ABOUT THE SHOW

FALL 2024 MAIN STAGE | THREE SISTERS
Written by Anton Chekhov
Translated By Madeleine George
Directed by Stephanie Hunt

On the brink of a new era three sisters, living in a small boring town, dream of a better life in the big city where they were born. Over the next three years, the sisters fall in love, work, banter about the meaning of life, and struggle to keep their dreams alive. Anton Chekhov penned this poignant and humorous play in 1900 for his friends and his wife, the actors of the Moscow Art Theater, to perform. Our production will be set in the year it was written.

Rehearsing Chekhov’s Three Sisters we will focus particularly on character and relationship, ensemble building, physical play, subtext, and sensory life. The humor, absurdity, mystery, and empathy found in Chekhov’s work will be explored. Through research into 19th-century Russian culture and Chekhov’s short stories, we will actively investigate how clothing, art, manners, music, politics, and food affect movement and behavior. Using techniques developed by the great acting teacher Stanislavsky, including text analysis and improvisation, we will embody the play’s characters and events, while exploring gesture, tempo-rhythm, physical centers, and archetypes.

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Stanford TAPS seeks to build a diverse cast for this production and encourages members of any race, gender identity, and ability to audition. If any accessibility accommodations are needed please email tapsinformation@stanford.edu for assistance.

In addition to its scheduled performances, this production may be live-streamed or recorded for public viewing.

ABOUT THE REHEARSAL PROCESS

TAPS is partnering with the Arts Intensive* and COLLEGE programs as part of campus-wide involvement in this production. 

• Actors who are cast, Assistant Directors, and Dramaturgs will participate in the Art Intensive in September as part of the rehearsal and research process. 
• Following Arts Intensive, they will rehearse the play in the fall quarter of 2024 and should sign up for TAPS 122P for course credit and further exploration. 
• Three Sisters requires outside rehearsals five to six times per week. Not all students will be called for every rehearsal, but participants will be expected to be available for each rehearsal unless they have listed it as a conflict. You can view the Rehearsal and Tech schedules in the right-hand column under “Important Resources.”

ARTS INTENSIVE FEE/FUNDING

Arts Intensive’s all-inclusive fee of $750 will be covered by Arts Intensive/TAPS financial support:

1. When applying for Arts Intensive (if cast), you will be automatically considered for financial assistance. Please do not opt-out. Most applicants have a significant portion of the fee waived. You can learn more about AI’s Financial Aid here.
2. Subsequently, if you have a remaining balance, please email TAPS Production Manager Tyler Osgood (tosgood [at] stanford.edu) to request full funding, which will be provided by TAPS. Students need not establish financial need.

Please reach out to TAPS Production Manager, Tyler Osgood, with any questions on funding.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Stephanie Hunt is an actor, director, and teacher of voice and acting. As a core member of the Bay Area theatre company, Word for Word, Stephanie has acted in numerous productions, including Tobias Wolff’s Sanity, Colm Tóibín’s Silence, Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of her Peers. She played Lizzie Borden in The Fall River Axe Murders by Angela Carter directed by Amy Freed. For Word for Word, she directed the productions of Bullet in the Brain and Lady’s Dream by Tobias Wolff, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones, which played at the Z Space before touring France. She has directed a number of university productions, most recently at USF, where she directed Twelfth Night, and adapted and directed Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock. Stephanie is committed to creating and teaching ensemble-based theater, and she has an abiding love for Chekhov’s plays. 

ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE PLAY/MOVEMENT COACH

Matt Chapman (he/they) plays with physical theater, movement, and clown. Since 200, he has been Co-Artistic Director of his ensemble, Under the Table. Matt came to TAPS in 2017, after teaching at Dell’Arte International (Blue Lake, CA) and American Conservatory Theatre (SF).

Matt has worked around the world and has toured extensively to venues across North America – from Broadway’s Signature Theatre to a Seniors’ Centre in Saskatoon. He has collaborated with NYC’s Eavesdrop; Durban, South Africa’s African Dream Circus; Sweden’s Cirkus Cirkor; Denmark’s Filuren and Jomfru Ane Teatret; Philadelphia’s Hotel Obligado; Arcata, CA’s Pequeño Teatro DanceTheatre; Berkeley’s Pinecones and Portals; and Clowns Without Borders.

Based in Oakland, Matt writes music for the punk band The Big Forgive, and practices myofascial release/orthopedic massage therapy. He graduated from Dell’Arte International and the University of Kansas, and was a recipient of Theatre Communications Group’s “New Generations Future Leaders” program.

