AUDITIONS FOR “A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE” BY TENNESEE WILLIAMS
After losing her Mississippi home to creditors, Blanche DuBois relocates to the New Orleans home of her younger sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. Undermined by romantic illusions, Blanche is unable to cope with life’s harsh realities. Though she finds a glimmer of hope while connecting with Stanley’s gentlemanly friend, Mitch, Blanche cannot face the truth of her own troubled past and ultimately descends into madness.
In Blanche and Stanley, Tennessee Williams created two of the stage’s truly great characters. Blanche faces alcoholism, faded beauty, and lost status; she tries to cover up past scandals both as a teacher and in her marriage, all while desperately trying to keep up the appearance and her own delusion that she’s still attractive to men. Stanley, meanwhile, is a primal force, all emotion, passionate, and abusive. The conflict between Stanley and Blanche is inevitable.
AUDITION INFORMATION
Show Dates: 1/22-1/24, 1/29-1/31, & 2/5-2/7
Audition Dates: 11/2 or 11/3, callbacks 11/5
Check-in: 6:30PM, auditions start promptly at 7PM
Auditions will be held Monday 11/2 and Tuesday 11/3 at Ridgedale Players. Check-in will being at 6:30PM and auditions will start promptly at 7PM. Please prepare ONE monologue from the options below. In the character descriptions you will find which monologue to prepare for each character. It is in your best interest to be fully memorized, but we will have printed copies available the day of. Please look over the other monologues as we may ask you to cold read something else.
Call-backs will be Thursday 11/5 with check-in again at 6:30PM and a prompt start of 7:00PM.
If you are unable to make either audition date, you may send a video audition to sara.fournier@ridgedaleplayers.com NO LATER than midnight 11/2.
CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS
Blanche Dubois: A sensitive, delicate, moth-like member of the fading Southern aristocracy, about thirty years old, she has just lost her teaching position in Laurel, Mississippi, because of her promiscuity. She, therefore, left Mississippi and as the play opens arrives at the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski.
Auditioners should prepare ONE of the following: Monologue 4, Monologue 5, Monologue 6
Stella Kowalski: Blanche’s younger sister, about twenty-five years old, she is married to Stanley and lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans. As the play opens we learn that she is pregnant with their first child. She is happy in her marriage and her home; however, much to the consternation of Blanche, she has forgotten her genteel upbringing in order to enjoy a more common existence.
Auditioners should prepare Monologue 2
Stanley Kowalski: A rather common working man, about twenty-eight to thirty years old, his main drive in life is sexual. He is a former master sergeant in the engineer corps and faces everything and everybody in his life with a brutal realism.
Auditioners should prepare Monologue 3
Harold “Mitch” Mitchell: Tall, solidly built, shy, clumsy, but gentle and kind; devoted to his ailing mother; Stanley’s buddy from the war, work and poker; finds himself drawn towards Blanche. Frustrated at still being single, Mitch wants someone who’s “genteel and a lady,” so he can “marry up.” He sweats through his awkwardness, but is sensitive and a gentleman – until he learns the truth about Blanche’s sordid past. Auditioners should prepare Monologue 3
Eunice Hubbell: A bit crass and rough around the edges. She’s a good friend to Stella and finds Blanche’s “I’m better than you” airs annoying and insulting. She is Stella’s friend, upstairs neighbor, and landlady. We see the low-class life of the French Quarter through her and her husband, Steve.
Auditioners should prepare Monologue 2
Steve Hubbell: A neighbor of the Kowalskis, he is one of the men who gather to play poker. Same demeanor as his wife – on the crass side and very earthy. Loves his wife in a possessive, grabby kind of way.
Auditioners should prepare Monologue 1
Pablo Gonzales: A coworker of Stanley, Mitch, and Steve. Plays poker at Stanley’s house, and seems genuinely disturbed by the violence he witnesses there.
Auditioners should prepare Monologue 1
Ensemble (Woman, Mexican Woman, A Young Collector, Nurse, Doctor): There are a variety of smaller roles that help fill out the world. Some roles may be doubled up.
Monologue 1, Monologue 2, Monologue 3, Monologue 4, Monologue 5, Monologue 6