Edith Cowan University

Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

AUDITION PIECES FOR WOMEN- 2014 INTAKE

ACTING COURSE

You must prepare two pieces from this section: one Shakespearean or Jacobean piece; and
one contemporary piece.

MUSIC THEATRE COURSE

(BA) & CERTIFICATE II

You must prepare any one piece from this selection in addition to the two songs.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

NEAPTIDE
by Sarah Daniels
Part 2, sc. 4

VAL
I think now, that I knew I was getting ill, losing control. I remember when the boys were just
babies and we lived in hard-to-let flats with the railway track running behind our block and lifting
one of them up to see a train go past - it all seems so insignificant now. He was fascinated and
as I held him I started to cry and repeat over and over ‘This is a little person’. I felt happy and
overwhelmingly sad at the same time, I don’t know why and from then on it was like getting
drunk. No, nothing dramatic, like swinging naked from chandeliers, not that I suppose I wouldn’t
have been tempted had any swung my way - like when you start to get drunk, you relax, tell
yourself you can sober up in a minute, only you can’t and when confronted with sober people
you know you’re losing ground, so you appear more drunk, not that you could appear sober if
you wanted to anyway. It’s very difficult to remember being unhappy — the actual feeling, like
when you’re freezing cold in the middle of winter — you can remember lying on the beach
boiling hot but you can’t imagine enough to feel it. And when you’re lying in the sun you can
only remember being cold but not what it felt like. (Pause.) I haven’t got an old self. I haven’t
got a new self to be cast on and off like a winter and summer coat. What I am is me.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

ALL MY SONS
by Arthur Miller

MOTHER
I was fast asleep, and — Remember the way he used to fly low past the house when he was in
training? When we used to see his face in the cockpit going by? That’s the way I saw him.
Only high up. Way, way up, where the clouds are. He was so real I could reach out and touch
him. And suddenly he started to fall. And crying, crying to me...Mom, Mom! I could hear him
like he was in the room. Mom! ... it was his voice! If I could touch him I knew I could stop him, if
I could only - I woke up and it was so funny - The wind ... it was like the roaring of his engine. I
came out here. I must’ve still been half asleep. I could hear that roaring like he was going by.
The tree snapped right in front of me - and I like – came awake. See?
We should never have planted that tree. I said so in the first place; it was too soon to plant a
tree for him.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

WINDMILL BABY
by David Milroy
Act 1

OLD MAY
All night I held my baby in my arms and in the morning I gave her to Wunman. I knew what he
said was true. His garden was a happy place.
The sound fades as the lights brighten.

When I lost my little Ruby I also lost the ring that Malvern gave me. I had Wunman and the
missus and Sally looking everywhere for it. I wanted to put it with my Ruby in the garden. [She
sighs.] But never mind. [Pause.] Took me a while to come good. I was sad for a long time.
Then one day the missus said she had something that would cheer me up. The mail truck had
dropped off a box and inside was a vase for Wunman's flowers and a gramophone. She set it
up on the step and invited me and Malvern to tea. True, ay! For blinkin' tea. Proper china
teacup and saucer. Malvern didn't want to go. He blamed the boss for Ruby's death. But I told
him, 'We're going for the missus,.not the boss'. I got a bucket of water and scrubbed him all
over. Up his nose, in his ears and under his arms. Every time he whinged, I scrubbed him
harder. I borrowed the big hanky off Aunty Darballa and tied it round his neck, polished his
head and cleaned his teeth with charcoal. I didn't have too much to make me pretty, but
Wunman tied some flowers together and I stuck 'em·in my hair. [Pause.] We all sat on the
verandah drinking tea while Wunman cranked the gramophone on the steps.
She demonstrates Wunman cranking and looking at the record spinning.

