Newsroom

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University's University Theatre is holding auditions for Georg Büchner's play, "Woyzeck," at 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, and 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, in Withycombe Hall Room 173.

Fall and winter rehearsals will be 6:30-9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday evenings and 1:30-4:30 p.m. Sunday afternoons for the play, which runs Jan. 25-29. The first company meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 10, in the Withycombe Lab Theatre.

Actors wishing to audition should pick up scripts in the theater office, Withycombe Hall 141, select their two favorite characters, and prepare a short selection from both.

The theater will post a cast list at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 18.

Cast members of "The Insect Comedy," opening at OSU Nov. 10, are encouraged to audition if interested because the showdates do not conflict and rehearsal scheduling can accommodate those performers.

The script has more than 20 roles or characters. The producers wish to cast an equal number of men and women (approximately seven each), and many performers will be cast in multiple roles with females playing certain male roles.

Woyzeck is a poor, lower-class soldier with a girlfriend and young son whom he struggles to support. He sells his body to science and works extraordinarily long hours to satisfy his superiors who think he is stupid and amoral, largely because of his class. The Captain abuses Woyzeck and eventually informs him that his girlfriend is having an affair with the preening, self-satisfied Drum Major, leading to a tragic end.

The play, written in the 1830s, provides one of the first antiheroes in modern literature in its portrait of a decent man driven to madness and murder, demonstrating the comment by the ancient Roman poet Juvenal, "No man ever became extremely wicked all at once."

Actors can contact director Cathia Pagotto in Withycombe 145, call her at 737-3067, or send e-mail to [email protected] for more information.