NEWS

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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 13, each with a $30 nonrefundable fee.

The auditions, on March 22 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be a major recruiting tool for 12 dramas from across the country, said Scott Parker, director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama, a UNC public service agency.

"The institute sponsors the only combined auditions bringing outdoor historical drama companies, performers and technicians to one place," he said. "Nationwide there are more than 50 of these dramas -- original plays based on historical events and performed where they occurred. This year for the first time these auditions also will recruit for several Shakespearean plays."

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.

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.

As an added bonus this year, the institute will host a discussion, "The Inside Scoop on How to Get Hired," 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 21. Only those registered for the March 22 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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Photographs from previous years' auditions are available for downloading at http://www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor/media/media/auditions02.html

Contact: Scott Parker, 919-962-1328, outdoor@unc.edu