Drama director Sarah Thermond immediately knew that assigning roles for this year’s fall play, “Pride and Prejudice,” would be incredibly difficult after witnessing 40 students, split across every grade, display their diverse talents at auditions.
Nevertheless, on Sept. 13 after general auditions, call-backs and hours of pondering, Thermond chose senior and drama club president Emily Ludwig as the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, junior JT Hulme as the wealthy Fitzwilliam Darcy and juniors Saya Sivaram and Zach Grob-Lipkis to play Jane Bennet, and her love interest Charles Bingley, respectively.
“Not only was there a talent of talent [at auditions], but a lot of it was brand new,” Thermond said. “I probably got to see more material performed at these auditions than at any other because of how ready and willing the actors were to just dive right in and show me what they had.”
Like Thermond, students are excited about the diversity and enthusiasm of this year’s cast.
“I'm very excited for the show,” Ludwig said. “Looking at the great group of people we have this year, I'm expecting to have a ton of fun working on this show.”
On Sept. 10, students came to the auditions with monologues of their choice memorized. The next day, callbacks were held in the McAfee Center. During this time, students performed scenes from the show with other student actors so Thermond could better assess what roles people would be suited for while acting and interacting with others on stage. Thermond said that this process was actually quite difficult since they not only had to look over their assigned portion in ten minutes, but they also had grasp the complexity of the language.
“[Ms. Thermond] always does an excellent job of making people feel really welcome and at ease so auditions are never incredibly intimidating or scary,” Ludwig said. “Although we could read all of the scenes for callbacks, and are less prepared, we get to act with other people and it just takes the stress out of it.”
Regardless of the difficulties presented, Thermond feels that the students “handled it very well, and pushed through.” This process helps her envision how the story would be “brought to life” through the students.
Thermond is confident that this year’s cast will bring a unique presence to the stage.
“I just love this story so much and to see the kids be equally excited was great,” Thermond said. “Also, every character is so distinct that I would watch one actor go from one extreme to another. It’s extremely gratifying to know that we have actors in our program capable of tackling so many things, and who are so willing to try everything.”
