Tri-Cities Prep play auditions have human drama of their own (with video)

If Gillian Gormley was nervous, she didn’t show it.

Allison Jacobs seemed calm and ready too.

Both teens — seniors at Tri-Cities Prep in Pasco — had roles in past school productions.

So they’d auditioned before. They’d experienced the attendant mix of exhilaration and panic.

They’d put their hearts on their sleeves and their talent on the line.

But Katie McDonald was newer to the theater scene.

An injury sidelined her volleyball plans, so she decided to go out for Prep’s next show.

The private Catholic school mounts Shakespeare works each spring, so Katie would be tangling with The Bard, whose words — while exquisite, timeless, exalted — aren’t exactly known for rolling with ease off modern tongues.

And she was anxious.

In an hour or so, judgment time would come.

Katie, Allison and Gillian — along with several of their peers — would appear one-by-one in front of an audition panel to perform a monologue and a song.

For the teens, the stakes were high.

Winning a part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream would mean months of work.

It would also mean the chance to be part of something big and exciting. The chance to shine.

So freezing up during the audition monologue? Choking on the song?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that would really stink.

So, what happened? How did the young performers do?

As Shakespeare said in Othello: “How poor are they that have not patience!”

‘It’s cool, it’s cool’

The spring Shakespeare show has been a tradition at Tri-Cities Prep for nearly a decade.

It traces to the husband-and-wife team of Brett and Nina Powers, who each wear multiple hats at the school.

Prep’s first Shakespeare show, Much Ado About Nothing, was a hit in 2007.

Every spring production since has been Shakespeare, except for last spring when the school instead took on the original musical Guns of Ireland, penned by locals Jeffrey Payne and Mike Speegle.

Speegle, a Shakespeare aficionado, now teaches literature, performing arts and religion at Prep and is helping with Midsummer.

The classic comedy involves fairies, lovers and a troupe of amateur actors.

Prep’s production will have about 18 to 20 speaking parts.

In the hour leading up to auditions last Monday, Speegle met with Allison, Gillian, Katie and a few other students to go over their pieces one last time.

Allison, 18, who hoped to win the role of the mischievous sprite Puck, picked a Shakespearean sonnet.

She delivered it with feeling, with animation.

She didn’t move around much as she spoke. That was on purpose.

“I saw this Shakespearean competition, and the second-place winner actually did this piece,” she explained. “It was super cool, but the one thing that bothered me was she was walking up and down.”

Speegle nodded. “If you move, if you stand, if you plant, you do it intentionally,” he said.

Next up was Gillian. She picked a monologue from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

“Have I not reason, think you, to look pale? These two have ‘ticed me hither to this place,” the 17-year-old said, in the role of Tamora.

She was emotive, affecting.

Speegle liked it, but he suggested she think more about her movement choices and slow down.

Before too much longer, it was Katie’s turn.

The 17-year-old senior took a deep breath. She warned Speegle and her friends that she was nervous.

Then she began. “Think not I love him, though I ask for him,” she said, as Phoebe from As You Like It. “’Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.”

After another line or two, the words slipped away. Katie couldn’t seem to bring them back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head and wringing her hands.

“No, it’s cool. It’s cool, it’s cool,” Speegle assured the teen.

“Listen, have you guys ever missed anything on stage before, with 200 people looking at you?” he asked the veteran student actors in the room.

There were nods and yeses. Tales of tripping and forgetting and generally messing up.

Here, something grows

Katie went through her monologue again, and then she took off with Allison to keep running lines.

With 15-or-so minutes before auditions were to start, Gillian asked to work on her piece some more.

She stepped to the front of the room.

“Have I not reason, think you, to look pale? These two have ‘ticed me hither to this place,” she said. “A barren detested vale you see it is; The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O’ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe: Here never shines the sun; here nothing grows.”

On that last line, Speegle stopped her.

“Gillian, start over and slow down,” he said. “We can see your anxiety in your face and in your movements without you necessarily going fast.”

She took a beat and started again.

Again, Speegle stopped her. Slow it down more, especially after, “Here never shines the sun,” he said. Take a beat, let it breathe.

Gillian tried it again, and Speegle offered more suggestions. Then again. Then another time.

The teacher and student went back and forth, back and forth, building something together.

Something special.

“When you get to ‘fearful and confused cries,’ ratchet it way up, where you’re almost at the edge of having a nervous breakdown,” Speegle said.

Gillian nodded. Again.

Something was shifting. She’d been using a piece of paper as a prompt, but she didn’t need it.

She was someone else, someplace else. She was starting to soar.

“Have I not reason, think you, to look pale? These two have ‘ticed me hither to this place,” she said, intense, intentional.

“Here never shines the sun,” she said, waiting a full beat, letting the moment breathe. “Here nothing grows.”

Speegle threw his arms up in triumph.

“That is how you’re supposed to do it!” he said when Gillian was done. “That was really, really good!”

Katie, you’re up

Fresh off her breakthrough with Speegle, Gillian aced the monologue during her audition.

She followed it up with a lovely version of The Star Spangled Banner.

The audition panel, which included Speegle, the Powers and some others, seemed impressed.

Allison was up next. She sailed through her sonnet and had the panel smiling with a charming performance of the song I Enjoy Being a Girl.

Then it was Katie’s turn.

“I will be reading as Phoebe from As You Like It,” she told the group.

When she opened her mouth, words flowed. She seemed more confident.

She struggled to remember a line, but pushed through it.

She did it.

‘You’ve accomplished something’

Katie finished her audition with a Dr. Horrible song. Her voice was rich, lovely and clear, and she seemed to impress the panel.

She earned a hearty, heartfelt round of applause.

Afterward, her relief was palpable. Hearing positive feedback from the teachers made her smile, she said.

She was proud of herself. Others were, too — of all the students who gave the auditions a try.

“To go up in front of your friends, peer group, and do something like that — it takes an immense amount of guts,” Speegle said.

Brett Powers, who will direct Midsummer, said it’s rewarding to watch the students rise to meet the challenge of a production.

“My favorite thing is when they go out and nail a scene. And then they’re bouncing off the walls (with excitement),” he said.

Prep’s Midsummer will open in May.

So what about Allison, Gillian and Katie? Did they win roles? Did their courage pay off?

Yeses, all around.

Allison will play Puck, the character she had her eye on.

Gillian will play Titania, Queen of the Fairies — the part she’d hoped for.

And Katie will take the stage as the fairy Fleetfox.

A lot of work is in store for them, from table reads to weeks of singing, dance and acting rehearsal, not to mention the actual performances before crowds of friends, family and strangers alike.

For Allison, it’s all worth it. Performing has given her confidence, she told the Herald on audition day.

“It’s made me go after the things I want, the things I like,” she said. “I think that whenever you’re in a play and you get a part, big or small, you’ve accomplished something. You’ve done something.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2016 at 10:19 PM with the headline "Tri-Cities Prep play auditions have human drama of their own (with video)."