Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville, North Carolina, which is located about an hour’s drive away from campus, will be holding auditions at ETSU — Campus Center Building 205 — for their 2016 Spring Mainstage productions on a drop-in basis from 2-6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26.
“Successfully casting each role in every production is an important step in the life of any live theatre or film production,” said Andrew Gall, the artistic director at Parkway Playhouse. “As a result, many theatres set up as many casting calls as they can. The idea is to see and meet as many actors as possible. Over the last year, Parkway Playhouse and ETSU have ‘discovered’ each other.”
“Students from our K-12 outreach program have/are enrolling in ETSU’s theatre program, and we had Robby Taylor, an ETSU student, and Patrick Cronin, who is on faculty at ETSU, work with us last year.”
Parkway Playhouse was first established in 1947 and has since entertained thousands with annual plays and musicals. Many of the actors who have performed at Parkway Playhouse have enjoyed successful careers in the performing arts.
The theatre will be casting over 80 roles for their upcoming productions of “Steel Magnolias,” “The Ballad of Frankie Silver,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “West Side Story,” “You Can’t Take it With You” and “The Great Gatsby.”
“We already know that Patrick Cronin is returning to play a major role in our production of the comedy ‘You Can’t Take it With You,’” Gall said, “but so far, that is the only role that has been definitively cast. I certainly would love to see ETSU students in some of these roles, and there are certainly ample opportunities in just about every one of these productions.”
Candidates must be 18 years old or older in order to audition and should be prepared with a monologue and 16 bars of a song if they wish to be considered for singing roles.
Actors should also dress comfortably and be prepared to move and dance.
“As time, allows, we may ask some actors to read scenes from some of the scripts and/or invite them to a callback audition at Parkway Playhouse at a later date,” Gall said. “Actors are encouraged to tell us if they have a role that they would like us to consider them for in particular.”
Parkway Playhouse will also be looking for students who are interested in college internships or staff and design positions.
“Parkway Playhouse is seeking a production manager, box office staff and potentially a carpenter/painter in our scene shop,” Gall said. “We also hire 4 to 5 undergraduate students into our College Internship program. This is a 15-week program where students work with theatre staff and participate in production-related work in a variety of capacities.”
For more information about casting and volunteer opportunities at Parkway Playhouse, call 828-682-4285 or visit www.parkwayplayhouse.com.
