Audition Preparation

• 16 bars of a song (preferably musical theatre, but any song will work).  Please bring sheet music along for the accompanist, which will be provided.  You may be asked to sing more of the song during the audition.
• A Headshot or photo of you.
• OPTIONAL: A one minute monologue.  Monologues will be available for cold reading at the audition if you do not have one prepared.  

During the audition, we will also do a short vocalization exercise to identify everyone's range - this is a fun and painless exercise, so no need to worry! 

The Roles in The Secret Garden

Just a word about the roles in The Secret Garden.  Almost every character in the production has feature numbers.  The age ranges outlined are the age of the CHARACTER, not the age of the actors we are looking for - the magic of theatre allows flexibility in casting!  Since it is a musical, we only have one copy of the score, but are willing to share it with anyone who would like to come in and see it, as well as answer any questions you may have about the production.  

The Secret Garden has a large ensemble which is made up of principal characters and deceased people from the past, known as "The Dreamers."  The ghostly characters are benevolent and kind and work to guide young Mary Lenox.

Also, do not worry about the accents.  We will use dialogue coaching help to work with the accents.

About the Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon. It premiered on Broadway in 1991 and ran for 709 performances.

 

The story is set in the early years of the 20th century. Mary Lennox, a young English girl born and raised in the British Raj, is orphaned by a cholera outbreak when she is eleven years old. She is sent away from India to Yorkshire, England, to live with relatives whom she has never met. Her own personality blossoms as she and a young gardener bring new life to a neglected garden, as well as to her sickly cousin and uncle.

 

Act I

 

Mary Lennox, a 10-year-old English girl who has lived in India since birth, dreams of English nursery rhymes and Hindi chants ("Opening"). She awakes to learn that her parents and nearly everyone she knew in India, including her Ayah have died of cholera. Found by survivors of the epidemic (officers who worked alongside her father), Mary is sent back to England to live with her only remaining relations ("There's a Girl").

 

Her mother's sister, Lily, died many years ago. Lily's widower is Archibald Craven, a hunchback who is still overcome by grief. The management of his manor house, Misselthwaite, is largely left to his brother, Dr. Neville Craven. The house is persistently haunted by ghosts (i.e. Lily, Ayah, Fakir, Rose and Albert Lennox, officers from India, etc.) and spirits of Archibald's and Mary's pasts, due to their holding on to what used to be. The housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, coldly welcomes Mary to Yorkshire on her arrival ("The House Upon the Hill"). Mary has difficulty sleeping her first night there ("I Heard Someone Crying") as she and Archibald both mourn their losses. The next morning, Mary meets Martha, a young chambermaid who encourages Mary to go play outside by telling her about the surrounding moorland and grounds ("If I Had a Fine White Horse"), in particular, a secret (hidden) garden. Meanwhile, Archibald remains submerged in his memories of Lily ("A Girl In the Valley"), while ghosts waltz to Lily's and Archibald's serenading.

 

Mary explores the garden, laid out in Victorian style as a topiary maze, as do Ben Weatherstaff, an old gardener, and Martha's brother Dickon ("It's a Maze"), each with a different agenda. Ben tells Mary that the secret garden has been locked since Lily's death, as it reminds Archibald of her. Dickon invokes the spring ("Winter's On the Wing") in a rustic druid-like fashion; he claims to converse with animals and teaches Mary to speak the Yorkshire dialect to an English Robin ("Show Me the Key"). The bird leads Mary to the key for the garden, but does not show Mary the door.

 

Archibald has a formal meeting with his niece, who asks him for ("A Bit of Earth") to plant a garden of her own; he is startled and compares her to Lily for their shared horticultural interests. As the Yorkshire gloom turns to rain and "Shakes the souls of the dead" ("Storm I"), Archibald and his brother Neville both notice that Mary also physically resembles her aunt ("Lily's Eyes"), with whom both men were in love.

 

As the rain continues, Mary again hears someone crying ("Storm II"), but this time she finds the source: her cousin Colin, confined to bed since his birth, when his mother Lily died. He has been in bed his entire life because Archibald feared that Colin would also become a hunch back. In reality, Colin's spine is perfectly fine but his father is convinced that he has passed on his curse. Colin confides in his cousin his dreams of ("A Round-Shouldered Man") who comes to him at night and reads to him from his book "of all that's good and true". However, just as it seems they have become friends, Neville and Mrs. Medlock burst in and dismiss her angrily, telling her she is never to see Colin again. As the storm reaches its peak, Mary runs outside and finds the door to the garden ("Final Storm").

 

Act II

 

Mary has a reverie about ("The Girl I Mean to Be,") with "a place I can go when I am lost." In reality, the garden is like her uncle and Mary herself, neglected and half-wild.

 

Archibald relates a dream to Neville about seeing Lily and Mary together in the garden. But Neville's dreams are darker: recalling his unrequited love for Lily, Neville wants Archibald to leave Misselthwaite entirely to him. The two brothers' musings are interwoven with ghostly echoes of old arguments between Lily and her sister Rose (Mary's mother) about Archibald's suitability as a prospective husband and father ("Quartet"). At Neville's urging, Archibald leaves for the Continent, pausing only to read a fairy tale to Colin as the boy sleeps ("Race You To the Top of the Morning").

 

Mary asks Dickon for help with the garden, which appears dead; Dickon explains that it is probably just dormant and that "somewhere there's a single streak of green inside it" ("Wick"). Mary tells Colin about the discovered garden, but he is initially reluctant to go outside until encouraged by a vision of his mother ("Come to My Garden/Lift Me Up"). Mary, Dickon, and Martha clandestinely bring Colin to the garden in a wheelchair. In the garden, the exercise and fresh air begin to make Colin well ("Come Spirit, Come Charm"). The dreamers sing the praises of the renewed garden ("A Bit of Earth (Reprise)").

 

Back in the house, Mary faces down Neville as he threatens to send her away to boarding school. Martha tells Mary she must ("Hold On")--"when you see a man who's ragin'/And he's jealous and he fears/That you've walked through walls he's hid behind for years..." Mary writes to Archibald ("Letter Song") urging him to come home.

 

At first Archibald feels defeated and frustrated ("Where In the World"), but Lily's ghost convinces him to return ("How Could I Ever Know"). Entering the garden, he finds Colin completely healthy; in fact, he is beating Mary in a footrace as Archibald walks through the door. Archibald, a changed man, accepts Mary as his own, and the dreamers invite all to "stay here in the garden," as Lily and Mary's parents Albert and Rose promise to look over them for the rest of their days ("Finale").

 

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:  This will be Ben Klipfel's first production with the Alexandria Area Arts Association.  He has previously directed with the Greater Grand Forks Community Theatre, The Fire Hall Theatre, Crimson Creek Players and the University of North Dakota.  He has directed over 20 productions, and produced over 30.  He holds a Master Degree in Theatrical Direction.