AUDITION PIECES FOR MEN
2012 Intake
ACTING COURSE
You must prepare two pieces from this section: one Shakespearean or Jacobean
piece; and one contemporary piece.
MUSIC THEATRE COURSES
BACHELOR OF ARTS & CERTIFICATE II
You must prepare any one piece from this selection in addition to the two songs.
FOOL FOR LOVE
by Sam Shepard
EDDIE
And we walked right through town. Past the donut shop, past the miniature golf
course, past the Chevron station. And he opened the bottle up and offered it to
me. Before he even took a drink, he offered it to me first. And I took it and
drank it and handed it back to him. And we just kept passing it back and forth
like that as we walked until we drank the whole thing dry. And we never said a
word the whole time. Then, finally, we reached this little white house with a red
awning, on the far side of town. I’ll never forget the red awning because it
flapped in the night breeze and the porch light made it glow. It was a hot,
desert breeze and the air smelled like new cut alfalfa. We walked right up to
the front porch and he rang the bell and I remember getting real nervous
because I wasn’t out for a expecting to visit anybody. I thought we were just out
for a walk. And then this woman comes to the door. This real pretty woman with
red hair. And she throws herself into his arms. And he starts crying. He just
breaks down right there in front of me. And she’s kissing him all over the face
and holding him real tight and he’s just crying like a baby. And then through the
doorway, behind them both. I see this girl.
She just appears. She’s just
standing there, staring at me and I’m staring back at her and we can’t take our
eyes off each other. It was like we knew each other from somewhere but we
couldn’t place where. But the second we saw each other, that very second, we
knew we’d never stop being in love.
BURIED CHILD
by Sam Shepard
TILDEN
I had a car once! I had a white car! I drove. I went everywhere. I went to the
mountains. I drove in the snow.
I drove all day long sometimes. Across the desert. Way out across the desert.
I drove past tiny towns. Anywhere. Past palm trees. Lightning. Anything. I
would drive through it. I would drive through it and I would stop and I would
look around and I would see things sometimes. I would see things I wasn’t
supposed to see. Like deer. Hawks. Owls. I would look them in the eye and
they would look back and I could tell I wasn’t supposed to be there by the way
they looked at me. So I’d drive on. I would get back in and drive! I loved to
drive. There was nothing I loved more. Nothing I dreamed of was better than
driving. I was independent.
DREAMS IN AN EMPTY CITY
By Stephen Sewell
Act III Scene 5
CHRIS
His whole body was trembling; the pupils of his eyes had almost disappeared,
There was a dry blade of grass in his hair. He was whispering. I put the gun
under his chin. I was breathing heavily, I was covered in sweat, but I felt clearer
than I’d ever done in my life. I put the gun under his chin. The sky was blue,
perfect, crystal. I’d never felt that kind of power before. I put the gun under his
chin. His eyes were trying to look at where my fingers were. I said to him – I
can still hear myself, I said to him ‘God loves you’…Then I blew his head off…I
went back to the village and sat…They brought me food. When night came,
they covered me. I sat there the rest of that day and the next…They brought
candles; they burnt incense in front of me…Other villagers came…They wanted
me to be a god. The Federal cop got me out. Another two days and I wouldn’t
have even been a corpse to bury…
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
by Arthur Miller
Act II
BIFF
No! Nobody’s hanging himself, Willy! I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my
hand today. And suddenly I stopped, you hear me? And in the middle of that
office building, do you hear this? I stopped in the middle of that building and I
saw – the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food
and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the
hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?
What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous begging fool of myself,
when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!
Why can’t I say that, Willy?
Pop! I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!
DANCING AT LUGHNASA
By Brian Friel
Act II
MICHAEL
And so, when I cast my mind back to that summer of 1936, different kinds of
memories offer themselves to me.
But there is one memory of that Lughnasa time that visits me most often; and
what fascinates me about that memory is that it owes nothing to fact. In that
memory atmosphere is more real than incident and everything is simultaneously
actual and illusory. In that memory, too, the air is nostalgic with the music of the
thirties. It drifts in from somewhere far away – a mirage of sound – a dream
music that is both heard and imagined; that seems to be both itself and its own
echo; a sound so alluring and so mesmeric that the afternoon is bewitched,
maybe haunted, by it.
And what is so strange about that memory is that
everybody seems to be floating on those sweet sounds, moving rhythmically,
languorously, in complete isolation; responding more to the mood of the music
than to its beat. When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes
half closed because to open them would break the spell.
Dancing as if
language had surrendered to movement – as if this ritual, this wordless
ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to
be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its
hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and
in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer
existed because words were no longer necessary...
SKYLIGHT
by David Hare
EDWARD
Well, that’s at least what I think.
The tea actually I would like the tea now. I’d like the tea to help me get through.
You don’t think I’m being obnoxious? I mean, it’s none of my business. If you
want you can send me away. I don’t really know the whole history. I mean,
between Dad and you. But Dad’s got very peculiar.
I am here for his sake as well.
It can get pretty strange I promise you. Silence at dinner, that kind of thing. We
moved to Wimbledon.
Well, that doesn’t help, the sense of all nature, trees and flowers, sort of
flapping around. He did it for Mum, to give her some peace at the end. But
now it just seems pointless and spooky.
You know Dad he’s not what you might call emotionally available.
But
also...let’s face it...well, I can be quite a shit. It was the night before last. It was
Sunday. We had the mother of all arguments. We had the most terrible row. I
suppose I left home.