ABOUT AUDITIONS

Two optional play readings, to get to know the play, will be held on March 15 and April 05 preceding the auditions in Spring (open to all undergraduates). Assistant Director/Designer and Dramaturg applications are available below as well.

Auditions will be held as 15-minute individual timeslots. If you are unable to attend auditions in person, please email tapsinformation@stanford.edu to explore alternatives.

AUDITION/CASTING PROCESS

1. Sign up to audition using the button above and select a time slot.
2. Audition during your time slot, then attend callbacks as requested. Even if you do not receive a callback, you may still be in consideration for a role.
3. If you are cast, it is required that you apply to the Arts Intensive – Acting Chekhov: Three Sisters. You do not need to apply for AI until casting decisions have been made. Participation in the Arts Intensive is required to play one of the ten major roles.
4. If you are cast, in the Fall, you will need to register for TAPS 122P.

WHAT TO PREPARE

Please prepare a 1-3 minute contemporary monologue of your choosing that showcases you. If you are unable to prepare a monologue, please choose a side from one of these nine characters. Sides from the show are available in the right-hand column under “Important Resources.” Also, you may be asked to cold read one of these in addition to your monologue.

CASTING BREAKDOWN & DESCRIPTIONS

The Director is looking to cast 14 roles. Roles are open to people of all backgrounds. In our production, family members may be from different backgrounds and may not look alike. Priority Casting consideration may be given to TAPS majors/minors, but roles are open to all.

The Prozorov Family

• Olga — Oldest Sister, 28 — Schoolteacher, Unmarried, looks after the family, hardworking, responsible, loving.
• Masha — Middle Sister, 23 — Unhappily married to Kulygin, the Schoolteacher, whom she originally revered. Masha can be temperamental. She sometimes speaks bluntly. Masha has a passionate affair with the Battery Commander, Colonel Vershinin.
• Irina — Youngest Sister, 20 — Unmarried. Irina is very hopeful about life and idealizes work. She wants to return to the Moscow of the sisters’ childhood. She has several wishful suitors among the soldiers.
• Andrey — Their Brother — Andrey’s sisters have high hopes for him in Act I. Later he becomes a painful disappointment to himself and the sisters. He marries Natasha. Andrey works as a clerk for the District Council. He goes out gambling with the Chebutykin, the doctor, to disastrous results. He has a problem with insomnia.
• Natasha — Andrey’s fiancée, and then his wife, mother to Bobik and Sophia. She is shy in Act I and once married competes with Olga and the sisters over who controls the household. Natasha begins to move the sisters out of their rooms so her children can have their rooms. She is having an affair with Andrey’s boss, Protopopov, who runs the District Council.
• Kulygin — Masha’s Husband — a Schoolteacher, quotes Latin, gregarious, doesn’t notice when he is boring his listeners, devoted, loyal.

The Soldiers

• Baron Tuzenbach — A suitor to Irina, who declares his deep love for her. Tuzenbach is from an aristocratic German family, but he downplays his German background. He is friendly, considerate, and decent. Irina becomes engaged to him by Act Four.
• Solyony — A suitor to Irina, in competition with Tuzenbach. In company, Solyony speaks in nonsequiturs and is quarrelsome. He perfumes his hands with cologne. Models himself after the romantic poet Lermontov who died young in a duel. The word Solyony means Salty.
• Chebutykin — 60 years old — A doctor, who says he has forgotten how to practice medicine. He is devoted to the sisters, especially Irina. He talks about having been in love with their mother. He is in turn hopeful and sometimes in a deep existential crisis which makes him speak cynically. He has a drinking problem and takes Andrey out gambling.
• Vershinin — A Battery Commander newly arrived at the beginning of the play. He is married, unhappily, to a woman who is troubled, and they have two children. Colonel Vershinin is from Moscow. The sisters remember meeting him in Moscow when they were younger. At that time he had the nickname the “lovesick major.” He likes to talk and philosophize; the Sisters find him dashing. He has an affair with Masha. His name means Summit.
• Fedotik — A second Lieutenant, an affectionate friend to the Prozorovs, takes photographs at Irina’s name day party, and brings a spinning top as a gift for Irina.
• Rode — A second Lieutenant, an affectionate friend to the Prozorovs, brings flowers for Irina with Fedotik.
• Ferapont — an elderly porter for the District Council’s office. Hardworking, brings papers to Andrey to sign. Ferapont is hard of hearing, so Andrey feels comfortable confiding in him. 
• Anfisa — 80 years old — a nurse or servant, whom the sisters see as a member of their family. It is implied that the sisters and Andrey grew up with her.
• Various Soldiers, Officers, and Servants

ASSISTANT POSITIONS