Audition Notes and Pieces for Taming of the Shrew

In this audition we want to know if you can:

1. Perform Shakespeare's verse or prose in the required accent (Standard American, Western or Southern)
2. Inject personality into a character - show us changes of thought and make it interesting.
3. Move around the space and interact physically with your fellow actors

We'll be playing it BIG and engaging the audience: if alone on stage you talk to them, not yourself.
To get ideas for voices you may find it useful to listen to American cartoon series like The Simpsons, Family Guy.

We will ask each auditionee to perform a short speech from Shakespeare, in an American accent.

• You can read it, but you'll probably perform it better if you learn it.
• About 10-15 lines: If you take longer than 1 minute we will cut you off.
• The speech can be your choice from any Shakespeare play,
  but there are some suggestions at the end of this page.
• These speeches will NOT be used to audition you for a particular part;
  e.g. if you'd like to play Bianca, you don't need to look for a speech by Bianca - or even by a girl!
• We will videotape your speech so we can enjoy it more than once!

You can find the text of the play at  http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming_shrew/
Note that we are not including the Induction scenes in this production.

We will also be doing some improvisation around scenes and situations from the story: again American accents are required.
One of these will be around the start of Act 4 Scene 5:

PETRUCHIO Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
KATHARINA The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.
PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
KATHARINA I know it is the sun that shines so bright.
PETRUCHIO Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father's house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!
KATHARINA Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon.
KATHARINA I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.
KATHARINA Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.

Some suggested speeches

Act 4, Scene 1

Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how
miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed, that never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I
lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion and thou return unexperienced to thy grave.

 In prose, and funny. Be fast but relive the story.

Act 1, Scene 2

Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,
I will continue that I broach'd in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough and young and beauteous,
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:
Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
Is that she is intolerable curst
And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

Show us the change of moods in this one; e.g conspirational > persuasive > indignant

 Act 1, Scene 1

O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness:
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

This lovesick puppy is embarrasing Tranio 

 Act 4, Scene 3

The more my wrong, the more his spite appears:
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars, that come unto my father's door,
Upon entreaty have a present alms;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity:
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,
With oath kept waking and with brawling fed:
And that which spites me more than all these wants,
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,
'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.

Distressed, indignant, baffled. Find the comedy. 

Act 1, Scene 2

Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

Bombastic, assertive, persuade these guys you're the man for this task. 

Act 2, Scene 1

Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain: but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

Frightened, yes, but also annoying.