Last of the Audition Material for my play, OnceOnlyEver
WILLIAM
Character Description: (Male, Senior)
Happy-go-lucky high school actor. Regular to the drama scene and really friends with everyone. Closeted gay. Must play an instrument proficiently (preferably guitar) or sing well. Both, if possible. Extremely earnest and kind, perhaps a bit too emotionally open. Loves and protects his younger sister, Mimi.
Audition Material:
William: (getting more nervous as he proceeds) Marta’s singing chorus in the metropolitan opera. My mom now owns the restaurant. Charlie ran away from home. You know his father’s an alcoholic, right? (holds his breath) And I’m gay.
Mark: I know. I mean. I thought maybe.
William: You’re the only person I’ve told.
Mark: (hesitant) Why me?
William: (everything gets terribly awkward) Because…you’re the reason I know for sure that I am. Gay. Even when I think a girl is hot, and I’ve tried to date and make out with them and everything. I still know I’d rather be hanging out just talking with you. (taking big gasping breaths by this point.) And I had to break at some point and I had to tell you first. Because you haven’t dated anyone all high school though you could date any girl you wanted and I just maybe hoped that I was the reason. We’re graduating soon and I just figured, heck! Here’s my last chance.
LINDEN
Character Description:
(Preferably Male, but can be Female, any grade)
Lena’s go-to guy. Her assistant and the student stage manager. Kind, a little silly. Highly intelligent and responsible, but also a bit of an intellectual in disguise. He’s the loving glue that holds the whole family together. In essence pretty dorky, but no one really notices because everyone loves him. (If changed to female, renamed Olga)
Audition Material:
Linden: (pauses from his work) A psychosomatic snowstorm? And don’t think I don’t disagree with your harsh categorizations of the play kids.
Coryn: That’s right. You heard me. I think this blizzard is psychosomatic. I think it’s too unreal to happen. I, for one, refuse to believe it.
Linden: (takes him time to get next sentence out, as he tries to come up with the right and unnecessarily large words to mock Coryn’s melodramatic speech.) If you are so above the…illusory maladies of us…woebegone mortals, why don’t you get up and leave?
Coryn: I’m a very nice friend; I’m humoring you.
Lena: (officiously rushing in) Are we really snowed in?
Linden: Yes.
Coryn: (over him) No! It’s psychosomatic!
Lena: What?
Linden: Don’t mind Coryn. Yes, we are snowed in. I just got off the phone with the Sheriff. He says they’ll have us plowed out by early morning, hopefully. But they can’t do anything until this crazy weather clears.
Lena: Any word on Mrs. Thomas and Dave.
Linden: They made it safely to Dave’s sister’s but they’re stuck there tonight. Lena…they said that you’re in charge. Mrs. Thomas wouldn’t stop apologizing for leaving you in this mess, but she wanted you to know that there was no student director she has ever worked with that she would trust more in this situation.
Lena: Anything else? Any instructions?
Linden: I wrote them down for you. Here. (hands her notepad. Lena takes it and stares off in exhausted disbelief) Lena?
Lena: (smiles warily) Yeah. I’m fine.
~~~~~~~~~
Linden: We all came here looking for something. That’s why we go anywhere, really. But it’s more apparent when we come here, to the stage. Because this is a place where we learn about being human. We learn about creating something real, together, from cardboard pieces, colored slides, stale lines. Tonight we were given doubly that chance. To find out what we make together, as a group, maybe something realer and crazier and more beautiful and even more terrible sometimes than the normal stuff we do. And it’s scary. But that’s why we came here. And that’s why we go everywhere. So when we get out of this dank, enclosed, totally open, beautiful space. Remember that. Remember that purpose wherever you go. And the amazing things that purpose made us make as one. You can’t always find answers and connections in life. And some of the people here will be gone come next fall. But don’t, for a second, discount this place, or nights like this, or people who seem a little too weird for you to be friends with. Because that’s the only real chance you’ll get to be human, to look for ‘that something’. Hold onto it. Hold onto each other. Like air underwater. Better yet, like air in space. It’s gotta last a long time. Hold onto it, because I will be holding onto you. Desperately and with hope. (pause) Thanks, you guys.