ROHS DRAMA CLUB
ROMEO & JULIET AUDITION MATERIALS
1. GENERAL
Attending the audition workshops on January 8 and 9 is highly recommended.
Please bring to the audition a current photo of your face, an actor résumé if you have one, along with the filled-out Audition/Crew form. List all known schedule conflicts. Conflicts not listed at the time of auditions may not be honored.
For auditions, actors will present a 1 minute prepared monologue from the list offered.
You may read the monologue, but memorizing is encouraged. When you take the stage, introduce yourself and the title of your piece. We may chat. Then, take a moment before beginning your monologue.
General auditions may also involve physical activity taught in the workshops.
Call-backs, if needed, will be at the director's discretion. Call-Backs will consist of scenes from the script.
2. ROLES
All Roles will be considered for both male and female actors, except: Romeo, Juliet, their parents, and Paris.
ROMEO, clever and romantic, never does anything halfway, including falling in love.
JULIET, witty and smarter than her age, isn’t afraid to go after what she wants.
MERCUTIO, Romeo’s loyal friend, loves to party and make bawdy jokes. Very skilled with a rapier.
BENVOLIO, Romeo’s cousin and friend, a peacekeeper and helper.
TYBALT, Juliet’s cousin who hates Romeo’s family, the Montagues. Prideful. Very skilled with a rapier.
PARIS, an upper class Count, in love with Juliet. Kind and forthright.
PAGE TO PARIS, a young assistant to Count Paris.
PETER, a servant in the Capulet family. He cannot read.
BALTHASAR & ABRAHAM, Montague teenagers who get into a fight with the Capulets.
SAMPSON & GREGORY, Capulet teenagers who get into a fight with the Montagues.
LORD CAPULET, Juliet’s father who loves his daughter and thinks he knows what’s best for her.
LADY CAPULET, Juliet’s mother, a little out of her depth when it comes to connecting with her daughter.
FRIAR LAURENCE, a mentor and friend to Romeo, idealistic and eager to do something good for the community. He believes Romeo and Juliet’s love can bring peace.
NURSE, Juliet’s nursemaid, her nanny, best friend and protector.
LORD MONTAGUE, Romeo’s father, distant but caring.
LADY MONTAGUE, Romeo’s mother, worried yet caring.
PRINCE, trying to keep the peace in a community with families at war, who just won’t listen.
3. AUDITION SPEECHES
JULIET has just met Romeo and learned that he is a member of the hated Montague family; alone, she wonders aloud why they cannot love by changing their names.
JULIET
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
ROMEO is under Juliet’s balcony, Juliet appears, not knowing that Romeo can see her. He met her earlier this night; he is so crazy in love with her now that he thinks she is more beautiful than the sun and moon and the stars in the sky.
ROMEO
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief!
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
MERCUTIO is looking for Romeo, who has ditched him, and makes fun of Romeo’s sensitivity and love of Romeo’s first girlfriend, Rosaline.
MERCUTIO
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ay me!’ pronounce but ‘love’ and ‘dove.
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh.
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!
FRIAR explains the sleeping potion to Juliet. After pretending to the world that she has died, she can then run off with Romeo.
FRIAR
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
The PRINCE runs Verona. Here he tries to stop a brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues by threatening death to the older men who run the families.
PRINCE
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Will you not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage.
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets.
To wield old partisans, in hands as old.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
CHORUS is various people of the town sharing narration of the play.
CHORUS
Two households, both alike in dignity, families, rank
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, rivalry, outbreaks, fighting
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. civilian
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes fateful, children 1.0.5
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life, doomed
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows unfortunate, pitiful, downfall
Doth2 with their death bury their parents’ strife. do+, end, fighting
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, doomed
And the continuance of their parents’ rage, 1.0.10
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, except for, nothing
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage. performance
The which if you with patient ears attend, listen
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. play