UPDATE, June 7.
We have heard from many people who can't come to auditions this week.
We offer two alternatives for you to do your audition. We are opening another group of audition appointments for Monday, June 13, between 6:30 and 8:00 PM. These are now available on our Sign Up website.
You can also submit a video audition if this works better. Click here for instructions for how we'd like to receive a video audition.
Auditions for 2022 Bright Star will be held June 6 and 7, starting at 7:00 PM, at the Woodside Village Church, 3154 Woodside Road, in Woodside. There is lots of parking in the elementary school lot, across the street.
Auditioning for Woodside Musical Theatre is easy and relatively painless. Bring three copies of your resume and headshot, if you have them. Please get to the audition site a few minutes before your appointment to fill out the paperwork. Bring your calendar so you can add your potential conflicts during August - November to our audition form.
And, just so you know, virtually everybody is nervous at auditions -- even those people who don't look it! Relax, have fun and don't forget to breathe!
Stage Director/Choreographer: Gary Stanford, Jr.
Music Director: Brett Strader
Vocal Director: Renee Lubin
The show was composed by comedian Steve Martin and Edie Brickell; it's based on a dramatic and heart-warming true story spanning 1923 to 1946, in the region of Asheville, North Carolina. The music is all bluegrass style, unique in musical theatre. You can read more about the show here at the publisher's website. Once on this page, click on "Casting Information" to see the characters you're auditioning for. Your smart speaker probably has the music: "Alexa, play the bright star album."
Appointments
We offer automated appointments for auditions, which we highly recommend:
Click here to sign up for an audition time.
(To make an appointment on this website, click the checkbox on the time slot you want, and then click "Submit and Sign Up" at the bottom of the page. Just clicking the box alone doesn't do it!)
If all of our appointments are taken don't despair! Check back in a day or so -- we may open up more appointments. Regardless, we will make every effort to accommodate everyone who comes to audition, appointment or not. If you don't have an appointment, you may have to wait a bit.
Can't make it June 6 or 7?
If you can't make it either date, email us at auditions@woodsidetheatre.com and we'll work something out. We can accept a video audition in this situation, but we'd really rather see you in person.
COVID
COVID is still a major problem in Bay Area Theatre; In April and May, shows were canceled or closed early due to outbreaks among the cast and crew. For everyone's safety, we require auditioners show proof of vaccines and boosters as they check in for auditions. Please bring a mask; depending on how the pandemic is going, we may ask you to wear it in the waiting area.
Your Audition Song
Our audition format is pretty typical of amateur musical theater. We'd like you to come prepared to sing 16 to 32 bars of a song you know well. Bring sheet music, in your key, for our excellent accompanist. No recordings or lead sheets, please, and the accompanist will love it if the music is well-organized, easy to turn pages, and the beginning and end point clearly marked. Experienced musical theater performers will have a repertoire of these, and we're happy to hear anything that demonstrates your range, capability and technique. Please don't do a song from Bright Star for your preliminary audition; you'll get a chance to sing those at callbacks! Bottom line: we'd rather you nail a song you know well, rather than stumble through one that is difficult or you just learned.
You should choose a real Broadway show song or one of your favorite bluegrass/country-western tunes -- but most important, we'd rather you sing something you love that shows off your talent and your enthusiasm. If you're new at this, or don't have a song prepared, but want to be in the show anyway, don't worry. Our audition team will help you determine and demonstrate your singing range.
The directors may ask you to change something and repeat part of it; if that happens, it's good news, because it means they're imagining you doing so in rehearsals!
Short Reading
We will provide you with a sheet of speeches from Bright Star; you'll have a chance to pick one from your favorite character, practice it while you wait, and then to read it in character at this audition as well.
Who
All roles will be cast by audition, and all roles are available. WMT has no contract with Actors Equity Association, so if you're with AEA and we cast you, you could get in trouble with them (we won't :-)). Other performing arts unions, such as SAG, are no problem. We do not pay salary to our performers, but offer expense reimbursement for those bridge tolls and gas bills. Also, everyone says we are one of the most fun groups on the peninsula!
Teenagers who appear as adults are more than welcome to audition for Bright Star. If you are under 18 years old, we have a permission form your parent or guardian must sign before you audition. Bright Star does not have any scripted roles for kids who look like kids.
Woodside Musical Theatre expects to tell the story of Bright Star with a racially and ethnically diverse cast and production company. We intend to tell the story without significant regard to actor ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. We are committed to hiring artistic and technical staff, and casting performers as diverse as the greater San Francisco Bay Area community we serve.
Callbacks
Callbacks will be held the evenings of June 13 and 14. The callback sessions are by invitation; invites will be sent by email as soon as we know them, most likely a couple days after preliminaries are over. We only call back people we actually need to see again -- so just because you are not called back does not mean you're not in the show. Really!
We will hold a dance audition at callbacks; the choreographer will teach you a brief routine, and then you'll perform it for the directors a couple times.
Cast Announcement
We usually announce a cast list within 10 days after the callbacks. We post a note on our Facebook page, post the list here on our website, and send an email to everyone who auditioned, whether they were cast or not. So, if you auditioned and haven't heard from us, check your spam folder, and this web page.
Rehearsals
Rehearsals will begin in early August, and are normally Monday through Thursday evenings, 7:00-10:00 PM. We make every effort to effectively use our cast members' time; you'll be called for (e.g.) one-hour time slots depending on which songs and scenes you will be in. Not everyone will be called every night until we start run-throughs in late September.
Performance Dates
Performances will be October 14, 15, 16 (matinee), 21, 22 and 23 (matinee), at the (fabulous) Woodside Performing Arts Center. If ticket sales warrant, we may add a matinee on October 22.
Next steps
Questions?
Feel free to ask questions about the audition process by emailing auditions@woodsidetheatre.com .