OPEN YOUTH AUDITIONS: Hamlet

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

Head Instructor: Rachel Kohler

Open Auditions: April 25

Camp Dates: August 3rd - 21st, 12pm - 12:30pm

Performances: August 21 & 22 at 7:00pm

Prices: $450 In-City / $550 Out-of-city

NOTE: Because this is an audition-only summer camp, every child who is cast in the show will be required to register for camp through Corvallis Parks and Recreation and pay the registration fees for the child to participate. Payment Plans and Scholarships are available, please contact the Majestic Business Office (541-758-7827) for more information about the application process. 

Our summer Shakespeare camp will be Hamlet! Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark: unnatural murders, damnèd ghosts, graveside brawls, rapier duels, poisoned goblets—you can't get more Shakespeare than this. We will be casting up to 20 actors, ages 12-18.

AUDITION DETAILS: 

When: Saturday, April 25th, 1:00 - 4:00 pm

Please note: If your child cannot make it to the in-person auditions because of a prior commitment, we will be accepting video auditions. Video auditions are due no later than 5pm on Friday, April 24th. Please scroll down for video audition instructions.

Where: The Majestic Theatre (Corvallis, Or.) 

Camp: August 3rd - 21st, Monday through Friday, 12pm-4:30pm

Performances: August 21 & 22 at 7pm

Prospective campers should plan to be present for the entire audition. The audition process is meant to be fun and engaging, and it consists of playing theatre games and reading some excerpts from the script.

Registration: Students will arrive and check-in at the registration table in the Main Lobby. 

• Audition Form: Students and Guardians are required to fill out the Hamlet Audition Form.

• If you would like to save yourself some time on audition day, you can fill out the digital audition form ahead of time!

• Digital audition forms are due on Thursday, April 23rd at 5pm. If you miss this cutoff, no worries! You'll just have to fill out a paper form on the day of the audition.

Digital Audition Form

VIDEO AUDITIONS

If you have prior conflicts, you can still audition through video submission. Please submit all video auditions to: Rachel.Kohler@corvallisoregon.gov 

Here are the requirements: 

1. Fill out a digital audition form above and check the "Video Audition" box.

2. Please have the auditionee state their first and last name.

3. Please have the auditionee choose two of the excerpts of the script below to read (scroll down to the bottom).

4. Try to frame the auditionee's entire body in the frame of the video so that the instructors can get a sense of how they move.

HAMLET CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

HAMLET PRIMUS

Character Age: 33

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Very heavy

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling. Armed and unarmed fight choreography with Polonius, Laertes, and King Claudius.

Character: The outward-presenting aspect of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. This is the Hamlet that all other characters onstage interact with directly. Intelligent, morose, sensitive, and sarcastic.

HAMLET SECUNDUS

Character Age: 33

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Very heavy

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs. Carries a sword, but does not have fight choreography.

Character: The quarrelsome and action-oriented aspect of Hamlet. Only interacts with the other Hamlets.

HAMLET TERTIUS

Character Age: 33

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Very heavy

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: The depressed and nihilistic aspect of Hamlet. Only interacts with the other Hamlets.

KING CLAUDIUS

Character Age: 50s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Preference towards male-presenting, but will consider any gender

Line Load: Very heavy

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs. Dies onstage in fight choreography with Hamlet Primus.

Character: The King of Denmark and Hamlet's uncle. Obtained the throne by suspicious means (read: murder). Arrogant, ambitious, and crafty.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Character Age: 50s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Female-presenting

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: The Queen of Denmark and Hamlet's mother. Married her deceased husband's brother suspiciously fast. Kind, graceful, and credulous.

HORATIO

Character Age: 30s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: Hamlet's best friend from college. Loyal, intellectual, and kind.

POLONIUS

Character Age: 50s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Heavy

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs, dies onstage in fight choreography with Hamlet Primus.

Character: Ophelia and Laertes' father; advisor to the King. Pompous, chatty, and nosy.

LAERTES

Character Age: 30s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs, armed and unarmed fight choreography with Hamlet Primus.

Character: Ophelia's brother and Polonius' son. Loyal, passionate, quick to anger.

OPHELIA

Character Age: 20s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Female-presenting

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: Laertes' sister and Polonius' daughter. Briefly dated Hamlet Primus. Goes mad. Sweet, loving, and nervous.

ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN

Character Age: 30s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: Hamlet's friends from college. Likes to party, ambitious, and scheming.

BARNARDO, FRANCISCO, & MARCELLUS

Character Age: 20s-30s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Light

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs

Character: Soldiers of Denmark. Loyal, practical, and superstitious.

THE GHOST

Character Age: 50s

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Preference towards male-presenting, but will consider any gender

Line Load: Medium

Ability/movement/intimacy: Only onstage for a few scenes, probably uses the trapdoor

Character: The ghost of the murdered King of Denmark and Hamlet's father. Spooky. Dead and mad about it.

THE PLAYERS

Character Age: Any

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Line Load: Light

Ability/movement/intimacy: Standing, sitting, kneeling, stairs, stylized movement.

Character: A troupe of traveling players. Likely doubled with other roles.

...plus a Gravedigger, courtiers, sailors, a Priest and more!

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SCRIPT EXCERPTS FOR VIDEO AUDITIONS

HORATIO

Two nights together had these gentlemen,

Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night,

Been thus encountered: a figure like your father

Appears before them and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked

By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes,

And I with them the third night kept the watch,

Where, as they had delivered, both in time,

The apparition comes. I knew your father;

These hands are not more like.

POLONIUS

Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.

GHOST

But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole

With juice of cursèd hebona in a vial

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The poisonous and leprous distilment.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

But, howsomever thou pursues this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven.

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

OPHELIA

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosèd out of hell

To speak of horrors—he comes before me.

He took me by the wrist and held me hard,

Then falls to such perusal of my face

As he would draw it. Long stayed he so,

And raised a sigh so piteous and profound

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being. That done, he lets me go,

And, with his head over his shoulder turned,

He seemed to find his way without his eyes,

For out o’ doors he went without their helps

And to the last bended their light on me.

HAMLET

I will tell you why. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. This goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.

GERTRUDE

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they follow. Your sister’s drowned, Laertes.

There is a willow grows askant the brook

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.

There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds

Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,

Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,

As one incapable of her own distress,

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.