Archives - Audition: The History Boys

Wednesday 10th March 2010 at 8pm in Room One

Playing dates: 9th-17th July

Alan Bennett said recently that he’d ‘never had so much fun as rehearsing The History Boys’ and I anticipate that the Barn History Boys team will have a similar experience. This is a wonderfully entertaining, funny, sad, thought-provoking play, and putting it together should be a rewarding experience for all concerned.

I need a cast of 4 teachers and 8, plausibly sixth form, boys.

The Teachers

Hector: the maverick teacher. His educational and personal aspirations may be somewhat questionable, but the depth of his humanity makes him intensely lovable. Close to retirement age.
The Headmaster: ambitious for his school. Much comedy to be derived from his stiff pretentiousness. Middle aged.
Dorothy: a traditional history teacher but with an acerbic wit and intelligent heart. Close to retirement age.
Irwin: the new teacher brought in to shake up history teaching in order to give the boys a better chance of Oxbridge. In some ways more naïvethan the boys, and looking young enough to be mistaken for one of them.

The Boys

The professional production of The History Boys turned out to be a star maker – every one of the boys went on to great things, so there are clearly lots of challenges and opportunities here.

The 8 are essentially a team who, between them, should be able to deliver intelligent, witty dialogue, sing, play the piano, recite poetry from Larkin to Shakespeare, speak French and mimic the stars of 1940’s films. (So no pressure!) I hope to cast the 8 from the auditions, but not necessarily to allocate the specific parts until after the early workshop rehearsals, when we’ll do some exploratory work on the above areas – you won’t be expected to produce polished performances at the auditions!

Here are a few pointers:

Posner: the least mature and probably the most sensitive. Jewish. Gay. Sings solo.
Dakin: the most mature and the sexiest. Is having it off with the Head’s secretary but also has a passing interest in Irwin.
Scripps: Dakin’s confidant. Also mature. A writer in the making; at present in a religious phase. (He is Bennett’s pianist, but the pianist could be one of the other boys.)
Rudge: a sportsman, apparently the slowest of the boys but with hidden depths and a surprise up his sleeve (as well as the funniest line in the play).
Timms: the class clown, perhaps.
Aktar: Asian, but, if we don’t have an Asian actor, he’ll become Atkins.
Crowther: confident, cheeky, wants to be an actor.
Lockwood: witty, intelligent; will become a magistrate.

As indicated above, I plan to do some intensive rehearsal with the boys during the Easter holidays, so if you need time off rehearsals for exams in May, this should be manageable. If you would like more details or a copy of the script, please phone me on 01707 266688 or email sylviapepper35@hotmail.com

Sylvia Pepper, Director

Directions

The Barn Theatre is in Barn Close (off Handside Lane), Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6ST. Map

For Room One, enter via the Stage Door, half-way down the right-hand side of the theatre viewed from Handside Lane (look for the sign “Festival costumes”.)

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