The Fall Show

ENROLLMENT BY APPLICATION OR INTERVIEW. DEPARTMENTAL PERMISSION REQUIRED.

The Fall Show provides students with a rigorous and challenging experience of creating theater under near-professional circumstances. A professional director, design team, and stage manager, as well as two weeks of performances in the Berlind Theatre, are key components. The Fall Show involves an extensive rehearsal period and concentrated tech week, often requiring more time and focus than a typical student-produced production might. This course is repeatable once for credit. Students cast in the Fall Show, or those who take on major production roles (such as Asst. Stage Manager, Asst. Designer, or Asst. Director), will receive course credit.

Reading/Writing assignments:
Readings to be determined in class weekly based on Fall Show content.

Prerequisites and Restrictions:
Please contact Professor Tim Vasen (tvasen@princeton.edu) for enrollment permission. For further information, read below.

 


 

Important Information about the 2015 Fall Show:
For next year, the Program in Theater will be producing Zoyka’s Apartment, a farce by the great Russian novelist and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov.

Admission to the course is by audition for performers and by interview for those interested in serving as an assistant director, designer or stage manager. Auditions will be held on Wednesday, May 6 and Thursday, May 7, with callbacks on Friday, May 8. Students accepted into the course will be able to register for it in the May 2015 drop/add period.  You do not have to be a THR certificate student to be in the course, and there are no prerequisites. SIGN UP FOR AN AUDITION SLOT

Performances will take place in the Berlind Theater during the weeks of November 9 and November 16, 2015.

A few words about the production:

THE PLAY

Zoyka’s Apartment is a farce, a play with songs and elements of vaudeville that has the heartbeat of a modern tragedy. The action of the play takes place in the 1920s in Communist, post-revolutionary Russia — a time when absurd party ideology, violence and passionate utopia coexist in an expressionistic blend. There was never a better time for avant-garde art in Russian history and like the artists in their work, the Soviet citizens were trying to define their “new present” and their uncertain future in the most original ways. Living everyday life in Russia in the ’20s was a form of avant-garde art. And also, a farcical tragedy. Zoyka manages to take hold of an apartment in the center of Moscow and opens an undercover brothel, a citadel for freedom, where any social order is turned upside down: aristocrats, communists, people of all races and floating dead bodies are united on this island of love, opium, sex and music. Zoyka’s apartment is a defiance of the free spirit against bewildering and contradictory norms and ideologies.

THE CAST

This is an ensemble piece. A multitude of diverse characters, a cross section of Russia in the ’20s. The lust for life of these characters is overbearing — it’s in their amplified humanity that the comedy of the play has its origin. The casting shouldn’t follow the types of classic comedy as all these people have their own, individual, peculiar tragedies and in a “very Russian way”, you laugh at them, you laugh with them, because you care so much about them. We are looking for an ensemble as diverse as possible: race, culture, gender, background, age. All these cultural constructs are rebelled against in the play, and we hope that the casting will reflect that. We would like to cast cross-gender and make a point that theatre and performance transcends all social categories. We would like a cast of performers, all rounded theatre artists, who can engage in conversation about the politics of today, who are curious about the past, who believe that theatre is a vehicle of change, but as important — who relish performing in front of and with a live audience and who give life to characters through play and imagination. We can make use of any individual skills and talents. There will be live music, singing, dancing, clown and magic tricks and anything else you can bring in.

THE AUDITION

When coming in for the audition, please prepare the following:

  • Chose one of the two sides, read it, pick a part and prepare to read it in the room. You don’t have to memorize or over prepare anything. Just pick a role, make a fast, instinctive choice and we’ll work together for a few minutes.
  • Bring in something of your choice. It can be anything. We do really mean anything. You can sing a song, recite a poem that you like and want to share or that you wrote, a piece of text that’s meaningful to you or that you wrote, bring in an alter-ego character, do a dance, tell a joke, play a game — whatever you want to perform in front of somebody that doesn’t know you but is terribly, terribly curious to discover who you are and what you love (to perform).

 


 

Learn more about past Fall Show Productions: 
2014 – Red Noses
2013 – Much Ado About Nothing
2012 – Der Bourgeois Bigwig

Faculty

Sections

S01

Fridays, 12:30 - 4:20 p.m.
New South Building, Rm. 110

Instructor(s)

Alexandru Mihail