The Performance Company
ALL Performance Company paid roles and non-paid roles have been filled for the upcoming 2010 Faire season. Please inquire by early next spring for date & location of Open Auditions for the 2011 Faire season.
Discover how to audition to become a member of the 2011 Performance Company for both paid and non-paid roles by reading the following:
Have you ever wanted to act at a renaissance faire?
Have your friends ever said you should try out sometime?
Well, now's your chance to learn how to audition for the Journeyman Company for 2011!
Or perhaps you're an old hat at the faire and have mastered certain skill sets?
Then the newly created Spendpenny Players is just for you!
Newcomer to acting at faires? Then Prepare yourself to audition for the 2011 Faire Season!
One of our alumni recently wrote how she chose to improv instead of being stranded when a scene change didn't go as planned during a play. Her amazed fellow actors asked where she learned this skill:
“And I just replied ‘the renaissance faire, I think’. So thank you. I owe it to you that I can do that.”
- Kyrie M., 2009 Journeyman Company
This free program was such a success last year, we’ve expanded it!
The Journeyman Company is a volunteer internship program and is made up of people from all walks of life who all share the same dream: to act at a renaissance faire. Once you've completed the intense and fun workshops you will walk away knowing everything you've ever needed to act at a renaissance faire.
The best part: no experience is required!
You’ll work with others in a fun and safe environment right on the faire grounds in workshops designed to encourage freedom of creative expression through improvisational theater, character development and Elizabethan language. Seasoned professionals from the faire show you the ropes so you’ll be ready to hit the streets as one of the entertaining and unforgettable characters that make up our village for the run of the faire.
Note: you must be 16 years of age or older. Minors must have signed parental permission to perform.
Experienced and want to participate? Join the new Spendpenny Players!
If you’ve worked at the faire before and demonstrated a mastery of basic improv, impromptu character development and Elizabethan language, we want you as a Spendpenny!
Complementing our professional Performance Company, the Spendpennies are experienced actors who volunteer their time to be cast into roles such as villagers, nobles, Sheriff’s guardsmen and more while they learn and/or hone their intermediate improvisation skills and step into the realm of the advanced.
About the Auditions
You can’t prepare for improv!
The audition process is a fun and fast-paced improvisational workshop environment where you will work with our directors and fellow hopefuls to strut your stuff. Kindly leave your monologues and costumes home! Instead, create a character that lives in our quaint village of Sterling during the reign of Elizabeth I and be prepared to perform it.
- The character should be something in which you'd actually be cast. Same gender, within reasonable approximation of your actual age, etc.
- Be original! We prize originality and creativity above all else. No literary or historical characters but feel free to be inspired by such.
- Be ludicrous! Yes, have fun with it. Actually, have a blast with it! For example, we're not looking for the village grounds keeper who's allergic to grass (funny, but not probable). Instead, I'd like to see something like a village grounds keeper who sifts through people's garbage thereby making them the village gossip mill as well, albeit their source of info is a little filthy. Come up with a name that fits as well. A blacksmith might have the last name Smith, but that's boring. How about "Roger Smackenhammer" or "Katie Armorall"? You get the idea.
- You have absolute freedom. Being a grounds keeper or a blacksmith is perfectly acceptable but we've had characters who were turnip farmers, poop smiths, rat catcher/chef, poets/playwrights, overly dramatic aspiring actors, knight-wannabes, etc.
- Accents are not required - you will not be judged on them.
- You don't need to be funny! Nope, feel free to create a dramatic role, a pitiful role, a lover's role. Whatever you wish, you're the writer/actor/director on this one.
During your audition, you will perform the character you created. Here's what that performance should include:
- Entire piece must be between 30 and 60 seconds.
- Establish the platform through language and/or movement. If you come up with a pig farmer, perhaps they approach us through the mud. If they are wearing a duke's coronet, perhaps they hand it to their servant who summarily drops it. Or maybe they're just on the noisy streets of a medieval village and need to shout over the rabid attacking geese in the background. Whatever your choice make it active, make it yours.
- Once you step up to perform the character introduction, you're in-character until you sit back down.
- State your name (ex. "Good morrow! I be Roger Smackenhammer...")
- State a brief introduction (ex. "...the village sword smith and purveyor of fine baby toys.")
- State your reason for being in the shire. (ex. "I heard that today the queen was coming to the shire, so I thought I would show Her Majesty how I pound things...")
- State a hope (ex. "...into great metal shapes so Her Majesty could make me her personal smith.")
- Give yourself an exit (ex. "Well, I be off to finish my custom order of fish leashes. May your arm be ever strong and your hammer ever quick! (exit)")
Compensation for the Journeyman & Spendpenny Players includes, but is not limited to, preferred actor parking, onsite camping during performance weekends*, Complimentary Passes to attend the Faire for family and friends.
Performance dates are Saturdays, Sundays, including Labor Day Monday, during the months of August & September 2011. Call times are 9am to 7pm during performance days. Journeyman or Spendpennies are required to commit to six weekends out of eight including Labor Day Monday.
Questions? For more information contact, Steve Kraus, Director of the JC and SP programs, at nyrfjc@gmail.com or call Christopher DeTroy at (845) 351-5171, ext 24.
*Minors must have additional parental permission for weekend camping.
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Independent Contract Company
All 2010 Contracts for our Independent Contract Company are currently filled. The Faire is always seeking self-contained Renaissance-style Musicians, Magicians, Jugglers, Acrobats, Stilt Walkers, Knife-Throwers, Mud Performers, Puppeteers, Swordsmen, Clowns, Fire Eaters and other interesting acts with half-hour stage shows or street shows for future seasons.
To be considered for our 2011 season:
Call Christopher DeTroy at 845-351-5171 or email: kastuff1313@yahoo.com
or should send a cover letter with contact and rate information along with a CD or DVD of your act to:
Christopher DeTroy
c/o New York Renaissance Faire
600 Route 17A
Tuxedo, NY 10987
The New York Renaissance is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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