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, abvoiceartist@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 **NOVEMBER 24!**
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.
We are casting for "The Pendant Shakespeare's" production of DOUBLE FALSEHOOD.
ROLES FOR ANY GENDER:
Churchgoer (adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
A Churchgoer comes to Don Bernard’s house to marry Henriquez and Leonora. He never quite gets to do so.
Line One: (My god, plaintive)
Aye, dios mio!
Line Two: (poor girl, are you alright?)
Pobrecita. Que lastima, esta bien?
ROLES FOR WOMEN/NON-BINARY FEMININE:
Leonora (young adult sounding/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Leonora is Don Bernard's daughter, a wealthy noble in love with working class Julio. She worries that the bright lights of the court will change Julio. Furious when she is to be married to Henriquez, she would stab herself rather than go through with it. Determined and bold.
Line One: (furious and jealous her boyfriend is leaving town)
Now I perceive the birth of these delays!
Why Leonora was not worth your suit.
Repair to court? Ay, there you shall, perhaps
-rather, past doubt- behold some choicer beauty
Rich in her charms, train'd to the arts of soothing.
Shall prompt you to a spirit of hardiness,
To say, So please you, father, I have chosen
This mistress for my own
Line Two: (on being reunited with her love
Oh my Julio! (gasps) Thy presence ends the stern debate of doubt
And cures me of a thousand heartsick fears!
Line Three: (Challenging Roderick, a good guy, for defending his wicked brother)
Are you that lord Roderick, So spoken of for virtue, and fair life,
And dare you lose these to be advocate
For such a brother, such a sinful brother,
Such an unfaithful treacherous, brutal brother?
Violante (young adult sounding/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Violante is a poor young lady, happy with her humble life. She is pursued and assaulted by Henriquez. Shamed and dishonored, she flees her father's house and disguises herself as a shepherd boy.
Please note: Violante is a survivor of sexual assault. While it does not happen "on screen," ol' Billy Shakes made it a plot point. Audition for this role only if you are comfortable with that part of the story.
Line One: (rebuking a man's advances. fiery, no nonsense)
Oh Henriquez, I have read stories, how young lords, like you
-set up girls, like me, the idols of their worship
Then left them to bewail their easie faith
And stand the world's contempt
Line Two: (Disguised as a boy. Doing a humble servant act. (boy voice))
'Tis unusual to me to find such kindness at a master's hand,
Besides, I've often heard old people say,
Too much indulgence makes boys rude and saucy
Line Three: (confronting the man who abandoned her)
My lord, I come not now to wound your spirit.
Your pure affection dead, which first betray'd me,
My claim die with it! Only let me not
Shrink to the grave with infamy upon me
Protect my virtue, though it hurt your faith.
Camilla (adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Camilla is Julio's overbearing mother. She sent her son to France for his education, though she doesn't think much of his abilities. Has a reputation for eccentricity. Suffers from gout and lets everyone know it.
Line One: (very much not impressed with her son Julio)
How comes the Duke to take such notice of my son, that he must needs have him in court? Horsemanship! What horsemanship has Julio? I think he can no more but gallop a hackney!
Line Two: (being super overdramatic about her health)
Do you bring joy or grief, my lord? For me,
Come what can come, I'll live a month or two.
If the gout please; curse my physician once more,
And then,
Under this stone, lies Camilla, sev'nty one!
Maid to Violante (adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
The servant to Violante is extremely faithful to her. She finds her the shepherd's clothing she wears as a disguise (Also casting Citizen)
Line One: (volunteering to aid a young girl in distress
Doubt it not, lady. Violante,
You have mov'd me so,
That though a thousand dangers barr'd my way,
I'd dare 'em all to serve you.
Line Two: (bringing bad news to Violante, who is fleeing the city)
By my life mistress, do not fear me.
I bring no news but the worst.
Your father makes mighty offers yonder by a cryer
to anyone can bring you home again.
Lady (adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Only speaks Spanish. Lady attending on Leonora accompanies her to her wedding and tends to her when she faints.
Line One:
Aye, dios mio!
Line Two:
Pobrecita. Que lastima, esta bien?
ROLES FOR MEN/NON-BINARY MASCULINE:
Julio (young adult sounding//any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Julio is Camilla's son, an honest boy who is deeply and madly in love with Leonora. He is trusting, which makes him easy to manipulate by his unscrupulous friends, which drives him to great melancholy, and he loves his momma even though she's hard on him. (Also casting Roderick)
Line One: (seeing his lady love. Burning, yearning, passionate)
Leonora! See, how her beauty doth enrich the place!
