The Wellesley Players will hold auditions for all parts in Dale Wasserman's dramatic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on the novel by Ken Kesey. Directed by JulieAnn Charest Govang, with production support by Rita Ford and Lloyd Tarlin, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest will run November 19 - 21, 2010 with performances at the Sorenson Center for the Arts, Babson College.
Auditions will be Monday, August 23 & Tuesday, August 24 at 7pm and will be held in the basement of Christ Church, United Methodist, 2 Brook St, Wellesley.
Auditions will consist of readings from the script, as well as materials presented to auditioners by the director at auditions. Monologues are not requested. Rehearsals are tentatively scheduled for Monday/Wednesday/Thursdays. Please bring current resume and photo, and be prepared to note all conflicts from auditions through production on your audition sheet.
Care to sign up for auditions in advance? If you know you'll be auditioning for the show, help us prepare! Wellesley Players is trying something new this show by offering advance audition registration. CLICK HERE to complete your audition form now, and save yourself the trouble come audition day! If you'd like to take it one step further, email a current photo of yourself to the director at jacneed@yahoo.com. It will be added to your audition form, and will be waiting for you upon your arrival to auditions.
Scripts are on reserve at the main branch of the Wellesley Free Library and may be read there.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental institution in the Pacific Northwest. The narrator is Chief Bromden, also known as Chief Broom, a catatonic half-Indian man whom everybody thinks is deaf and dumb. He often suffers from hallucinations in which he feels that the room is filled with fog. The institution is dominated by Nurse Ratched (Big Nurse), a cold, precise woman with calculated gestures and a calm, mechanical manner. It tells the story of McMurphy, an energetic con man who seeks institutionalization as a means of escaping the rigors of a prison work farm. Before long, in order to reduce the sexual and emotional impotence of the men at the institution, he begins to challenge the dictatorial Nurse Ratched, irrevocably altering the destiny of those in the ward. The story is made up of series of skirmishes between McMurphy and Big Nurse. Eventually, after a series of incidents that lead to an episode of electroconvulsive therapy, Nurse Ratched wins by convincing authorities to perform a lobotomy on McMurphy. He is transformed into a smiling, compliant zombie. At the end the Chief frees McMurphy from his vegetable existence by smothering him with a pillow.
The play's title was derived from a tongue-twisting Mother's Goose children's nursery rhyme called Vintery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn.
Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
The ones that fly east and west are diametrically opposed to each other. They represent the two combatants in the story. The mental hospital is filled with "cuckoo" patients.
Character Descriptions
THE INMATES
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Randle Patrick McMurphy: A boisterous man and a "gambling fool" who looks out primarily for his own self-interest. He represents ideas of sexuality, freedom and self-determination against Nurse Ratched's oppression. He is as stubborn as an ox from Ratched's perspective, but he personifies "the guy" his fellows inmates want to be, which is why he can completely "charm" them almost hypnotically. |
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Chief Bromden: Also known as Chief Broom, he is the narrator (and often under-rated as a character in the story). A tall, half-Indian patient in the ward, he is the patient who has been in the institution the longest. Although others think that he is deaf and mute, he instead chooses not to speak, originally because others ignored him and then out of fear of Nurse Ratched. The Chief sees McMurphy's strength and is reminded of how strong his father once was. |
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Billy Bibbit: A 31-year-old patient in the institution, he nevertheless appears very young, in part because of his persistent stutter. His mother, who has intimidated him into behaving younger than his years and instilled in him a strong sense of guilt, dominates him and his life. To Billy, Nurse Ratched is a personification of his mother, which forces him to remain suppressed and unable to rise above his insecurities. |
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Dale Harding: The president of the patients' council. His unfaithful wife, who intimidates him with her sexuality and his sexual inadequacy, dominates him in the "real" world. Harding is a voluntary inmate but has no wish or will to leave, as he feels within the institution he has the most control over himself and his surroundings. |
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Charles Cheswick: An insecure, neurotic patient on the ward, Cheswick is one of the first patients to support McMurphy. Unfortunately, his support brings about his being taken to the disturbed ward (presumably for shock treatment) to squelch any such protest, ripping him of his new-found strength. His actions are impulsively forceful, but soon retracted for fear of any kind of retribution, making him a confused, frustrated, and sometimes extremely angry man. For example: Imagine a child anxiously grabbing a cookie from a plate, taking a bite, and then slamming the cookie back down onto the plate when he sees his mother in the kitchen doorway. |
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Martini: A patient on the ward, he hallucinates and rarely sees things as they actually are; near completely delusional. |
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Ruckley: A former acute patient, Ruckley becomes a "chronic" after electroshock treatment. He's extreme. A man of few words, what Ruckley DOES say and when is impulsive and usually profane. NOTE: This character requires an actor who can blend almost invisibly into the background for periods of time and then seamlessly transform into sudden rages and outbursts...without trying to be funny. Audiences will no doubt need to laugh at Ruckly at points, but it should NOT be because the actor was humorous. |
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Scanlon: One of the acute patients on the ward. He is a watchful man, keeping his nose in everything, and looking for opportunities to insert just the right comment to get a reaction from someone else. His enjoyment comes from instigating. |
THE STAFF
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Nurse Ratched: Also known as Big Nurse. A middle-aged (30s-40s) nurse who controls the ward where McMurphy is sentenced. She is a controlling woman who behaves with a serene confidence. She is manipulative and dictatorial, using any methods to assert her power over the patients. In comparison to McMurphy, she represents ideas of sexual repression, authoritarianism and conservatism. She is more feared by the inmates versus respected, using her power to belittle them into behavior versus building them into stronger men. |
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Dr. Spivey: The main doctor on the ward. Both Nurse Ratched and McMurphy easily manipulate him. |
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Nurse Flinn: A nurse on the ward; Ratched's assistant. She is not at all authoritative, and pretty much not up to controlling the inmates by any stretch without the assistance of Ratched and/or Aides. |
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Aide Turkle: The night watchman on the ward, McMurphy bribes him to allow Candy into the ward. |
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Aides Warren and Williams: Male aides who work for Nurse Ratched. Require strength to "contain" patients, and remove them from situations. |
THE OUTMATES
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Candy Starr: A prostitute friend of McMurphy. McMurphy plans a visit for Candy to the ward so that she may have sex with Billy Bibbit, bringing him into manhood. |
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Sandra: Another friend of McMurphy's, Sandra comes with Candy to party with the inmates. |
Notes From The Director:
- PLEASE do not come into the audition with the intent of conveying any sort of mental disability. The characters in this play are real men with real problems psychologically - yes. But it is the subtlety of their afflictions that will make their portrayals real. We have to see that these are people just like everyone else, so when their disturbances show through, it's all the more defining of WHY they are how and where they are. Stereotypical "nuts" are not what we're going for here. For some characters, we WILL pursue characteristics of affected individuals, such as stuttering for Billy, but we will not be expecting such things at auditions.
- Regarding the film, by all means watch it. It's a fantastic movie, and the actors do a wonderful job. However, the movie differs GREATLY from the play, including different/extra characters and personalities, as well as story adaptations. So please don't use the movie as a reference to the play or any of its characters.
For more information, you can e-mail the director at jacneed@yahoo.com.