Swear words are used constantly in 'The Audition' and it is important to keep them in in some instances, however, having these limits the people who can come to see the play.
Even without swear words in, I will put a disclaimer out that the play is not recommended for under 14s. The play contains sexual references, drug references and more things that would be inappropriate for younger students.
The only swear I will remove is when Stella and Lauren are discussing men and Lauren says that all of them except her father are c**ts. The word makes I for one, and many other people uncomfortable and is unnecessary I believe. I've found a way to easily cut the line out and still have the scene make sense.
Another script issue I have come across is the scene in which Stella and Lauren kiss. I think this is a vital moment as it is full of tension and of course, is forcing Lauren to feel a new emotion of Lust, and soon after, Embarrassment.
Lizzy has no issue with kissing another girl, however, if the girl who plays Lauren has a moral reason or is uncomfortable this will bring up some problems. I will try very hard to encourage the actresses but if it is a resounding no, I will change the scene slightly so Lauren is feeling the emotion of Lust and is going forward to kiss Stella then stops, inches from her lips and skips straight to the line 'S...s...sorry, I'm... I'm sorry about that'.
'The Audition' has two female characters:
Stella: A fearsome and sadistic director who embarks on a campaign to push Lauren to her limits both psychologically and physically.
Lauren: A young, ambitious actress desperate to impress with her modern day rendition of Ophelia.
The basic plot of the play follows Stella manipulating Lauren into any character that she sees fit and Lauren giving herself willingly, an example of society's increasing need for 'fifteen minutes of fame' in this pop culture and reality TV-obsessed era. Stella and Lauren take turns vying for control in the master and subservient dance that is all too familiar in theatre and film. Along the way there are drugs, sexual abuse and a game of Russian roulette.
I wanted to put on a play with a cast of 10 or less. This is because I will be doing most of the work over the Summer holidays and it is likely that people will be abroad or busy and it will be hard to get the whole cast together to rehearse. 'The Audition' is a dark play in some senses therefore I plan to cast people between year 11 and year 13.
While reading through the play I kept reading Stella's line in the voice of a girl in my AS Drama class, Lizzy. Lizzy is a fantastic actress and is particularly good in psychopathic, evil and satirical characters so I thought she would be absolutely perfect for the part. After showing her the script and explaining my ideas she was very interested and agreed to playing the part of Stella.
The role of Lauren will be harder to cast: as said by Stella in the script, the character has to express emotions of '...Isolation, Elation, Paranoia, Embarrassment, Confusion, Excitement, Lust, Honesty, Anger, Sympathy Regret, Obsession'. I plan to advertise the production around the school and hold an audition for 15-19 year olds, however, in my audition I don't plan to offer my auditionees drugs or play Russian Roulette with them!
The set described at the beginning of the play is a naturalistic audition room set with table and chair, a chalk board and a door. I plan to have the set remain simple as the most important element to this play is the words spoken.
There are several types of stages I could use, including: traverse, in-the-round and proscenium.
Proscenium stages work well for audience sightlines and work is easy to block but the audience feel very removed from the action and I feel the audience feeling like they are in the scene is important in this production.
In-The-Round stages create an intimate and exciting atmosphere: it also adds to the fact that Lauren feels like she can't leave the room after a while. However it is hard to make entrances and exits on an in-the-round stage and sight lines are an issue.
I feel that the most effective stage for this play would be a traverse stage. The play is very intense and scenes of confrontation seem the most real on a traverse stage. Traverse stages work well with sets of minimal props which my set will have. The table and chair will be at one end of the stage and the blackboard at the other as these are the only two large props and are not in the way of audience sightlines.
My name is Izzy Watkins and I am using this blogger page to present my journey in directing a play. When deciding upon what to do for my EPQ I knew I wanted to do something theatre or musical based- being a music and drama AS student.
As I plan to study musical theatre at University, my first thoughts were to direct a musical however I came across issues before even beginning: my school is small with predominantly girls, only having boys from the ages of 11 to 13. Due to this I began looking up musicals with all-female casts. I came across the website 'stagescripts' where hundreds of play synopsis' and scripts were on show. I was spoilt for choice and the idea of a musical was thrown out the window when I found a play called 'The Audition' by James Johnson.
'The Audition' drew me in straight away with it's synopsis:
Lauren is
like most wannabe actresses - she wants to be famous, and to be famous you have to suffer the audition process.So when she attends an audition for a 'must-have', career-building part, little does she know that the Director, Stella, has very strong views about how an audition should be conducted; about how the person auditioning should be tested and what should and should not be said. Stella is about to push Lauren to her mental, physical, emotional and ethical limits. Each of her auditions lasts for a complete day, and they are very much one to one.Close to her breaking point, Lauren is subjected to alcohol, drugs and mind games as part of the audition process, all so that Stella can find out the answer to one question. How far will an actress go to get the part?
So, now begins the next few months of: casting a Lauren and a Stella; finding a location in which to perform the play; creating sets; selling tickets and so much more. I'm feeling very excited for this project as i've never had the opportunity to direct before and the play is magnificent.
