These are unpaid roles for credit only, in a free 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, adam.blanford@colorado.edu, 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 **JANUARY 18!**
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
ROLES FOR ANY GENDER:
Gower (adult of any age/any ethnicity/any accent/any gender)
The play’s narrator, who introduces each act by poetically describing what took place in the previous act as well as numerous “off-stage” plot developments. Not unlike a friend who reminds you what happened in the last episode of the latest Netflix drama you’re binging.
LINE 1:
In our next chapter you shall hear how Pericles puts forth to sea, suffers shipwreck, is relieved by certain poor fishermen, at last arrives at Simonides' court, King of Pentapolis, where in feats of arms he exceedeth all the princes that came to honor the birthday of his fair daughter, Thaisa, and with purpose also to sue to her for marriage.
LINE 2:
To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man's infirmities,
To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves and holy-ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives.
Helicanus (adult of any age/any ethnicity/any accent/any gender)
Pericles’ noble advisor, who stays loyal to him by refusing the opportunity to rule Tyre in his absence and comforting him in his many distresses.
LINE:
Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing which is flatter'd, but a spark,
To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing.
Cerimon (middle-aged to senior adult/any ethnicity/any accent/any gender)
A kind and wise physician who miraculously revives Thaisa after she is presumed dead and thrown into the sea, then later reunites her with her husband.
LINE:
I hold it ever, Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former.
Bawd (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/any gender)
A keeper of prostitutes (“bawd” essentially means “pimp”) in Mytilene who tries to hound Marina into sacrificing her virginity to sleep with the bawd’s customers. Scummy. Be outrageous!
LINE:
Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your
money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her
what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her
entertainment.
Nautical Professionals (adult of any age/any ethnicity/any accent/any gender)
An array of salts, swabs, tars, cutthroats and mariners. Great time to use that pirate voice.
LINE:
Sir, there's a barge put off from Mytilene,
And in it is Lysimachus the governor,
Who craves to come aboard.
ROLES FOR WOMEN/NON-BINARY FEMININE:
Princess (young adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
A beautiful young woman, trapped in an incestuous relationship with her father. Haunted and troubled. Few lines, but must leave a strong impression.
LINE:
I am no viper, yet I feed, On mother's flesh which did me breed.
I sought a husband, in which labour, I found that kindness in a father:
He's father, son, and husband mild; I mother, wife, and yet his child.
Thaisa (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Pericles’ newly wedded wife, who gives birth at sea only to be presumed dead and cast overboard in a chest. Though revived, she presumes she’ll never see her husband again and therefore becomes a priestess in Diana’s temple.
LINE:
Alas, my father, it befits not me
Unto a stranger knight to be so bold:
He may my proffer take for an offence,
Since men take women's gifts for impudence.
Marina (young adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Pericles’ virtuous daughter, born at sea and separated from him shortly after birth. Nearly murdered and forced into prostitution, her extraordinary intelligence and persuasive arguments prevail over the devious men who would wrong her. Note: must be able to sing.
LINE 1:
My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
But cried 'Good seaman!' to the sailors, galling
His kingly hands, haling ropes;
And, clasping to the mast, endured a sea
That almost burst the deck.
LINE 2:
[Please sing a short song. Happy Birthday will do.]
Dionyza (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The wife of Cleon and jealous mother who, angry that her own daughter is less favored than Marina, hires an assassin to kill her.
LINE:
How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?
How chance my daughter is not with you? Do not
Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have
A nurse of me. Lord, how your favour's changed
With this unprofitable woe!
Come, give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it.
ROLES FOR MEN/NON-BINARY MASCULINE:
Antiochus (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The grotesque King of Antioch who challenges his daughter’s suitors, including Pericles, to guess the meaning of his riddle or die trying. Of course, he’ll also kill those who correctly discern its meaning—that he’s committing incest with his daughter!
LINE:
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched;
For deathlike dragons here affright thee hard.
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory, which desert must gain;
And which without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all the whole heap must die.
Pericles (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The play’s hero, whose nomadic journey brings him to many faraway lands. Wrenched from both his new bride and their daughter, he experiences the lowest lows—and later, the highest highs.
LINE 1 (standing in a horrible storm):
Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man
Is but a substance that must yield to you;
And I, as fits my nature, do obey you:
Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,
Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath
LINE 2: (rejoicing):
Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child.
Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus;
She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been,
By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all.
Cleon (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The governor of Tarsus, who despairs over his city’s famine—and later over his wife’s plot to kill Marina, daughter of the man who once saved his people from starvation.
LINE:
Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it?
Or can conceal his hunger till he famish?
Our tongues and sorrows do sound deep
Our woes into the air; our eyes do weep,
Till tongues fetch breath that may proclaim them louder.
Simonides (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The king of Pentapolis, who seeks to marry off his daughter Thaisa. He is quickly impressed by Pericles despite being wholly unaware of his nobility, but still tests his virtue.
LINE:
Return them, we are ready; and our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
Sits here, like beauty's child, whom nature gat
For men to see, and seeing wonder at.
Boult (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
An uncouth brute who serves the bawd and pandar, trying to help their business by inviting men to the brothel to sleep with Marina. Ultimately, however, he is no match for her virtue and intelligence.
LINE:
I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake
the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stir up
the lewdly-inclined. I'll bring home some to-night.
Lysimachus (middle-aged/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Governor of Mytilene, where Marina is nearly forced into prostitution. Initially seeking to take her virginity himself, he is impressed by her intelligence and pledges to help her, later reuniting her with her father.
LINE:
For me, be you thoughten
That I came with no ill intent; for to me
The very doors and windows savour vilely.
Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and
I doubt not but thy training hath been noble.
Hold, here's more gold for thee.
A curse upon him, die he like a thief,
That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost
Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.
