AUDITION DATES
Thursday 25 January 2024, 7.30pm at the Museum of Bath at Work, BA1 2RH
Sunday 28 January 2024, 5pm at the Museum of Bath at Work, BA1 2RH
Open auditions, all over-18s welcome
Please note this is an unpaid opportunity to perform with a community theatre company
There is no formal preparation required for the audition, although you might want to familiarise yourself with the play if you get the opportunity
Any questions before the audition are welcomed – please email mattnation@gmail.com
ABOUT THE PLAY
Collaborators is a darkly comic ‘surreal fantasy’ by John Hodge. Hodge is best known as a screenwriter whose work includes Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Loosely based on historical events, it focuses on the relationship between author and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. First performed in 2011, it won the Olivier Award for best New Play in 2012. There are larger and smaller roles for actors of all ages.
We are very lucky to have John Hodge himself involved in the production. He will be attending rehearsals and workshopping with the cast on their characterisation as well as attending one of the performances for a Q&A session with the audience after the show.
PLOT SUMMARY
The story takes place in Moscow in the years 1938 to 1940 and the drama centers around the apartment of Mikhail Bulgakov and his wife Yelena.
Bulgakov has just finished his play The Life of Monsieur de Molière which his friends acclaim a masterpiece. The night after the premiere, he is visited by two secret policemen from the NKVD. They tell him the play is banned and will never be shown again unless he cooperates with them in writing a “hack” play on the life of the young Joseph Stalin. At first Bulgakov resists their bullying and refuses to cooperate even though this could endanger his life. Their terrorizing of Bulgakov intensifies until he pretends to start work, but sits at the typewriter unable to put words to paper. Then one night he receives a phone call and a mystery voice offers him help if he goes to a certain metro station and enters a door hidden in the tunnel. Bulgakov follows the instructions and finds himself alone in a room beneath the Kremlin with Joseph Stalin himself. Stalin says he has always admired Bulgakov’s work and offers his assistance in the play. Stalin sits at the typewriter and produces scenes which delight the NKVD with their depiction of Stalin as an heroic and glorious leader fighting Czarist oppression. While Stalin types Bulgakov relieves Stalin of the burden of some of his state papers. Inadvertently Bulgakov becomes involved in issuing the orders which bring about the Great Purge of Stalinist Russia. The play is finished but the monster of the purges consumes his friends’ lives one by one. The strain on Bulgakov leads to an intensification of his inherited disease, nephrosclerosis, and his eventual death.
CAST
There are 14 roles (10 m, 4 f) although there is potential for mixing genders and actors playing multiple roles, so the final make up of the cast will not be revealed until after the auditions.
Roles include…
- Mikhail Bulgakov
- Joseph Stalin
- Vladimir
- Eva
- Stepan
- Yelena
- Vassily
- Anna
- Grigory
- Sergei
- Doctor
- Praskovya
PERFORMANCE DATES
Wednesday 19 – Saturday 22 June 2024 at the Rondo Theatre, BA1 6RT