By Brigitte Zumaya

Layout Editor

Actors, technicians, the director and others are coming together to make William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” come alive onstage this semester. Open auditions were for Brookhaven College’s Performance Hall March 18-20. The play opens April 24. The process of creating costumes, memorizing lines, setting up the stage and so on, began weeks in advance.

During the auditions, the actors whispered and mum- bled lines to themselves, using what little time was left to commit their lines to memory. Actors sat down and read the script of “Macbeth” under dim light. This process is called cold reading because the actors have a short time to read over the script, Brookhaven student Amber Marles said.

“A really good way to score the part is to show that you can take direction. So if they give you some advice, try to really think about it and to incorporate it into your next reading,” Brookhaven student Jordan Golden said.

Shakespeare is well known for his tragic plays, “Macbeth” being one of the darkest. The play is about a man corrupted by power and revenge.

The director of “Macbeth” and Theater Department Chair Dr. Darise H. Error said in an email: “What do I look for in an actor? I look for talent, I look for raw ability I think I can mold. I look for attitude. I look for connection between actors. I look for work ethic.”

Karen Crowell, assistant to Error and the Theater Department, said auditions are held with only the director and actor present.

Error said in an email: “You do not have to be a Brookhaven student to audition. Our auditions are open to anyone. But if you are cast, there is a class associated with being in the show, and actors must register for the class. So basically, you don’t have to be a student to audition, but you become a student if you get into the show.”

Crowell said the two-hour course that actors register for is called theater practicum.

According to Brookhaven’s website, the theater practicum course is $104 for in-district students and $194 for out-of- district students. “We have a theater club called Brookhaven Players,” Crowell said. This club sells drinks, candy and snacks at intermission. “Every single dollar of that money goes to our fund to pay for the tuitions of the people who are cast in the play but couldn’t do it because of money. We will pay for their tuition,” Crowell said. “We won’t let money be the reason they can’t be in a play if they are good enough to be cast,” she said.

Error has been donating money to help with the tuition, Crowell said, and “her students who love her so much won’t let her do it with her money anymore, and they have raised money on their own.”

The next play, called “Carrie, The Musical,” will be this sum- mer. Auditions will be June 12-14 and 19-22. The play opens July 17-27, Crowell said.

“There is nothing like the experience of being in the same room at the same time, actors and audience, experiencing something live, in the moment, together. When it works, it is the best kind of ethereal magic,” Error said