Auditions for SOUVENIR, Part 1

Last year around this time, when I was putting the finishing touches on the 2009-10 season, I knew that one of my biggest challenges would be casting the role of Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir .

There are certain roles that call for a very specific set of skills and attributes, and this is certainly one of them. The actress who plays Madame Jenkins (as she liked to be called) has to be the right type to embody that certain sort of society woman you might find on the upper east side of New York City in the nineteen-thirties and forties - think Margaret Dumont from the Marx Brothers movies. She has to have a fine wit and excellent comic timing. She has to be able to sing in what she believes to be a beautiful soprano voice in the operatic style, and she has to be able to do this very badly, without letting on that she's doing it badly. And then, she has to be able to sing an aria as she hears it in her own head - it must be absolutely gorgeous.

Oh, and she has to want to come to Vermont for six weeks in January.

I went to New York for auditions in September. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Stephanie, our casting director, had come up with about 20 women for me and my director, Sara Lampert Hoover, to see.

As is usually the case, all the women we saw were very talented. Most had excellent voices; most had the right look and bearing. What set the best apart from the rest, in this case, was the ability to find the delicate balance between finding the humor in the role, without making fun of the character.

This is the key, of course. The play is written as a comedy. The singing is hysterically bad and Jenkins' absolute certainty of her talent is mined for humor.  But the actress (and the production) can never be seen to be making fun of the character. She considers herself a serious musician, and indeed, she is serious about it, and well-educated and sophisticated. She simply cannot execute what she is attempting, and she is utterly unaware of that fact.

And so, after the first round of auditions, we had six women who had the voice, had the look, and had the right blend of comedy without mockery.

As we put each of the six through their paces again, adding more complexity to the directions, asking to see different variations on what we had seen before, it became clear that the choice was coming down to three women, all of whom were making specific choices and subtle adjustments in response to Sara's direction.

Jenkins 1 (as I'll refer to her) had played the role before, and had the perfect grand dame look and attitude. Her voice was wonderful, and she certainly took the role seriously. It wasn't absolutely clear, though, that she really had the comic timing we were looking for.

Jenkins 2 was one of the youngest women we had seen, but she still had the right bearing and attitude. There was a lightness to her that we found appealing, and she had a wonderful voice. Her enthusiasm as the character was infectious and it brought a certain silliness to the role, yet still without any hint of mockery.

Jenkins 3 had also played the role before. Fantastic voice, wonderful comic timing while clearly taking the role utterly seriously. She was perhaps a little more attractive that we pictured the character, but we didn't think that would be a problem.

All three would have been wonderful. Then one of them did something that set her apart.

January 6th, 2010