He started getting dizzy from watching it spin around, so he had to crank 'im like this.
She demonstrates Wunman cranking while looking away.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

by Tennessee Williams
Scene VI

BLANCHE
He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love.
All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on
something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky.
Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness
which wasn't like a man's, although he wasn't the least bit effeminate looking— still - that thing was
there.... He came to me for help. I didn't know that. I didn't find out anything till after our marriage when
we'd run away and come back and all I knew was I'd failed him in some mysterious way and wasn't able
to give the help he needed but couldn't speak of! He was in the quicksands and clutching at me -- but I
wasn't holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn't know that. I didn't know anything except I
loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. In the worst
of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty -- which wasn't empty,
but had two people in it...
A locomotive is heard approaching outside. She claps her hands to her ears and crouches over. The headlight of the
locomotive glares into the room as it thunders past. As the noise recedes she straightens slowly and continues
speaking.

Afterwards we pretended that nothing had been discovered. Yes, the three of us drove out to Moon Lake
Casino, very drunk and laughing all the way.
Polka music sounds, in a minor key faint with distance.

We danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from
me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later - a shot!
The Polka stops abruptly.
BLANCHE rises stiffly. Then the Polka resumes in a major key.

I ran out--all did! --all ran and gathered about the terrible thing at the edge of the lake! I couldn't get near for
the crowding. Then somebody caught my arm. "Don't go any closer! Come back! You don't want to see!"
See? See what! Then I heard voices say--Allan! Allan! The Grey boy! He'd stuck the revolver into his
mouth, and fired-- so that the back of his head had been--blown away!
She sways and covers her face.

It was because--on the dance-floor--unable to stop myself—I’d suddenly said--"I know! I know! You disgust
me..." And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one
moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this-kitchen-candle...
MITCH gets up awkwardly and moves towards her a little. The Polka music increases. MITCH stands beside her. She
stares at him vacantly for a moment. Then with a soft cry huddles in his embrace. She makes a sobbing effort to speak but
the words won't come. He kisses her forehead and her eyes and finally her lips. The Polka tune fades out. Her breath is
drawn and released in long, grateful sobs.

Sometimes -- there's God - so quickly!

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

DETROIT
by Lisa D’Amour
Scene IV

SHARON
Kenny you are not going to believe this. I am fucking losing it - do you see me? I am losing it!
It was the pink jogging suit lady. At our door! Only she wasn't wearing a pink jogging suit, she
was wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt. And she came over to ask us politely - sort of - politely if
we could keep our dog from shitting on her lawn. WE DON'T HAVE A DOG. Exactly. And so I
said to her, politely, I said, ''We don't have a dog" and she said, "Yes you do have a dog and it
is quite fond of taking craps on my lawn." "Quite fond." Like slicing a razor blade across my
face - "quite fond." And I said, "Lady, do you want to come in my house? We've got NOTHING
in our house, especially a DOG. Especially we do not have a DOG." And she said, "Listen,
missy." FUCKING MISSY! "Listen, missy. I've lived in this neighborhood for six years, and I
jog every morning. This dog appeared out of nowhere and started crapping on my lawn. I'm
not asking you to get rid of it, I'm just asking you to clean up his crap." And I practically started
crying - look at me I'm crying now-and I said, "Ma'am, people have accused me of many things
before, but they have never accused me of having a dog. You need to investigate further, you
need to knock on other doors-" And she said - her voice changed and she said, "Look, if it
craps on my lawn one more time, I am calling the police" and I said, "Are you. kidding? The
police are going to fucking LAUGH IN YOUR FACE if you call them about some dogshit." And
she said, "AHA! So you DO have a DOG!" And I said, "No, no, no, no, no fucking NO there is
no dog here, lady!" And she just shook her head and kind of kicked our plant and said, "Ha, I
thought it was fake." And turned around. I mean FUCK, Kenny, FUCK. This is like FUCKED
UP. (SHARON sees BEN) What the fuck happened?

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

LOVE AND MONEY

by Dennis Kelly

DEBBIE
I put wall-paper paste in the coffee machine at work.
Beat.
You know the powder, you buy the powder in, while no one was looking I put it into the machine and
stirred it all in and left it and it clogged up the machine and they all stood around it staring at it, hurt, like
it was a dead puppy.
Beat.
When you print orders at work, they come out face up with the address on, on, on the front and you
never see the backs until they, you know, come back from the clients completed, the order form is on the
back, you see, so you never see the, until, so I stayed late one night and I photocopied the word 'cock'
on the back of all the order forms, with a big picture of a cock and balls that I drew in magic marker, and
then I put them back in the printer, and the next day they sent out thousands and they got hundreds of
complaints and lost their two biggest clients.

