Mass Audition Info
Sign ups and audition form will be posted here soon.
Sign up for one audition time, and everyone should prepare:
- A 40-60 second monologue from any Chekov play
The Birds
Performance Dates: January 29-31 & February 5-8, 2026
Directed by Heather E. Hamilton
Reach out to Heather with any questions (heather.hamilton@mnsu.edu).
Character Descriptions:
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Personality:Cynical and sarcastic, but also capable of being caring and maternal. She is often the "glue" that holds the group together, adopting a matriarchal role.
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Motivation:Focused on survival, even to extreme lengths, as she questions the value of the human race and maintains a healthy suspicion of the others.
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Role:One of the original two survivors who takes refuge in the cabin.
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Personality:Often ill, unsettled, and unbalanced. His actions can be unpredictable, and he's described as being always on the edge and capable of violence.
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Undercurrents:His past history of mental illness is a recurring concern, and his rising desperation is palpable.
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Role:The young, attractive stranger who arrives later, breaking the initial dynamic and creating new tensions.
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Personality:Self-involved, selfish, and hedonistic. She is often described as alluring, but with a calculating or ambiguous intent.
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Impact:Her arrival throws the existing relationships into disarray, contributing to the growing paranoia and distrust within the group
Please note:
The Cherry Orchard
DIRECTED BY VLADIMIR ROVINSKY
PERFORMANCE DATES 2/19/2026 – 3/1/2026
REHERASALS BEGIN 11/24/2025
About the show:
After a long absence, Ranevskaya returns home from France, where she was living with her lover. Her lover betrayed her, her fortune is wasted, and her ancestral estate is about to be put on auction. Ranevskaya’s family avoid facing harsh reality of their situation. Instead, they drown themselves in nostalgic memories, wishful thinking and keep hoping for a miracle. The former serf's son, Yermolay Lopakhin a pragmatic businessman, proposes a profitable solution to the problem, but it requires cutting down the beloved cherry orchard. Nobody can agree to that and his plan is ridiculed and rejected. At the end, the estate is sold out, the family forced to leave, and the beautiful cherry orchard destroyed anyway.
Character Descriptions:
Lyubov Ranevskaya - Haunted by the death of her husband and her youngest child. She has just returned to Russia from France, where her lover cheated and swindled her of all her money. Her first name, "Lyubov," means "love" in Russian, and she seems to exemplify love with her generosity, kindness, beauty, and sensual nature.
Anya - A seventeen years old Ranevskaya's biological daughter. She believes that happiness is just on the horizon, despite the intense financial and social struggles her family faces. She greatly enjoys the company of Trofimov and his lofty idealism.
Varya - A twenty-four years old Ranevskaya's adopted daughter. She has a complicated relationship with Lopakhin. Varya is hard-working and burned out by responsibility of keeping an estate afloat. She is a bit a martyr.
Leonid Gayev - A sweet, eccentric, and sentimental Ranevskaya's older brother. Extremely impractical and somewhat childish aristocrat. Has a habit of launching into overly sentimental and rhetorical speeches.
Yermolai Lopakhin - A self-made successful businessman. His grandparents were owned by the Ranevskaya’s family before freedom was granted to the serfs. Lopakhin is a workaholic. A passionate and competitive in his business dealings, Lopakhin is extremely self-conscious, especially in the presence of Ranevskaya. He is perpetually complaining about his lack of education and refinement, which he attributes to his upbringing as a peasant.
Pyotr (Petya) Trofimov - A poor student at the local university, he knows Ranevskaya from tutoring her son before he tragically died. He seems to be unable to finish his school and has been in university most of his adult life. He is a passionate idealist, fervently committed to his high-minded beliefs, and visions of a new and better world. He even and naively believes that he and Anya are "above love."
Boris Simeonov-Pishchik - A neighbor, who is, like Ranevskaya, in financial difficulties. Nevertheless, Pishchik displays boundless optimism—he is always certain he will find the money somehow to pay for the mortgages that are due. He tirelessly trying to borrow money from anyone he encounters.
Charlotte - Anya's governess. As a child she used to travel with cirques performing tricks such as "the dive of death". After her parents died she was left completely along. Charlotte is hiding her loneliness, insecurity and depression behind a mask of a cheerful entertainer. She constantly performs tricks and jokes for an amusement of the people around her.
Semyon Yepikhodov - A clerk at the Ranevskaya’s estate. He is a source of amusement for all inhabitance of estate, because of his extreme clumsiness. He poses as the hopeless and moody romantic. There's something both amusing and sad about his pathetic attempts to win Dunyasha’s heart.
Firs - Ranevskaya's eighty-seven-year-old loyal servant. Firs is always talking about how things were better in the past and, most importantly, he frequently nostalgic about the life before the serfs were freed. He is possibly senile, and is constantly mumbling.
Dunyasha - A young maid on the Ranevskaya’s estate. She is very immature and child-like self-absorbed. She is silly about romance, particularly her infatuation with Yasha.
Yasha – A young servant who has been traveling with Ranevskaya ever since she left for France. He is always complaining about how uncivilized Russia is when compared to France. He is cynical and selfish, and believes that he is better than everybody else.
