ARCADIA - AUDITIONS
CODS SPRING PLAY - 10TH TO 12TH APRIL 2025
Auditions 3pm on Sunday 12th and 7.30pm on Monday 13th January both at the Performing Arts Centre, Cranbrook School.
Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA
Directed by Mark Perrian & Louise Franklin. Contact - louisefranklin4@gmail.com
Character Summaries - (Click Character name to download audition piece)
19th Century Roles
Thomasina is a precocious mid to late teens young woman who is remarkably outspoken with her tutor and seems to rebel against the prevailing doctrine of the time in which she lives, by being clever, witty and something of a genius with maths.
She is desperate to understand everything and that includes finding out about sexual knowledge, but she is also remarkably (by today’s standards, perhaps) naïve. She knows that her tutor, Septimus can tell her things but is not sure whet things to ask, really. She asks him what ‘carnal knowledge’ is quite innocently. Her actual knowledge of just how many affairs he has is seemingly limited by the extent of what she sees failing to register, given her innocence.
Thomasina needs to be played as both sweet, but also innocently flirtatious. She has to appear naïve and clever. She is bored by her books, but also quite bookish. Her understanding of mathematics and physics is the key to the play, and in many ways, she is the central character.
The relationship with Septimus is never remotely a sexual one and never remotely consummated.
Should ideally be a young man in his mid to late twenties. He is well-spoken, well educated and extremely charming. But he is also quite arrogantly aware of the effect he has on women, having managed several affairs -some of which constitute a large part of the plot.
He is dismissive and sarcastic when it comes to putting down Chater (who fails to realise he is being played and made fun of) and at times we would definitely like him, whereas at others we might not. He does fall in love with Thomasina and is hit by the tragedy of her death, spending the rest of his life trying to prove her mathematics.
Not a particularly large part, but one that asks the actor to come across as superior and overbearing. She is acutely aware of her status and class, very refined and in no mood to take silliness from anyone. We should always have the idea that she finds other people a bit frivolous and that she understands far more than she says. She can be aby age from mid thirties to early fifties, but needs to see herself as vivacious.
A large part and one where the character comes across as a pompous idiot. He is aware that his wife is cheating on him but unable to get beyond his own vanity when Septimus lies about enjoying his poetry (he hates it!)
The idea that he could be involved in a duel is ludicrous. He would be far more at home with his poetry and his botany, but feels the need to prove himself manly and passionate. His poetry about love is meant to be ridiculous because we can see that he is far from a really passionate man. Nevertheless, we should also see that he has ben thwarted by a wife who has clearly cheated on him for years.
Any age from late thirties to fifties.
Smallish role. A middle aged man (forties upwards) who is very much the opposite of Chater (and in love with his wife) Aristocratic, like his sister, but strong and carries himself with a military air, always conscious of being a sea captain. Clearly thinks he is the match for any man he meets.
The landscape designer. He likens himself to being a prophet of the “new aesthetic” that leans towards the gothic. He is a bit of a sycophant, but he’s an able craftsman & a likable gentleman. Age range: 30-50. Far more interested in his own garden designs than what his client really wants. Not a huge part.
Butler for the Coverly home, Sidley Park. He is officious, succinct and aware. No age requirement, although he needs to have been the butler here for some years. Think Jeeves but in a previous age. He sees all and has seen it all before. We sense his knowingness at times.
Modern Day Roles
Thomasina is mirrored in the present day by Chloe Coverly, who is late teens to mid twenties. She is every bit as precocious as Thomasina (though not as bookishly intelligent) but she has far more understanding of sex and relationships. She has a fling with Bernard which seems to mean more to her than to him, but she is definitely a modern woman.
Is one of the two central modern characters. She is clearly a modern woman and is proud of her intellect. She initially has quite a disdain for Bernard (who is exactly the sort of misogynistic academic she hates) given that he has written a review of her best-selling book that is far from complimentary.
She can be any age from mid thirties to late forties and should be played with something of a feminist swagger. She is definitely not light-weight and hates that idea of womanhood that defers to men.
Hannah resists sexual contact and refuses to submit to being kissed or allowing Valentine to refer to her as fiancée. Her argument with Bernard about the imaginary duel Byron might have fought for love is part of the play’s central theme of relationships. She is perhaps a little uptight and can come across as dry and humourless.
She is crucial to the plot and her relationship with Gus is sweetly lovely, revealing so much of what the play is about.
Is the modern day academic who thinks he knows it all and desperately wants to prove it. He is remarkably ambitious and leaps t conclusions that he has not fully researched (the very opposite of Hannah, who regards as his academic inferior)
His theory that Lord Byron killed Mr. Chater in a lover's duel is all about his own need to prove how clever he is, not that he is a serious academic, While he is superficially very charming and likeable, he does know it. He does seduce Chloe, for no other reason than he is able to do so.
The joke is that Bernard unwittingly puts Hannah on the scent of real truth. In the discussion about academic truth and understanding the nature of ‘carnal knowledge’ in the play, Bernard gets it wrong!
He can be any age from mid twenties to mid forties, though not older as it would make his romantic dalliances and ambition seem a bit odd.
Needs ideally to be aged twenty-five to thirty, is still supposedly a graduate student studying mathematics. The son of the Coverly estate, Valentine works out Thomasina's diagram and reluctantly shares Thomasina's genius with Hannah.
He definitely has a crush on Hannah, but is far too shy to share it. He is bookish, a trifle nerdy and irritable when pushed on things, and seems to share that sense of not being able to get on with real life relationships.
Gus Coverly / Augustus Coverly
A crucial character who appears a lot, he does have to do a lot of acting, given that he is mute. He is played by the same actor who plays Augustus. Both of them are the same age – late teens (but we can stretch to early twenties). He is a savant – an intuitively very clever and emotionally aware young man of what goes on around him. In many ways, he is the opposite of Augustus.
Augustus Coverly is a young man who wants to get adult life started and become the man of the Coverly house. Outspoken and a little unwittingly arrogant. He has no time for education.