Please find below the audition details for Eight by Ella Hickson – an online pre-recorded production

Audition dates

Auditions will be held via Zoom on the following dates:

• Monday 8 March, 7pm
• Wednesday 10 March, 7pm
  
  

Production details

Broadcast date

tbc

Rehearsals

Rehearsals will be mainly held over Zoom.

There is a possibility that for a few of the monologues (e.g. Danny, Buttons, Mona, Andre) access to the theatre for filming may be required (this is obviously dependant on government COVID restrictions).

Please note: This is an amateur production. You do not need to be a member of Putney Theatre Company to audition, but actors and crew will need to become a member of Putney Theatre Company to take part in the show for £25 a year, and a £5 show fee will be due.

Audition Preperation

If you wish to audition, please do get in touch with the Directors by emailing them at ptcartisticdirector@gmail.com

Please state which part/s you would like to audition for, and your preferred date. An audition piece, along with a Zoom time slot, will then be forwarded to you.

Although we will be auditioning for 9 roles, we will be selecting only 8 (Eight).

Any questions, please feel free to get in touch: ptcartisticdirector@gmail.com

The PLAY

Eight compelling monologues, from Millie, the jolly-hockey-sticks prostitute who mourns the loss of the good old British class system, to Buttons a prisoner and dreamer with an obsession for ‘buttons’ , and Danny, an ex-squaddie who makes friends in morgues, Eight looks at what has happened to a generation that has grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable.

Ella Hickson's play Eight was first staged at Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in August 2008. It was awarded a Fringe First Award and the Carol Tambor 'Best of Edinburgh' Award.

If it is possible, we would like to film the monologues as either a zoom type video, and/or filmed socially distanced (once/if/when restrictions are lifted) at the theatre

Although a date to air this production has yet to be confirmed, we are hoping it will be available to broadcast in late May.

The Characters

Danny - Early 20s

Danny is a well-built man in his early twenties. He sits with a corpse's head lain across his knee, he is feeding water to the corpse. He is wearing jeans and black boots. Danny is in his early twenties, but he appears much younger; his learnt manner is one of faux aggression; however, he fails to disguise an underlying vulnerability. Danny is a little slow but essentially sweet.

Jude - 18/20 years old

Jude is Eighteen to Twenty years old, dressed in school trousers, shirt and tie. He recalls his visit to France, and his first sexual encounter, which happened to be with an older lady.

André - 30s gay art gallery owner

André, originally Andrew, is a well-dressed thirty-year-old gallery owner. He enters his gallery, clearly stricken, takes a moment to catch his breath.

Bobby - Early/mid 20s (Scottish accent if possible)

Bobby is in her mid-twenties and a mother of two – wearing a red Adidas tracksuit. She is seated on a table. We imagine her kids, Kyle and Chloë, four and six, at her feet in front of the telly. She's reading down to them in enthusiasm. Bobby has a strong, working-class Edinburgh accent, she mimics an upper-middle-class English accent when impersonating Mrs Beeton.

Mona – Late teens

Mona is in her late teens, with a mild pregnancy bump that is not seen immediately. Her hair is loose around her face; she has the innocence of youth and yet acts with disquieting intensity.

Miles - Late 20s/early 30s

Miles is an American man in his mid-twenties. He is dressed in a sharp suit and is attractive due to a corporate aesthetic. He should carry himself with ultimate bodily and vocal composure. The cracks in this composure should be perfectly synchronised with the glimpses of weakness in his performative façade.

Millie - Early 30s

Millie is an apparently well-to-do lady, in her early thirties, dressed in tennis whites and wielding a tennis racket. She is mid-mime, straddling an imaginary middle-aged man, flailing wildly...

Astrid - Mid/late 20s

Astrid is in her mid to late twenties. She is the kind of girl who seems comfortable in her own skin. Tonight, however, she is a little drunk. She is returning from a night out and is dressed accordingly. There is a bed in the centre of the stage – the audience can see a man sleeping in it. She slowly climbs into bed next to the man – desperately trying not to wake him.

Buttons - Mid 30s

'Buttons' is a well-built, tensile-looking man in his mid-thirties, grunting his way through press-ups on the floor of a prison cell. He will reach the end of a ten-year jail sentence tomorrow morning. He knows the small space well; it fits him and he owns it. There is a sense of latent sexual and physical power about the man.

Backstage opportunities

We would love to hear from anyone with filming experience, and who would be interested in filming a few of the monologues.