Much Ado About Nothing
by Austin Shakespeare Youth Troupe

Mar. 28 (2021)

Count Claudio falls in love with Hero, the daughter of his host. Hero’s cousin Beatrice (a confirmed spinster) and Benedick (an eternal bachelor) are each duped into believing the other is in love with them. Claudio is deceived by a malicious plot and denounces Hero as unfaithful before their wedding. Hero faints and is believed dead but recovers to be proven innocent by a chance discovery. Benedick wins Beatrice’s love defending her cousin’s honor, and to his surprise, Claudio is reunited with Hero, whom he believed was dead.

Watch a 3-minute stick figure plot description: https://youtu.be/9wK-FN5Dae8

 

Austin Shakespeare’s Young Shakespeare – a month-long acting intensive summer performance group for students aged 13-19 – returns for the summer of 2021 with a production of Shakespeare’s wonderful romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing.

Depending on COVID safety requirements, students will engage with the Bard either online or live at The Curtain Theatre, Austin’s own Elizabethan replica theater space. Our hopes are that this intensive month-long experience will be able to resume its final culmination of a student-performed, professionally staged production at The Curtain Theatre July 9-18, 2021 with rehearsals beginning on June 1, 2021.

Online Auditions:
Actors will audition as a group during the audition hour. Complete for form below to secure attendance.
Noon – 1:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 28, 2021
For information, contact youngshakespeare@austinshakespeare.org


Be sure to complete the webform (click HERE).

Character Breakdown:

  • Hero: Leonato’s daughter; sweet and obedient

  • Beatrice: Hero’s clever cousin

  • Margaret: Hero’s waiting-gentlewoman; a fashion-obsessed flirt who requires good dancing abilities in her men

  • Ursula: Hero’s waiting-gentlewoman

  • Don Pedro: a nobleman who just won a war against his half-brother Don John

  • Don John: Don John’s evil brother

  • Claudio: a young successful soldier

  • Benedick: a witty soldier in Don Pedro’s army who had a relationship with Beatrice in the past

  • Leonato: the governor; father of Hero, and guardian to his niece, Beatrice

  • Antonio: Leonato’s brother

  • Balthasar: an attendant of Don Pedro’s and a musician

  • Conrade: one of Don John’s followers

  • Borachio: one of Don John’s followers; as his name suggests, often drunk but has a crafty mind

  • Friar Francis: a well-meaning Friar

  • Dogberry: a comic cop

  • Verges: Dogberry’s old assistant

  • Sexton: interrogates those who are arrested

  • Boy: serves Benedick

  • Messenger: announces Don Pedro’s arrival to Leonato

  • “Huge” Seacoal or Hugh Oatcake: leaders of the neighborhood Patrol

  • George Seacoal: a member of the Patrol who is able to read and write.