Goodnight Desdemona Audition Times

Hello SOAP Members!
Auditions for this year's festival entry, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) are running 
Wednesday Jan 21st,  
Thursday Jan 22nd and 
Sunday Jan 25th.  
At Big Blue (Quail's Nest Arts Center) at 630pm. 


All those interested in helping out behind the scenes,  please join us at Big Blue for a production meeting just prior to that on Tuesday Jan 20th.

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is about Constance Ledbelly, a timid academic who gets pulled into the worlds of Shakespeare's Othello and Romeo and Juliet while researching a manuscript that suggests they were originally comedies. She disrupts the tragedies, saving Desdemona and meeting a more assertive Juliet, as she searches for the "Author" of the manuscript, ultimately discovering herself and challenging traditional gender roles through witty, feminist re-imaginings of the classic plays.
ROLE DETAILSIn this play each actor usually plays several roles. Here are some generic role descriptions from 'the net' and in brackets, an indication of how other directors have grouped the roles. Will our current Director, Craig Bjornson, follow suit? Attend the auditions to find out!   

CONSTANCE LEDBELLY – early 30’s, an Asst. Professor of Literature. Intelligent, but stubborn and very insecure. Her professional and personal lives are going nowhere. She has been reduced to ghostwriting academic articles for Claude Night, her boss, the department golden boy and her sometime lover. 

CLAUDE NIGHT – late 30’s.Constance’s boss and occasional lover. The kind of man that bullies and charms his way through life. He has been using Constance’s talents as a writer and scholar for years by preying on her insecurities and ambitions (while two-timing her).  (Doubled with Othello and Juliet’s Nurse.) 

CHORUS – A mysterious creature who pops up at odd moments to lead Constance in her topsy-turvy journey of academic and personal exploration. He has a sense of whimsy and mischief.  (Doubled with Iago and Ghost)

“JULIE, UH JILL” – a student of Constance’s. Late teens, early 20’s. The kind who is always late with her work, and always has an excuse. (Doubled with Juliet).

RAMONA – another student at the college. Assertive and bright. Also Claude Night’s new squeeze.  (Doubled with Desdemona) 

OTHELLO – The “shadow” comic aspect of Shakespeare’s tragic hero. A noted, but aging and superstitious warrior who tends to inflate his achievements to impress pretty young women. (Doubled with Claude Night)  

DESDEMONA – Shakespeare’s tragic victim turned on her head. Assertive, hot-tempered, blood-thirsty.  Turns out she was enthralled by Othello’s stories of smiting enemies because she wanted to be that person. She is. (Doubled with Ramona.)

IAGO – Just as envious, malicious and opportunistic as he is in the original. Even when Constance upends his original plot, he comes up with a new one. (Possibly doubled with Chorus or Romeo.)

ROMEO – Even in the original, Romeo tended to be on the erratic side – passionately in love with Rosaline, only to fall in love with Juliet as first sight. What if that trait is predominate? This Romeo is young, fickle, and plays both side of the sexual fence. (Possibly doubled with Iago)

TYBALT – Just has hot-headed as the original and hung up sexually. (Possibly doubled with Ramona/Desdemona, Othello or Chorus.)

MERCUTIO – Romeo’s buddy and cousin, fortunately reprieved from the fate Shakespeare handed him. (Doubled with Ramona/ Desdemona or Chorus.)

JULIET – Juliet always had a tendency towards the overly dramatic. Consider it amplified in this iteration. Meet Juliet as a medieval Valley Girl – amorous, self-absorbed, and already bored with Romeo. On the lookout for something new. (Doubled with Jill)

JULIET’S NURSE – An elderly woman, practiced in managing Juliet’s foibles. (Doubled with Claude Night/Othello)

SERVANT/SOLDIER – Yup, that plot device – dispenser of information on offstage actions and timely interventions (Played by the Chorus)

GHOST – Distributor of mysterious hints (It worked in Hamlet, didn’t it?) (Played by Chorus)​