On Oct. 7 and 8, Southern Utah University’s Department of Theatre, Dance, and Arts Administration held auditions for their Spring 2025 mainstage and Second Studio productions. Students presented songs and monologues they had spent weeks preparing in the hopes of being cast in one of the five shows in the second half of the season.
The mainstage shows being cast are “The Secret Garden,” written by Marsha Norman and directed by Lisa Quoresimo, “Three Sisters,” written by Anton Chekhov and directed by Peter Sham and “The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women,” written by Carolyn Gage and directed by Jeb Branin.
The Second Studio shows, both directed by students, are “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” written by Andrew Hobgood and Evan Linder and directed by Leona Lombardi and “Medea,” written by Euripides and directed by Micah Cajilig. All five shows will be cast based on the same audition and their individual callbacks.
“About five years ago, we started doing this and it did two things; it got us a heads up in the design and in the rehearsal process, and it also spread the wealth more for the actors in the department,” said Sham. “More people could be cast and not the same [students would be] cast all the time.”
With all five shows being cast from one audition, the directors are drawing from the same pool of actors and must balance the needs of each individual production when choosing who is in what show.
“When it comes to casting, it really is a creative process, you know, you have to count their talents, their skills, and what you want the vision to be,” said Cajilig. “It’s almost like a painting, that’s how I kind of think of it.”
The casting process is different for Cajilig and Lombardi than it is for the faculty members directing shows because they are both students casting from a pool of their peers.
“It is so exhilarating to see the talent from my peers in a setting where I get to root for them on the other side,” said Cajilig. “It’s different when you’re with them, but on the other side, you’re like, ‘oh, I want the best for you.’”
They also each have a unique perspective on the casting process, as they come from different backgrounds. Lombardi is pursuing a degree in theatre trts tducation, with this being her first foray into the kind of directing work she hopes to do post-graduation.
“This is a super exciting opportunity, because hopefully chances to work with youth in an educational setting will come up [in the future,]” said Lombardi. “This feels like the perfect stepping stone.”
Cajilig, who is currently serving as the artistic director of second studio, is following a longtime tradition of the artistic director directing one of the shows in the season.
“I think it’s a crucial thing for an artistic director to understand all aspects of the thing that they are in charge of: performing, directing and designing,” said Cajilig.
SUU senior Grace Powers went through her seventh audition in her time at the university, and brought valuable insight and advice for underclassmen still learning how to audition.
“Your anxiety about auditioning is nobody else’s business. Everybody else feels the same way,” said Powers, adding that, “if you mess up in that audition room, you keep going because they’d rather see what you can do than see you stop.”
Powers emphasized the changes in how she prepares for auditions now. With time and experience, Powers no longer spends weeks tediously preparing her materials. Instead, she opts to trust her training and her ability to memorize and characterize a monologue quickly. Additionally, she emphasized the importance of relying on peers when preparing.
“You may all be going for the same part, but if you get callbacks together, run your scenes together, run your monologue through your friends,” said Powers. “You have an endless list of resources within your peers that you should be taking advantage of.”
SUU students will find out the results of their auditions within the next few weeks, and when the new semester begins, they will begin audition prep all over again.
“Just take care of you and celebrate your two minutes in that room,” said Sham about preparing for the next auditions. “That’s your little show, and that’s the most important thing.”
Author: Tessa Cheshire
Photos courtesy of Second Studio
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