Shakespeare’s at it Again: “The Winter’s Tale”

By Caity Wilson

“Egg, egg, egg, egg!”  This is only one of the interesting “break-the-ice” games played in RAL’s Mainstage Theatre on the night of January 5.

A total of around 50-60 people showed up to audition for the winter community show, Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.                  

“There were quite a few more people to show up than we expected,” Aubrey Johnson 10, one of the play’s assistant directors, said.

To start off the night, Susan Donahue, the director of the play, explained what the play and the characters were about. Then everyone gathered onstage in a circle.

Donahue thinks it’s important for the environment to be comfortable and less nerve-wracking for the actors.

“Everyone should feel like they can be themselves,” Donahue said.

Many different games were played including ones with everyone running around holding their hands up while saying, “Egg, egg, egg!” Along with giant exercise machines  (where people join in, one at a time, doing different actions continuously until everyone’s joined in).

“I enjoyed watching the audition-ees play theatre games and watching them interact,” Johnson said.

After the games, everyone took a 15 minute break to relax, and practice being comfortable with different characters from the show.  Everyone was given a piece of paper with about five different character’s names on it, each with some dialogue after.

“At first, Shakespeare is hard to comprehend, since the language is so unique. But that’s what makes this play more fun to experience,”  MMHS senior Chris London said.

Once the break was over, everyone took a seat, and each person was called up by their given number to the stage. Some went in pairs, depending on which lines they were reading.

“We had some very talented actors come to the auditions. I loved having everyone there, having a good time, interacting with one another. In the perfect world, I would have loved to have every one of the actors come back and be a cast member,”  Donahue said.

In the end, the whole night of auditions went from 6:00 to around 9:00pm. The play will be performed the last weekend of February and the first weekend of March .