There’s a girl who’s willing to take me in. She does frankfurters with me. So I
don’t know.
I don’t like the word “girlfriend”.
All that stuff’s finished.
Relationships. Permanence. It’s out of date, I think. I stayed there last night.
I’ll stay there tonight. She’s the only girl who’ll sleep with me. Because at least
we both smell the same ‘cause of the frankfurters.
There’s a whole list of things I could tell you. Dad can be a real bastard all right,
but you don’t have to live with it, I mean, I think in a way you’re so lucky, in this
kind of place. I’ve been trying to get him to talk about you. He gets really angry
and says it’s none of my business.
My mother died.
Not you.
You did
something else. You cut yourself off from us without saying anything. And I’m
coming to think that’s much worse.
IN OUR TOWN
by Jack Davis
DAVID
He was seventeen when he joined up. Put his age up, his name was Tim. A
sort of cousin. He was just a stray who came to live with us when he was about
thirteen or fourteen. We joined up together, [He laughs] and when we got our
orders to go overseas they had a send-off, sort of farewell party for all the
enlisted men from Northam. Anyway, Tim and I went along. There was a big
crowd, two hundred or more. The only bloke who came along and spoke to us
to wish us luck was the local pound keeper. Anyway we left, got a couple of
bottles and went home to the reserve and sort of had our own party. You know
the brass had some notion just because we were black we would make good
forward scouts. Anyway, like me, that’s what they made him.
A dangerous
job. He wasn’t cut out for the army. As a kid he was always scared...afraid of
the dark...his own shadow...physical violence...a real dreamer.
It was at Wewak. They sent him up ahead of the patrol. He came back and
reported a large concentration of Japs on the side of a hill, but the Lieutenant
wasn’t satisfied. So he sent him back again. He came back and reported the
Jap’s position again, even the number of Japs, and this bastard of an officer sent
him back for the third time. I offered to go, but they wouldn’t let me. I found him
the next day in the valley on the bank of a creek. He had managed to stuff his
field dressing into the wound in his chest, but it wasn’t enough.
[Silence]
The Japs. They were starving. [Silence] They stripped all the flesh off his legs,
his thighs. They cannibalised him. And I can’t help thinking if he had been
white it wouldn’t have happened.
THE GOOD FATHER
by Christian O’Reilly
Act I Scene 3
TIM
She looks at me and says, ‘Are you aware that you only have one testicle?’
Well, I nearly dropped, or I would have only she was holding me by the – and
obviously one of them hadn’t dropped, or somethin’. ‘You’re jokin’?’ I says.
She says, ‘Surely you must have noticed?’ But that was the thing. I always just
assumed I had two. Like I never bothered countin’ them. I thought, I dunno, I
thought maybe they were so close together they felt like one, or maybe when
one was down there, the other was off doing somethin’ else – like I dunno, I just
never thought about it. So she tells me then that I might have what they call an
‘undescended testes’, meanin’ that one dropped, but the other didn’t...She said
I’d have to get it checked out, cos if there was one still up there it would have to
be removed because, guess what – it could become cancerous.
So I go home, an’ I’m delighted, like, that I don’t already have cancer – cancer
of the missin’ ball, an’ I’m thinkin’ I’ve a great story for the lads if ever I had the
nerve to tell them, but all I’m thinkin’ is, ‘Am I fertile or not’?
Like I didn’t know until that moment just how much I wanted to be a father. It’s
stupid, but like I’d started imaginin’ it, what I’d be like, walkin’ around with a little
fella holdin’ me hand, teachin’ him how to cross the road, or a little girl and
holdin’ her up in the air – the way they look down at you, they’re so amazed to
be up high. And bein’ a good father like – encouragin’ your kids, givin’ them a
tenner if they’re stuck, askin’ them how they are, always knowin’ if somethin’
was up, bein’ there for them, bein’ there for them always, always...givin’ your life
for them, givin’ your life to them – fuckin’ hell, that’s the kind of person you want
to be to somebody, more of those kind of people, the kind of person I want to
be. Father I wanted to be.
HENRY VI PART 3
by William Shakespeare
Act V Scene 6
RICHARD
What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
See how my sword weeps for the poor King’s death,
O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house!
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither –
I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed ‘tis true that Henry told me of:
For I have often heard my mother say
I came into the world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
And seek their ruin that usurp’d our right?
The midwife wonder’d, and the women cried
‘o Jesu bless us, he is born with teeth!’
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shap’d my body so,
Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word ‘love’, which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me: I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keep’st me from the light,
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
As Edward shall be fearful of his life;
And then, to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death
King Henry and the Prince his son are gone;
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
Counting myself but bad till I be best.
I’ll throw thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom
HAMLET
by William Shakespeare
Act II Scene 1
HAMLET
O all you host of heaven ! O earth! What else ?
And shall I couple hell ? O,fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee !
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee !
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth an observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven !
O most pernicious woman !
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain !
My tables – meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:
It is ‘Adieu, adieu ! Remember me’.
I have sworn’t.
JULIUS CAESAR
by William Shakespeare
Act II Scene 13
BRUTUS
It must be by his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown'd:
How that might change his nature, there's the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that;—
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round.
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.
JULIUS CAESAR
By William Shakespeare
Act III Scene 2
ANTONY
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii:
Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.
O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.
MACBETH
by William Shakespeare
Act II Scene 44
MACBETH
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
MACBETH
By William Shakespeare
Act I Scene 2
SERGEANT
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald—
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him--from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name—
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.