I keep falling asleep in meetings and no-one's noticed yet. They think I'm concentrating.

Last week I caught a mouse in my flat, I have mice, which is something I don't really, I don't really like
that, I have mice and I caught this one on glue paper, you know, the glue traps, I've tried everything else
and that's the only thing that works and the worst thing is that when you catch them they're still alive so
you have to, you know, despatch them, so I put a cloth over it and I hit it on the head with a cup, a mug,
but it took quite a few, you know, hits and it was screaming and I felt sick and I was crying and
everything and then I peeled it off the paper, you have to be very careful because the body's quite
delicate, and then I took a scalpel that I have for handicrafts and I slit its little belly open and I tugged out
all its insides and I stuck them and the body onto this Christmas card, so that it was splayed open with
the guts out into this Christmas tree design, and I sent it to my boss with writing cut out from a
newspaper saying 'Thanks for all the hard work and good luck in the new job cunt-face'. They called the
police.
Beat.
I wanted to be a newsreader when I was a little girl.
Pause. She picks up the card. He stares at her.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

CRUEL AND TENDER

by Martin Crimp
Part 1, Scene 3

AMELIA
If you call me distressed
Jonathan
one more time
or use my name
Jonathan
one more time tonight I won't scream
no
what I will in fact do
is stuff your mouth with barbed wire.
Because forgive me
but I'm starting to find the way you speak
an atrocity which makes cutting a man's heart out
seem almost humane.
If you have something to say
about that child and my husband
say it. But don't and I repeat
don't think you can what?
'spare my feelings?'
because I am not a child
and do not expect to be treated like a child
in my own house - is that clear?
You think it's a secret
that my husband has other women?
You think he doesn't tell me about them?
Oh yes - oh yes - he tells me about them –
their names
the colour of their hair
because he knows I'd rather be told
even if being told is
and it is
I can promise you that it is
like having my face sprayed with acid.
When I slept with you
Jonathan
I told him the same evening
and after he'd punched his fist through the bathroom
wall
he made me put on my red dress
and took me dancing.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

Whereas - let me guess - you and

Kitty? --was that Kitty on the phone?--yes?--Kitty?--
Kitty and yourself--poor little Kitty
has never been told, has she,
even though her ignorance
is precisely what you despise about her--
am I right?
Slight pause.
You see
Jonathan
I happen to believe that love and truth
are the same thing.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

by Michael Gow

STEPHANIE
I'm sorry for you, but for this family this is the end of the line. We are like the slaves locked in
with the dead king, just sitting around waiting for the inevitable. Just go back to your aged
mother and do whatever you have to do, make tea and semolina and comb the sparse hair and
fluff the pillows and tie up the bedjacket. It's quite hopeless here and we don't need any help.
So, go back to your flat.· This is a prison. You're right. You are in prison. I don't care if you
never admit life is a bad joke. I don't care if you never once think about death or the size of the
universe or how really really tiny your own life is. It doesn't matter. I've got you. I've got you
locked up in exactly the kind of life you and your whole generation wanted so badly. It's clean,
new, sealed off from the world by a security system. I've got you. You'll never get out. You're
stuck here forever. All you've got left is the endless contemplation of how empty all the things
you ever hoped for are. And you wasted your time in providing for us, protecting us. The things
you kept from us, hunger, fear, cold….they got us just the same. You kept them at bay at the
front door, but they came around the back and stole us away, like gypsies.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

KING RICHARD III

by William Shakespeare
Act IV, sc. 4

QUEEN MARGARET
I call’d thee then vain flourish of my fortune;
I call’d thee, then, poor shadow, painted queen,
The presentation of but what I was;
The flattering index of a direful pageant;
One heav’d a-high, to be hurl’d down below;
A mother only mock’d with two fair babes;
A dream of what thou wast; a garish flag
To be the aim of every dangerous shot;
A sign of dignity; a breath, a bubble;
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues, and kneels, and says ‘God save the Queen’?
Where be the bending peers that flatter’d thee?
Where be the thronging troops that follow’d thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For Queen, a very caitiff, crown’d with care;
For she that scorn’d at me, now scorn’d of me;
For she being fear’d of all, now fearing one;
For she commanding all, obey’d of none.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