O, add the music of thy charming tongue,
Sweet as the lark that wakens up the morn,
And make me think it paradise indeed.
Line Two: (insulted, hurt, almost dying of bruised honor)
Ungenerous lord! The circumstance of things
Should stop the tongue of question. You have wrong'd me Henriquez!
Wrong'd me so basely, in so dear a point
As stains the cheek of honor with a blush!
Line Three (at a very gloomy point he hears beautiful singing that moves him)
I'll tell you, my good friends; but pray, say nothing,
I'm strangely touch'd with this. The heav'nly sound
Diffuses a sweet peace through all my soul.
But yet I wonder, what new, sad, companion
Grief has brought hither to out-bid my sorrows.
Henriquez (young adult sounding/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Henriquez is the Duke's privileged son, and is womanizing, much to his father's despair. Charming and insincere. A scoundrel, constantly trying to justify his own actions to himself and looking for other people, usually women, to blame. But he is capable of reflection and growth.
Line One: (justifying to himself trying to steal his friend's lady love)
O friendship! How wilt thou answer that? Oh, that a man
Could reason down this fever of the blood,
Or sooth with words the tumult in his heart!
Then, Julio, I might be, indeed, thy friend.
They, they only should condemn me.
Line Two: (praising a woman while pretending not to care she's poor)
This maid, For whom my sighs ride on the night's chill vapor,
Is born most humbly, though she be as fair
As nature's richest mould and skill can make her,
But what of that? Th'obscureness of her birth
Cannot eclipse the lustre of her eyes
Line Three: (seeking pardon from a woman he had wronged terribly)
What a fierce conflict shame, and wounded honor
Raise in my breast! But honor shall o'ercome.
She looks as beauteous, and as innocent
As when I wrong'd her. Virtuous Violante!
Too good for me! Dare you still love a man,
So faithless as I am?
Duke Angelo (older adult sounding/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Duke Angelo is the ruler of Andalusia, and Roderick and Henriquez's father. He is a just and honorable man, if old-fashioned, and has strong views about the rights of parents. his main concern is that there should be order in the world. (also casting for Don Bernard)
Line One: (proudly praising one son, disappointedly complaining about the other)
Rodrigo, like a fair glass of retrospection, thou
reflect'st the virtues of my early youth;
Making my old blood mend its pace with transport!
While Henriquez, thy irregular brother,
sets the large credit of his name at stake,
his taints of wildness hurt our nicer honor.
Line Two: (telling his son not to worry, with age comes wisdom)
Why, my son?
Making my death familiar to my tongue
Digs not my grave one jot before the date.
I've worn the garland of my honors long
And would not leave it wither'd to thy brow,
But flourishing and green; worthy the man,
Who, with my Dukedoms, heirs my better glories.
Line Three: (commiserating with another father that they're too soft on their sons)
Why, he mourns like a man. Don Bernard, you
Are still like April, full of show'rs and dews
And yet I blame you not: for I myself,
Feel the self-same affections.
Master of the Flocks (older adult sounding/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
A hardened man of the land. He is coarse and rather brutal, and enjoys drinking. He has wicked plans for Violante when he discovers she is not a boy (also casting for First Shepherd and Second Shepherd)
Line One: (on seeing someone come up his lonely mountainside)
Why should he haunt these wild unpeopled mountains
Where nothing dwells but hunger, and sharp winds?
No, let him alone; he wonders strangely at us.
Line Two: (suspecting his new servant is really a woman)
This must not be a boy;
His voice, mein, gesture, ev'rything he does,
Savour of soft and female delicacy
He but puts on this seeming, and his garb
Speaks him of such a rank, as well persuades me
Line Three: (threateningly accusing his servant of being a woman)
Are you so cunning?
Come, come, all this is not sufficient, child,
To make a fool of me. This is a fine hand,
A delicate fine hand -- never change color;
You understand me, --and a woman's hand.
Fabian (adult/any ethnicity/any accent/cisgender or transgender)
Fabian is a villager, Lopez's neighbor. He overhears Henriquez's ravings the night after his ravishing of Violante, and is concerned for the young man's sanity. (also casting for Lopez, Gerard, First Gentleman, Second Gentleman, and Attendant)
Line One: (mischievously spying on Henriquez, who's having a public meltdown)
This man is certainly mad, and may be mischievous
Prithee, neighbor, let's follow him;
but at some distance, for fear of the worst
Line Two: (laughing at the folly of young people in love)
Love! Love! Downright love! I see by the foolishness of it.
Lo you now! For want of the discreet ladle of a cool understanding,
Will this fellow's brains boil over.
