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Audition venue details
Name: Chrissie Garrett
Address: The Mill Arts Centre, Spiceball Park, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16 5QE
Contact Person: Chrissie Garrett
Contact Phone: 07557 023144
Contact Email: chrissiegarrett@btinternet.com
Who can attend?: Open
Information: Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker premiered at The Royal Court Theatre, London, 1988, and won the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year. It is a powerful play about real people and real events. It is a multi-layered piece based on the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally - which is itself a novel based on The Fatal Shore - and outlines the historical facts about the first transportees to arrive in Botany Bay in 1786. Our Country’s Good focusses on the rehearsing of the play The Recruiting Officer among the convicts and officers in a Botany Bay penal colony in the 1780s. There is a hierarchy. There are abusers and victims. Characters cross boundaries. It is sad and tender and painful. But, it is also a story of hope and redemption, and demonstrates that people can change. Barriers and stereotypes can fall away once people get to know each other. Director, Chrissie Garrett’s passion for the particular period of history and first-hand knowledge of the actual settlement will make for an absorbing creative experience. The production will also feature music of the period from a live band. There are 21 roles available - 16 male and 5 Female playing 11 officers and marines and 10 convicts. Doubling is possible. Captain Phillips and Major Ross are 40-60 years. All other character ages are flexible between 18 and 40 years. Click the link for details of available roles and audition pieces. This document is also available on the Our Country's Good page of the BCP website. Auditions will consist of reading extracts from the play. No preparation/learning of the script is required but it will be an ‘on your feet’ reading to familiarise auditionees with the play. Auditionees will be expected to show an ability to perform multiple characters, switching gender, accent, status and so forth. Flexibility and creativity are key. Rehearsals will generally be on Monday and Wednesday evenings plus some Sunday afternoons. Performances will be at The Mill Arts Centre, 21-23 March 2024 (7.30pm) and 23 March 2024 (2.30pm). You will need to be available 17-20 March 2024 for Technical and Dress rehearsals, times to be confirmed. You do not need to be a member to audition but will be required to join BCP if cast. Details of Membership options are available on the BCP website - https://banburycrossplayers.org.uk/get-involved-2023-2024/.
Our Country’s Good – Auditions
I will be attendingShow : Our Country’s Good
Show on: 21/03/2024 - 23/03/2024
Production Genre: Drama
Date | Time |
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Gender | Name | Playing Age | Role Type |
---|---|---|---|
Male | Captain Arthur Phillip - Retired/Calm and controlled leader,/shows an obvious patience and understanding /intellectual, understanding, and authoritative. Could double with John Wisehammer. | 50 | Large |
Male | John Wisehammer - Any age. Transported to Australia for stealing snuff, he continues to claim his innocence. He is Jewish . His large knowledge is self-taught He writes a new prologue to the play, In the end, Wisehammer wants to stay in Australia. | 30 | Medium |
Male | Major Robbie Ross - Any age. Power obsessed man, who intimidates the convicts and believes that the convicts' punishment should be severe. Could double with James "Ketch" Freeman | 30 | Medium |
Male | James "Ketch" Freeman - Any age. The Hangman hated by all | 30 | Small |
Male | Captain David Collins - Any age. Sees things from a legal perspective and approaches subjects logically and justifies all of his comments. Could Double with Robert Sideway | 30 | Medium |
Male | Robert Sideway - Any age. London pickpocket, severely punished on the transport ship for insulting an officer, Sideway tries to act as a cultured gentleman , his acting is completely over the top and one of the major sources of humour in the first rehearsal scene. | 30 | Medium |
Male | Captain Watkin Tench - Any age. The older better officer who dislikes all of the convicts for the simple fact that they are convicts. Whenever he has a comment to make about them, it is always a sarcastic aside. He does not believe in the redemption of the convicts, nor in the fact that they can be converted from their criminal ways. He regards all of the convicts as barbarians. could double as Caesar. | 30 | Large |
Male | Caesar - Any age. Originally from Madagascar, Caesar wants to join the play and gets the (silent) parts of Worthy's servant and Kite's drummer more or less written for him. Stage fright gets the better of him in the end and he is only made to perform after the most ludicrous threats from his fellow actors. | 30 | Medium |
Male | Captain Jemmy Campbell - Any age. A follower of Ross. He tends to copy Ross's views on everything. | 30 | Small |
Male | Midshipman Harry Brewer - Older than Duckling, the lowest of ranks, Midshipman Harry Brewer struggles and is. tormented by the apparent ghost of Handy Baker, a man who he had hanged, Since in Australia, he and convict Duckling Smith have been together. He is a very jealous man, and is always keeping a watchful eye on Duckling, much to her dismay. He dies, with Duckling at his side in despair. | 21 | Large |
Male | John Arscott - Any age. | 30 | Small |
Male | Reverend Richard Johnson – Any age. First clergyman in the Australian Penal Colony at Port Jackson. | 30 | Small |
Male | Lieutenant William Dawes - Any age. Astonomer. | 30 | Small |
Male | Lieutenant George Johnston - Any age. An officer most famed for his "compassion, if not to say passion" for the convict women. | 30 | Medium |
Male | Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark - Same age as Mary Brenham. Struggling as a lower officer. He desperately wants promotion, and when he hears through Harry Brewer that Arthur Phillip has suggested a play be put on by the convicts, he jumps to set about doing it. You see his transformation in the play as he turns from a man who is extremely nervous and uneasy around women, even ridiculed for not having a woman convict for himself on the voyage to Australia, to a man in love with the convict Mary Brenham. He is influenced, to changing his feelings towards the convicts, by Arthur Phillip. | 25 | Large |
Male | Second Lieutenant William Faddy - Any age. Opposes the play simply because he doesn't like Ralph. His dislike is never really explained, but all of his comments in his only scene are sarcastic snides or even insults directed at Ralph. | 30 | Medium |
Female | Mary Brenham - Same age as Ralph - Very shy girl, slightly naive in comparison to the people around her. She finally falls in love with Ralph and dreams of a future with him. | 27 | Medium |
Female | Liz Morden - Youngish. One of the strongest and for the soldiers, one of the most troublesome women. | 27 | Medium |
Female | Duckling Smith - 18 yrs old. Same age approx. as Harry , A young thief and prostitute, sentenced to death at only 18 years of age. Harry Brewer is hopelessly in love with her, a feeling that for a long time does not appear to be mutual. | 18 | Medium |
Female | Dabby Bryant - Mary's friend, older than mary who constantly dreams of returning to Devon. Although she did sell Mary for food on the ship, she obviously cares for her. Although she seems to enjoy the play, she thinks the content and especially her character, Rose, are stupid and argues for a play that is more relevant towards their current situation. In the final scene, she reveals that she has plans for escaping that night. | 31 | Large |
Female | Meg Long: Nicknamed "Shitty Meg" - Older she acts as a madam for the other women convicts. She has a short but humorous appearance in the audition, where she completely misunderstands Clark's call for women. | 38 | Medium |