ROMEO AND JULIET

by William Shakespeare
Act II. sc.5

JULIET
The clock shuck nine when I did send the Nurse,
In half an hour she promis' d to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so.
O, she is lame. Love's heralds should be thoughts
Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams
Driving back shadows over lowering hills.
Therefore do nimble-pinion' d doves draw Love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood
She would be as swift in motion as a ball:
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead –
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.
Enter Nurse
O God she comes. O honey Nurse, what news?

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

KING HENRY THE SIXTH (PART 1)

by William Shakespeare
Act I, sc. 2

PUCELLE
Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd
To shine on my contemptible estate.
Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs,
And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,
God's Mother deigned to appear to me,
And in a vision full of majesty
Will' d me to leave my base vocation
And free my country from calamity:
Her aid she promis' d, and assur' d success.
In complete glory she reveal' d herself;
And, whereas I was black and swart before,
With those clear rays which she infus' d on me
That beauty am I blest with you may see.
Ask me what question thou canst possible,
And I will answer unpremeditated:
My courage try by combat, if thou dar'st,
And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

by William Shakespeare
Act V, sc 2

CLEOPATRA
O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
That thou, vouchsafing here to visit me,
Doing the honour of thy lordliness
To one so meek, that mine own servant should
Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,
That I some lady trifles have reserved,
Immoment toys, things of such dignity
As we greet modem friends withal; and say,
Some nobler token I have kept apart
For Livia and Octavia, to induce
Their mediation; must I be unfolded
With one that I have bred? The gods! it smites me
Beneath the fall I have.
To SELEUCUS

Prithee, go hence;
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance: wert thou a man,
Thou wouldst have mercy on me.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

by William Shakespeare
Act IV, sc. 4

JULIA
How many women would do such a message?
Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd
A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.
Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him
That with his very heart despiseth me?
Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
Because I love him I must pity him.
This ring I gave him when he parted from me,
To bind him to remember my good will;
And now am I, unhappy messenger,
To plead for that which I would not obtain,
To carry that which I would have refused,
To praise his faith which I would have dispraised.
I am my master's true-confirmed love;
But cannot be true servant to my master,
Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly
As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

THE WINTER’S TALE

by William Shakespeare
Act III, sc. 2

PAULINA
What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?
In leads or oils? what old or newer torture
Must I receive, whose every word deserves
To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
Together working with thy jealousies,
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine, O, think what they have done
And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
That thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing;
That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant
And damnable ingrateful: nor was't much,
Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,
To have him kill a king: poor trespasses,
More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon
The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter
To be or none or little; though a devil
Would have shed water out of fire ere done't:
Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death
Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,
Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart
That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,
Laid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords,
When I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen,
The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead, and vengeance for't
Not dropp'd down yet.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

ROMEO AND JULIET

by William Shakespeare
Act III, sc. 2

JULIET
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

by William Shakespeare
Act II, sc. 1

MISTRESS PAGE
What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject
for them? Let me see.
Reads

'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he
admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there's
sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you love sack, and
so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at the
least, if the love of soldier can suffice,--that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis not a
soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me, Thine own true knight, By day or night,
Or any kind of light, With all his might For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF'
What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces
with age to show himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish
drunkard picked--with the devil's name!--out of my conversation, that he dares in this
manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to
him? I was then frugal of my mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the
parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I
will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa

Edith Cowan University
Western Australian
Academy of
Performing Arts

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

by William Shakespeare
Act II, sc.4

ISABELLA
To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the same-self tongue
Either of condemnation or approof,
Bidding the law make curtsey to· their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite ·
To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.
Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,
That had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr' d pollution.
Then, Isabel live chaste, and brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.

Telephone: 134 ECU (134 328) Web: www.ecu.edu.au/waapa