These are unpaid roles for credit only, in a free, all-volunteer podcast production.
Record your best takes for all lines and save them in one .mp3 file per character. Please do not clean or otherwise process your recordings.
Please name your files like so: CHARACTERNAME_YOURNAME.mp3.
If you have more than one audition (which is totally awesome and welcome) please zip them ALL in ONE folder.
Send to TableRoundPost@gmail.com, and jeffrey.stephen.robinson@gmail.com.
Shakespeare is poetry but also drama. For clarity in audio, lean towards the more naturalistic readings; let the acting guide the performance, not the rhythm.
Deadline for auditions is **FEBRUARY 8!**
Please note: we are using auditions from the roles below to cast more parts than are listed here!
NOTE: age ranges listed are for character voice/vocal tone, not the age of the actor.
Trans/non-binary actors are welcome to audition for all roles!
NOTE: age ranges listed are for character voice/vocal tone, not the age of the actor.
We are casting for "The Pendant Shakespeare's" production of HENRY VI, part 1.
Please note: we are using auditions from the roles below to cast more parts than are listed here!
ROLES FOR ANY GENDER:
KING HENRY (12-13/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
Young, naive, simple and the king of England. Relies almost entirely on his uncle Gloucester. His greatest desire is for peace among his nobles. He has absolutely no political sense whatsoever. Completely without guile and seems incapable of imagining it in others.
LINE 1: (Happy to be ending a staff meeting with everyone in agreement)
My lords ambassadors, your several suits
Have been consider'd and debated on.
And therefore are we certainly resolved
To draw conditions of a friendly peace;
LINE 2: (Upset that his advisors are fighting)
O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!
Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold
My sighs and tears and will not once relent?
Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
Or who should study to prefer a peace.
If holy churchmen take delight in broils?
MAYOR OF LONDON (Middle aged/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
Just wants to do the job and is tired of nobles and their petty problems.
LINE 1:
I'll call for clubs, if you will not away.
This cardinal's more haughty than the devil.
See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.
Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!
I myself fight not once in forty year.
MESSENGER (Teen to adult /Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
LINE 1:
My honourable lords, health to you all!
Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
Of loss, of slaughter and discomfiture:
Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,
Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.
WARWICK (Adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
LINE 1: Avoiding making a decision
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
Between two blades, which bears the better temper:
Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye;
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
SOMMERSET (Adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
A young and haughty noble, who despises Richard Plantagenet for being the son of a traitor, and is incensed when the latter is restored to his father’s lands and named Duke of York.
LINE 1: Dissing enemies and starting a 100 year war
Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a red rose with me.
LINE 2:
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Richard,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker Pole and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this apprehension:
Look to it well and say you are well warn'd.
ROLES FOR WOMEN:
JOAN (Teen to young adult/Any ethnicity/French accent welcome but not required/Cis, trans, nb)
History’s Joan of Arc, but she ain’t no saint here. Joan de Purcell is a sword fighting, fast talking hellraiser determined to defeat the English. She’s either a holy virgin on a personal mission from God or consorting with demons or sleeping with the French nobility to connive her way to what she wants. A complicated character.
LINE 1: (Introducing herself to the King, humbly and saintly)
Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleased
To shine on my contemptible estate:
God's mother deigned to appear to me
And in a vision full of majesty
Will'd me to leave my base vocation
And free my country from calamity:
LINE 2: (Shouting and invoking demons)
The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.
Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;
And ye choice spirits that admonish me
And give me signs of future accidents!
MARGARET (Young adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
Reignier’s daughter violently supports her father’s claim to be king. Proud and driven, eventually agrees to marry the King who she is not impressed by at all.
LINE 1: Bravely negotiating with her own captor.
Say, Earl of Suffolk--if thy name be so–
What ransom must I pay before I pass?
For I perceive I am thy prisoner.
LINE 2: Arguing with her captors
Tush! women have been captivate ere now.
I cry you mercy, 'tis but Quid for Quo.
To be a queen in bondage is more vile
Than is a slave in base servility;
For princes should be free.
ROLES FOR MEN:
TALBOT (Adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
The English General. A supremely confident warrior who absolutely terrifies the French. Noble and chivalrous, the last of a dying breed of loyal and virtuous fighters. He is the ideal of knighthood, and knows it.
LINE 1: (Explaining that he was prisoner exchanged for a lesser man and he’s offended at that.)
The Duke of Bedford had a prisoner
Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;
For him was I exchanged and ransomed.
But with a baser man of arms by far
Once in contempt they would have barter'd me:
Which I, disdaining, scorn'd; and craved death.
LINE 2: (Confused his troops are being routed by a woman)
My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists:
So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
Are from their hives and houses driven away.
They call'd us for our fierceness English dogs;
Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.
GLOUCESTER (Adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
The Lord Protector, with the duty of protecting and has the strongest influence on the young King. HATES the Bishop of Winchester beyond reason.
LINE 1: Eulogizing the dead king
England ne'er had a king until his time.
Virtue he had, deserving to command:
His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams:
His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;
His sparking eyes, replete with wrathful fire,
More dazzled and drove back his enemies
Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.
LINE 2: (being ordered by the King not to kill Winchester, would much rather kill Winchester.)
Compassion on the king commands me stoop;
Or I would see his heart out, ere the priest
Should ever get that privilege of me.
Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand!
RICHARD PLANTAGENET (Adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
Deprived of all his titles until these are officially returned to him by the King, Richard feels the shame of this deeply. His quarrel with Somerset on the matter leads to the War of the Roses.
LINE 1: (Dissing his enemies and starting a 100 year war)
Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
LINE 2:
My father was attached, not attainted,
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker Pole and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this apprehension:
Look to it well and say you are well warn'd.
CHARLES THE DAUPHIN (Young adult/Any ethnicity/French accent welcome but not required/Cis, trans, nb)
King of France, and a bit of a coward. Not much of a fighter, not big on honesty or responsibility. His recent victories are mainly because of Joan, whom he is totally smitten with.
LINE 1: (Pre-battle speech)
Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens
So in the earth, to this day is not known:
Late did he shine upon the English side;
Now we are victors; upon us he smiles!
LINE 2: (Happy to give good military news at a meeting)
These news, my lord, may cheer our drooping spirits!
'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt
And turn again unto the warlike French.
SUFFOLK: (Young adult or adult/Any ethnicity/Any accent/Cis, trans, nb)
He captures Margaret in the wars and is absolutely smitten by her, to the extent that he proposes to marry her to his King simply so he can have her close.
LINE 1:
O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!
For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;
I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,
And lay them gently on thy tender side.
Who art thou? say, that I may honour thee.
LINE 2: (Informing a father that his daughter is to marry)
the King of England
Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord:
Consent, and for thy honour give consent,
Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king;
Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;
And this her easy-held imprisonment
Hath gained thy daughter princely liberty.
