Gunn Theatre

Join us at the Opening Night Gala for Merchant of Venice!

Gunn Theatre’s Spring show will be The Merchant of Venice.  This stunning play about bigotry, hypocrisy and love has excited and frustrated audiences through the years.  Come join us on an unforgettable journey through one of Shakespeare’s most engaging and troublesome plays.

Join the festivities for the Opening Night Gala on March 8 at 645 pm.  Performances March 8-17, 2012 in Spangenberg Theatre, Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm, Wednesday matinee at 4 pm.

Tickets are now available online at gunntheatre.org/tickets; they will also be sold at the Gunn SAC (M-F, 8:15 am – 4:00 pm).  Remaining tickets will be sold at the door ½ hour before each performance.  Buy tickets early as seating in Spangenberg will be limited.

See photos of rehearsals!

Good publicity! There was an article in The Oracle Monday about last week’s auditions.

Click on the article to enlarge it.

 

 

 

The Merchant of Venice Cast List

  Everyone who auditioned did an amazing job and this is going to be a stunning and unforgettable production.  Please come to the first cast meeting Monday after school.  If you cannot attend the first meeting, or cannot participate in “The Merchant of Venice,” please email me at jshelby@pausd.org. Congratulations all!

 Antonio                 Bobby

Bassanio                Dennis

Portia               Melissa

Nerissa             Andrea

Gratiano              Jeremy

Shylock                Blake

Jessica             Rachel

Lorenzo                         Oz

Salerio             Timothy

Solanio              Elana

Tubal                  Tamar

Launcelot Gobbo         Sivan

Old Gobbo                     Kseniya

The Duke of Venice               Tatiana

The Prince of Morocco                   Egor

The Prince of Arragon                    Gavin

Portia’s Servant                        Cory

The Duke’s Clerk                      Dakota

  Leonardo                              Jenny

Balthazar                       Addie

   Stephano                          Alice

                 The Duke’s Staffers                Wendy/Holly/Elaine

               Antonio’s Interns                 Julie/Kelsy

            The Prince of Morocco’s Posse             Janine/Eva/Sadaf

                The Prince of Arragon’s Retinue            Noah/Austin/Evan

Most cast members will be also playing various Manhattan personae, including Musicians, Bondsellers, Streetsellers, Investment bankers, Homeless folk, Buskers, Conmen, Grifters, etc.

The Merchant of Venice: Audition Information

Auditions will be next Tuesday and Wednesday, December 6th and 7th, after tutorial and classes, in the Studio Theatre. The Merchant of Venice opens March 8th and runs until March 17th. Rehearsals are after school, from 3:45 until about 6pm on weekdays. We will be working the last two weekends before we open, February 25 & 26 and March 3 & 4.

Please bring one or more of the following pieces prepared for presentation. You do NOT have to memorize the piece(s), but it wouldn’t hurt to be as comfortable as you can with the piece you present. Make a fun, clear choice with your audition!

ANTONIO
You know me well, and herein spend but time
To wind about my love with circumstance;
And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
In making question of my uttermost
Than if you had made waste of all I have:
Then do but say to me what I should do
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak….
Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;
Neither have I money nor commodity
To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;
Try what my credit can in Venice do:
That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
Where money is, and I no question make
To have it of my trust or for my sake.

BASSANIO
In Belmont is a lady richly left;
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate!

SHYLOCK
Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold.

GRATIANO:
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
And let my liver rather heat with wine
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?

MOROCCO
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun,
To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.
Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,
And let us make incision for your love,
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
Hath fear’d the valiant: by my love I swear
The best-regarded virgins of our clime
Have loved it too: I would not change this hue,
Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.

ARRAGON
Fortune now to my heart’s hope! Gold; silver; and base lead: ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’
You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard.
What says the golden chest? ha! let me see:
‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’
What many men desire! that ‘many’ may be meant
By the fool multitude, that choose by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house;
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:
‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves:’
And well said too; for who shall go about
To cozen fortune and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit?

PORTIA
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that
follows his own instructions: I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps
o’er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the
youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the
cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
choose me a husband. O me, the word ‘choose!’ I may
neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I
dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed
by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?
- – -
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

JESSICA
I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so:
Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
But fare thee well, there is a ducat for thee:
And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see
Lorenzo, who is thy new master’s guest:
Give him this letter; do it secretly;
And so farewell: I would not have my father
See me in talk with thee.

NERISSA
If he should offer to choose, and choose the right
casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s
will, if you should refuse to accept him…
You need not fear, lady, the having any of these
lords: they have acquainted me with their
determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their
home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless
you may be won by some other sort than your father’s
imposition depending on the caskets…
Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a
Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither
in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

SERVANT
Madam, there is alighted at your gate
A young Venetian, one that comes before
To signify the approaching of his lord;
From whom he bringeth sensible regreets,
To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,
Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love:
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

Come join us for the thrills, spills, bangs, romance and lots of laughter for the final FOUR performances of You Can’t Take It With You by Kaufman and Hart as performed by the students of Gunn Theatre! Tell your friends and neighbors.
Matinée - Wednesday, Nov 16 at 4pm; Tickets $5
Thursday, Nov 17, Friday, Nov 18,
Saturday, Nov 19 at 8pm;

Tickets – General $10, Student $8