If you always wanted to be King Arthur looking for the Holy Grail, a Knight who says Ni, or a sarcastic, rude French noble, maybe even a killer rabbit or even a quick witted peasant, the search for the Holy Grail comes to Lethbridge next year, but organizers are already getting ready for it.
Hatrix Theatre is undertaking a massive undertaking with Spamalot, a Tony Award winning Eric Idle penned musical “lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
“It is a massive undertaking,” admitted director Brian Quinn.
“It’s pretty close to the movie,” Quinn continued adding the musical has an ending, unlike the movie and even includes “Always look on The Bright Side of Life” from “Life of Brian.”
“The movie has a pretty silly ending with the police coming in and arresting everyone, but Spamalot has a wonderful ending.”
While the show, which has already had successful runs in London, on Broadway, and recently in Calgary, won’t be coming to the Yates Theatre until April 15-20, 2014, auditions are this Tuesday, March 5 from 7-9 p.m. at the Moose Hall (1401, 5th Ave North).
Spamalot is a collaboration between fledgling local theatre troupe Hatrix and Danceworks dance studio.
“We’ve been waiting for it to come available for a while, said Quinn, adding the idea to do Spamalot came up in passing with discussions with Danceworks’ Mark Litchfield during rehearsals for Hatrix’s October production of Evil Dead– The Musical.
“We‘d originally approached LMT to do it, but they‘re already doing Beauty and the Beast,” Quinn continued.
So 10 or so stout hearted men are needed to “sit at or move” their very, very round table. Six female dancers are also needed for the primary cast, though many more people are needed for countless bit parts aside from the primary cast.
“We’ve already had 30 people interested and I’ll probably use all of them,” Quinn continued.
While the male cast members don’t need to sing like Pavarotti or dance like Baryshnikov, the female dancers need to have training and/or experience.
“I’d rather have people who are enthusiastic about being part of it, rather than saying ‘I’ll think about it,” Quinn said.
“Being able to play the character is more important, so if you can play the character and you are not tone deaf, then you can do this,” he continued.
“ If they have a prepared piece from the show, they can bring it, or contact me for a script,” he said.
“We’re not expecting performance level at the auditions.”
Auditioners must have no fear, be willing to express themselves, maybe in song and , of course, a sense of humour. Plus knowledge of the North African Swallow wouldn’t hurt either.
They are holding auditions more than a year in advance in order to have ample time to give the cast scripts and music to learn.
“Then we can jump right into rehearsals in February 2014,” he said.
In the meantime, they also need a pro-active producer willing to pound the pavement and scrape together investors and corporate donors or businesses willing to donate gifts in kind to the tune of an estimated $60,000 needed to get the production going.
“This is the first Broadway musical that came along that was funny,” observed Mark Litchfield explaining why he wanted to do it.
Quinn is confident the production will be a hit, estimating they can break even if the Yates is only filled to 60 per cent of their 492 seat capacity.
“It’s important to surround ourselves with the right people,” he said.
Auditions are 7:30-9 p.m., Tuesday, March 5. at the Moose Hall. E-mail Brian Quinn for script samples or more information at
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A version of this story appears in the February 27,2013 edition of the Lethbridge Sun Times
