NEWS

Note to editors: Participants must prepare monologues and songs as
well as make travel plans. Timely consideration for advance coverage
that might prompt interest in the auditions would be appreciated.

For photo availability, see end of release.

CHAPEL HILL – Actors, singers, dancers and theater technicians should apply soon to seek summer jobs through the nation's largest combined audition for outdoor historical dramas. Applications are due by March 11, each with a $30 nonrefundable fee.

The auditions, on March 20 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be a major recruiting tool for 14 dramas from across the country, said Scott Parker, director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama, a UNC public service agency.

"Outdoor historical dramas are wonderful opportunities to learn professional theater practices," he said. "Those include the discipline required for long-running productions, maintaining the freshness of a performance night after night, and mounting a high-quality operation for a wide cross section of the American public."

About 300 jobs available through the auditions will last nine to 12 weeks, June through August, and are open to anyone 18 years or older with theater experience. Shows range from "Lone Star Rising" near Amarillo, Texas, to North Carolina’s "The Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island and "Unto These Hills" in Cherokee. This year representatives of a new drama on Johnny Appleseed, in Mansfield, Ohio, will recruit at the institute’s auditions.

Actors and singers must communicate emotion clearly and, because most productions do not use microphones or vocal reinforcement, project their voices with ease and versatility. Auditions will require each actor to deliver a one-minute monologue; each singer, a prepared number no longer than a minute. Dancers will follow a choreographer in combinations using modern, ballet and folk styles. Actors may offer a different one-minute monologue at callback auditions.

Technicians will be interviewed. Besides performers, theatres need stunt and combat professionals, pyrotechnicians, horseback riders and staff skilled in design, installation and maintenance of equipment for sound, voice reinforcement, special effects and lighting.

Registration will be from 7:30-9 a.m. in the Hanes Art Center, on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. Auditions will be in various campus buildings. All auditions and call-backs will be completed that day.

The institute will host a discussion, "What Makes a Great Audition?" the evening before the auditions. Casting and artistic directors from theaters participating in the auditions will present the program from 7-8:30 p.m. March 19 in Hanes. Only those registered for the auditions may attend.

Applications, instructions and directions may be obtained on the institute's World Wide Web site at http://www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor/ or by sending a self-addressed, business-size, stamped envelope to Auditions Coordinator, Institute of Outdoor Drama, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 3240, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27599-3240.

For more information, call the institute from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST weekdays at 919-962-1328 or e-mail outdoor@unc.edu.

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Note: Media representatives may cover the March 19 workshop and the auditions March 20 after consultation with Scott Parker on site.

Photos: To download photos from last year’s auditions, visit http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/outdoordrama2004/aud03actorpointing.jpg http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/outdoordrama2004/aud03actorpreach.jpg http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/outdoordrama2004/aud03actressbeauty.jpg
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/outdoordrama2004/aud03gotacallback.jpg

Contact: Scott Parker, 919-962-1328, outdoor@unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu