``EVERYBODY`` AUDITIONS + ASSISTANTSHIPS
BY BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS | TAPS WINTER MAIN STAGE
ABOUT EVERYBODY
TAPS Winter Main Stage, Everybody, is a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by TAPS Artistic Director Prof. Michael Rau. This modern riff on the fifteenth-century morality play Everyman follows Everybody (chosen from amongst the cast by lottery at each performance) as they journey through life’s greatest mystery—the meaning of living.
Rehearsals are January-February, Monday-Thursday, 7-10 and Saturday 1-5pm. Student conflicts with the rehearsal schedule will not be honored after the 3rd day of rehearsal. Students will be expected to memorize their lines over winter break and arrive off-book for the first rehearsal.
This production performs February 27-29 and March 5-7 in Roble Studio Theater. Everybody serves as Winter Quarter’s TAPS 122P course (see more below).
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Michael Rau is a live performance director specializing in new plays, opera, and digital media projects. He has worked internationally in Germany, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the Czech Republic. He has created work in New York City at Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, The Bushwick Starr, The Brick, 59E59, 3LD, and Dixon Place. Regionally, his work as been seen at the Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland OH, and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. He has developed new plays at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Lark and the Kennedy Center. Michael Rau is a recipient of fellowships from the Likhachev Foundation, the Kennedy Center, and the National New Play Network. He has been a resident artist at the Orchard Project, E|MERGE, and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Rau is a Forward/Story fellow and a speaker at Books in Browsers, StoryCode, and RailsConf2016. He has been an associate director for Anne Bogart, Les Waters, Robert Woodruff, and Ivo Van Hove. He is a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect and a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received his MFA in Theater Directing from Columbia University.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ plays include Everybody (Signature Theater), Neighbors (Public Theater), An Octoroon (Soho Rep, OBIE Award for Best New Play), Appropriate (Signature Theater, OBIE Award for Best New Play, Outer Critics Circle nominee), Gloria (Vineyard Theater, 2015), and War (Yale Rep, forthcoming). His plays have been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, Soho Rep, the Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theater, The Matrix Theater, CompanyOne, Theater Bielefeld in Germany and the HighTide Festival in the UK. He is currently a Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre and master-artist-in-residence in the Playwriting MFA program of Hunter College, City University of New York. Other honors include a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, the Paula Vogel Award, a Fulbright Arts Grant, a Helen Merrill Award, the Dorothy Strelsin playwriting fellowship, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. He is a Princeton alum from the Class of 2006, holds an MFA in Performance Studies from NYU, and is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard. Photo and Bio Credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
ABOUT AUDITIONS
STEP #1 | SIGN UP FOR A TIME SLOT
Click to Sign Up Now!If you cannot make these audition dates but would like to audition, email TAPSinformation@stanford.edu.
Be advised that you should arrive at least ten minutes prior to your scheduled time to fill out necessary paperwork.
STEP #2 | WHAT TO PREPARE
Auditioners should Prepare a 1-3 minute contemporary monologue. If the auditioner is selected for a callback they will be emailed scenes from the play to read and perform over the weekend.
The production is looking for 9 actors of any gender/race/ethnicity. Any prospective participant has the right to make inquiries about how their cultural personhood will be used within the production. Inquiries will receive a thoughtful response and will remain confidential. Actors will learn multiple roles and must be eligible to enroll in TAPS 122P in Winter. This production will not include nudity, though actors cast may be asked to wear bathing-suit attire in the production, not at the audition. All auditioners are encouraged to read the play before auditioning to understand its unique nature. Prospective participants can decline auditions without fear of losing future audition invitations.
The script does call for a dance number, so performers will be expected to move, but no prior dance training is necessary.
ABOUT TAPS 122P: UNDERGRADUATE PERFORMANCE PROJECT
TAPS 122P Undergraduate Performance Project is a unique offering of the TAPS department. It allows student actors the opportunity to participate in a major main stage work of lasting significance as performers, and receive academic units for the work. There is a required seminar component of relevant study for the acting and artistic company.
Past Performances of the 122P include The Seagull, Life is a Dream, The Crucible, Hamlet, The Tempest, Our Country’s Good, Attempts on Her Life, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Actors report that the quality of the experience has made it one of the high points of their time at Stanford. Our goal is to deliver high-quality canonical theater work within containable and limited rehearsal hours. In order to do that, all actors must be able to fulfill the rehearsal schedule before they accept a role. Actors who are selected by auditions must enroll in the 122P Undergraduate Theater Performance class on Axess at the end of the fall quarter to finalize their participation in the play and seminar.
ACADEMIC CREDIT
The 122P Production/Class can be taken for units ranging from 1-9 depending on level of participation. (For actors generally 3-9 units.) Priority consideration in casting major roles may go to TAPS Majors and Minors, where there are equally suitable candidates.
ASSISTANT POSITIONS
TAPS is also seeking design and rehearsal assistants for this production. Applications are due via email to Production Manager Jane Casamajor (janecasa [at] stanford.edu) by Oct 17th.