Auditions For The Pillowman – Two Heads Are Better Than One

Auditions for The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh are being held at Progress Theatre on Sunday 7 Feb 2.30pm and Wednesday 10 Feb 7.30pm.

The Pillowman is a dark but funny play about a writer in a totalitarian state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders. There are four substantial parts for men aged roughly between 30 and 60 and this is an excellent opportunity to get your teeth into a meaty role. Co-director John Goodman is half hoping that there won't be enough people at the auditions so that he has to take one of the parts himself.

The play is being collaboratively directed by Steph Weller and John Goodman. They last worked together directing Taming of the Shrew in the Abbey Ruins in 2008. Individually Steph has directed Life Support, The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband and My Voice(s) at the Edinburgh Festival. John credits include The Crucible and The Tamer Tamed. They are also both experienced actors with Steph appearing most recently in Much Ado About Nothing as Beatrice. 

I asked them what they enjoyed about working together. Steph replied that they tend to interpret things in a similar way, but have enough different ideas to keep it interesting and fresh.  John is good at visualising how things will look and she enjoys working on the characters, drawing out their subtleties and presenting a coherent picture. There is plenty of scope for this sort of work in The Pillowman,  encouraging the actors to explore the dark and violent aspects of their characters without tipping over into melodrama.  John said he likes the fact that Steph brings supplies of Krispy Kremes to rehearsals. 

There is more information about the play at www.progresstheatre.co.uk and at   http://abitabout.com/The+Pillowman.

 

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Coming up ….

Auditions for The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, Sunday 7 February 2010  and Wednesday 10 February 2010 at Progress Theatre.

The next production is A couple of poor English-speaking Poles by Dorota Maslowska 1 - 6 March 2010. 
 
See www.progresstheatre.co.uk for more details of all our productions and auditions.