myshipp
User
Newbie
| Posts: 11 |   |
Karma: 0
|
Re:Sweet Charity audition - Oscar - 2008/04/29 13:51
I found the script (now out of print) for Sweet Charity at my local library. Since you don't know about the show, maybe you could see if yours has it too. If you have time, you can definitely order it through inter-library loan.
Oscar is a shy, neurotic person. His one big number, "Sweet Charity" is when he bursts out of his normal reserve and opens his heart for the first time. I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with male rep, but some songs I can think of with a similar mood are:
"Miracle of Miracles" from Fiddler on the Roof
"I'm Falling in Love With Someone" an old standard, featured in
Thoroughly Modern Millie
"All at Once You Love Her" from Pipe Dream
"Till There Was You" from Music Man
Incidentally, I disagree about Oscar being the only good male part. Even though Vittorio Vidal is only in a couple of scenes, he is a fabulous character and his scenes with Charity are the funniest in the show, I think. He is a cheezy Italian celebrity who picks up Charity and spends the evening with her to make his girlfriend jealous. Some audition songs for him:
"A Sword and a Rose and a Cape" from Carnival
Any of El Gallo's songs from The Fantasticks
"Movies Were Movies" from Mack and Mable
By the way, I seem to remember picking up a lot of negative vibes about SC from these boards while browsing for something else a while ago...why is that?
I haven't been here long, so I haven't seen the comments you're talking about. I personally think it's a great show--the dialogue is really funny (the book is by Neil Simon, for goodness sake) and while I'm not crazy about the songs on their own, they're pretty cool in context.
But I think it is just a difficult show to do well, especially by amateur groups. Bob Fosse choreography is so hard for non-professionals to pull of without looking awkward, and the music is really quite difficult to sing. There are lots of scene changes, but for some reason designers hardly ever use a minimalist concept to speed up the transitions. If the cast is especially young, like in high school, the audience might feel a bit uncomfortable with the risque themes.
It also has the markings of a "cursed" show, if you believe in that sort of thing. The tryouts for the recent revival were riddled with misfortunes and setbacks. When my community theatre did it a few years back, aside from the difficulties mentioned above, there were several personal tragedies that happened among the cast and crew during the run, the worst being that our music director (who had been feeling ill for most of the rehearsal process) was diagnosed with cancer and had to be replaced for the last few performances.
|
