CASTING OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOCAL YOUNG ACTORS IN
WAITING FOR GODOT OPPOSITE IAN McKELLEN AND PATRICK STEWART
As previously announced the Spring 2009 season at Milton Keynes Theatre features the amazing
new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, starring Ian McKellen and Patrick
Stewart.
The show plays Milton Keynes Theatre from Mon 16 – Sat 21 March, and on behalf of both
Theatre Royal Haymarket and Milton Keynes Theatre we are delighted to announce that as part
of the company’s and theatre’s commitment to involving young people we will be offering the
opportunity for two young individuals from the Milton Keynes area to take a featured role
alongside the cast of Waiting for Godot. Ian and Patrick are looking forward to working in
rehearsal with two boys at each venue on tour and we hope that this opportunity will provide
an invaluable learning experience for two young aspiring actors.
The Company are looking for two boys to play alternate performances and will be auditioning
for the parts in open auditions on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th December 2008 at Milton
Keynes Theatre. They will be playing the age of 10 years but the auditions will be open to boys
up to 15 years of any ethnicity.
Day One of auditions will be Open Auditions and Day Two will be recalls for successful
applicants from the first round. Every boy who is auditioning needs to be available for both of
the audition days, the dates of the performance in March and be on call for up to two weeks
before opening night.
For the successful boys rehearsals will take place the week before the production’s arrival at the
venue. They will be conducted by Paul Warwick-Griffin, the assistant director for the production.
Ian and Patrick will then rehearse with the boys on the Sunday afternoon before opening night
on the Monday.
All boys that are interested in auditioning need to get an audition pack from Milton Keynes
Theatre by emailing the following address nicolecollarbone@theambassadors.com. In this there
is a registration form which they need to fill in and return information about the audition and a
piece of dialogue which they need to prepare.
The open auditions will commence at 3pm with the last auditions being held at 7.30pm. Each
boy will audition in a group of up to 20 and it will last for half an hour. All boys and their parents
or guardians are warned that there could be long waiting times due to the numbers
auditioning.
Boys are allowed to turn up on the day if they haven’t registered though waiting times could be
longer.
For any queries please email nicolecollarbone@theambassadors.com
***ENDS***
Notes To Editor:
Waiting For Godot
Milton Keynes Theatre
Mon 16 – Sat 21 March
Mon – Sat eves 7.30pm
Wed & Sat mats 2.30pm
Tickets £26 - £38
Box Office 0870 060 6652 (bkg fee)
www.miltonkeynestheatre.com (bkg fee)
Waiting for Godot follows two consecutive days in the lives of tramps, Vladimir (Patrick Stewart)
and Estragon (Ian McKellen), who divert themselves by clowning around, joking and arguing,
while waiting expectantly and unsuccessfully for the mysterious Godot. Beckett's Waiting for
Godot exploded on to the London stage over 50 years ago when it shocked as many people as
it delighted.
Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, both renowned Shakespearean actors at Stratford-uponAvon, in the West End and on Broadway, first worked together in Tom Stoppard’s Every Good
Boy Deserves Favour for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977 and more recently in the XMen films, as Magneto and Professor X. Each of them has established their own iconic screen
persona, as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard.
Ian McKellen makes his Beckett debut as Estragon. He will play alongside Patrick Stewart
following their onscreen rivalry in the X-Men films. McKellen has previously collaborated with
Sean Mathias who has directed him as Uncle Vanya, the Captain in Dance of Death and as
Widow Twankey twice. Since he started acting in 1961, he has worked non-stop on stage and
screen. For the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Companies, McKellen has
produced and acted in plays old and new, most recently on the RSC’s world tour as King Lear.
He produced and wrote the screenplay for his Richard III and was nominated for an Oscar for
Gods and Monsters and for Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. He recently played in Coronation
Street and has just completed ITV’s remake of The Prisoner.
Patrick Stewart is currently playing Claudius/Ghost in Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare
Company in Stratford before transferring to the Novello Theatre later this year. Earlier this year
he won an Evening Standard Award, a Critics’ Circle Award, a TMA Theatre Award, a
Theatregoers’ Choice Award nomination, an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, a Laurence
Olivier Award nomination, and a Tony Award nomination for playing the title role in Rupert
Goold’s Chichester Festival Theatre production of Macbeth which subsequently transferred to
the West End and then Broadway. His many other appearances for the RSC include The
Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra both in Stratford and at the Novello Theatre. His other
London theatre credits include A Life in The Theatre and The Masterbuilder and in New York his
credits include Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Ride Down Mount Morgan and The
Tempest. Stewart performed his acclaimed, award winning one-man show, A Christmas Carol,
both in the West End and on Broadway. His many film and television credits include the X-Men
films, Moby Dick, King of Texas and King Lear, as well as his role as Jean-Luc Picard in the Star
Trek series. Stewart was made an OBE in 2001.
THE HAYMARKET THEATRE COMPANY
In a new initiative pioneered by the theatre’s producers, Arnold M. Crook and Nigel Everett, the
newly created Theatre Royal Haymarket Company presented their first season of work in
2007/08 under the direction of Jonathan Kent. The season comprised The Country Wife, The Sea
and Marguerite.
The historic Theatre Royal Haymarket, a Grade 1 listed building built in 1821 by John Nash, was
erected on The Haymarket a short distance from the original site which dates back to 1720.
More recently, in 1994, under the direction of Chairman Arnold M Crook and the Board of
Director’s, a £1.3 million investment saw a major overhaul and refurbishment of the theatre,
restoring the building to its original glory as well as the modernisation of facilities for both
theatregoers and theatre practitioners alike.
Website: www.waitingforgodottheplay.com