Actor Training

The Apprentice Actor Training Program

The Great River Shakespeare Festival’s Apprentice Actor Training Program focuses on developing and enhancing actors’ knowledge of and experience with verse, and is intended to help actors make the transition from training programs to the professional world.

The 2011 Apprentice Acting Company: a talented, committed, and eager group of young actors-in-training who were chosen from across the country and joined us for Season 8 at GRSF.

The program has three components:

Learn: Apprentices take classes and workshops from GRSF company members. Ranging from study of Shakespeare’s First Folio to movement training, our classes provide a complete immersion in work on classical texts. Apprentices acquire tools to create a solid working process for rehearsal and learn how to apply that process in a professional setting. GRSF text coach Terry Weber leads the majority of classes. Nationally known director and festival founder Paul Barnes will also offer workshops along with Associate Director Doug Scholz-Carlson and other company members.

Observe: Apprentices are given understudy assignments in one of the three main stage season productions. Understudies are required to be at every rehearsal for which the actor they are understudying is called, from initial text work to opening night. By following one member of the professional company from beginning to end of the rehearsal process, Apprentices have the opportunity to observe first hand how an experienced actor handles the challenges of working on Shakespeare in a professional setting.

Perform: Apprentices apply what they have learned as they rehearse and perform their own project under the direction of GRSF artistic staff. Each season’s Intern/Apprentice Company project performs in the Dorothy B. Magnus Studio Theatre in the Winona State University Performing Arts Center, adjacent to the main stage theatre in which the GRSF professional company productions take place. The 2012 season Intern/Apprentice Company project (title TBA), will perform nine times during the last week and a half of the season. Project production values are minimal so the focus remains on the actor, the text, and the audience. Past projects have included As You Like It (2004), Twelfth Night (2005), Cymbeline (2006), Julius Caesar (2007), Pericles (2008) and Hamlet (2009), Titus Andronicus (2010), and King Lear (2011).

Apprentices are also asked to perform technical theater and administrative office assignments throughout the production build and performance run, on an as needed basis under the supervision of GRSF’s professional staff.

Tuition for the 2012 Apprentice Actor Training Program will be $1150, which includes housing for the summer. Please check back for updated 2012 tuition which is not likely to increase. Scholarships and some financial aid is available. Rehearsals in 2012 begin Tuesday, May 15th; two of the 2012 productions, King Lear and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, open the weekend of June 22nd and 23rd. The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) opens June 29th, and all three run in repertory through Sunday, August 5th. The Intern/Apprentice Project, All’s Well That Ends Well directed by Rick Barbour, opens July 25th and runs from then on in rep with the other productions. Apprentices participate in strike and are finished on Wednesday, August 8th.

Audition

Ready to join us? Fill out the 2012 application. When you submit the application, you’ll get an email address where you can send your photo and current resume. Here are the current scheduled auditions (Please check back as we will add to this list):

• University of Wisconsin, Parkside – November 28th
• University of Tennessee, Knoxville – December 7th
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis – February 13th, 8-10pm
  Click to sign up for a Minneapolis audition time.
• St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN – February 15th
• Midwest Theater Auditions, St. Louis, MO – February 17-19
• Also planned: U of Illinois, Evansville - U of Missouri, Kansas City – U of California, Irvine – U of  Texas, Austin – Millikin University – U of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana – Illinois State U, Bloomington-Normal U of Nevada, Las Vegas  and Southern Methodist University

Video auditions, January 30th, 2-6PM CST: we are going to try an experiment this year in live video auditions. Click here to sign up for a live audition via Skype, Google+, Facebook or FaceTime.

For the audition, please prepare 2 monologues each under 2 minutes in length. At least one and preferably both should be Shakespeare and preferably in verse.

See more GRSF videos at YouTube.com/GreatRiverShakes
Photos of the 2011 Apprentice Intern Project: King Lear
Or: view it full size on Flickr