.wamtheatre.com
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