Auditions for Arden Now (As You Like It) by the Rude Mechanicals, by arrangement

Arden Now (As You Like It)
Directed by Melissa Schick

This collaborative adaptation sets Shakespeare’s As You Like It in a world where ideals of beauty and desirability are more celebratory of people’s unique individuality and where mainstream society does not attempt to impose a restrictive binary concept of gender to categorize people. We strive to tell this classic story in ways that are fully inclusive, body-positive, and sex-positive. We have cut the original text down, made some creative edits, and have added music, movement, and poetry that express love and exuberance through a variety of times, cultures, and genres. Because if all the world’s a stage, everyone should be represented.

Auditions for Arden Now will take place in April. We are particularly seeking:
Performers of color
Bilingual/polyglot performers
Musically inclined performers who play portable instruments and/or sing
Performers who are trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, or otherwise not identifying as cisgender
Performers with unique dance or movement skills, such as flow arts or martial arts
Deaf performers, autistic performers, performers with disabilities / disabled performers
Performers of all sizes and shapes
Performers of any experience level (including no experience) who enjoy working in a collaborative atmosphere and have a strong desire to learn and experiment
Performers with a strong interest in social justice who are accepting and respectful of others

All roles are open to all performers regardless of gender, age, race, ability or “type.” Performers who wish to participate in movement or music only roles without speaking parts will be happily considered. Techies interested in running sound, lights, and/or live captioning are also needed!

Auditions will begin with one-on-one interviews with the directors in person or via video call or telephone call where you will express your preferences of how to showcase your talent, which can be done via a video submission or in person audition where you may perform a solo monologue/song/dance piece and/or cold or prepared reading(s) with other performers. We will also talk about the script development process and our plan for our style of working. We will begin accepting appointment requests in March. Please email Melissa@rudemechanicals.com for more information. Accommodations such as large print scripts, braille scripts, etc. are available on request, please notify us of your needs. Service animals welcome.

Performances will take place at the Capital Fringe Festival between July 6th – 31st (venue assignment and exact dates TBD) with a secondary run at Greenbelt Arts Center on August 24th through Sept. 2nd. Rehearsals will be in Northern Virginia, with some tech rehearsals in Washington DC and Greenbelt MD. We hope that all rehearsal and performance venues will be ADA accessible and metro accessible. Where venues are not metro accessible, we will strive to provide transportation assistance through carpooling or shuttling from nearest metro stations. We have requested ADA accessible performance spaces from Fringe and are optimistic that our request will be honored. We hope to provide captioning and/or sign language interpretation for at least some performances. If you know of any interested interpreters, please connect us with them!

The Rude Mechanicals are an all-volunteer company, all roles are unpaid.

Performance Location: Greenbelt Arts Center

For more information, see: http://www.rudemechanicals.com/

Tags: Auditions, Greenbelt Arts Center, Greenbelt Maryland, Arden Now, As You Like It, William Shakespeare, Melissa Schick