# How to Audition for a Shakespeare Festival (and Get Cast for the Season) > How Shakespeare festivals cast a season, how to read the audition call, choosing and timing a classical piece, showing you can handle verse, and getting your voice ready for an outdoor stage, drawn from real festival audition notices. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-audition-for-a-shakespeare-festival - Published: 2026-10-24 - Last updated: 2026-10-24 The festival posts its season. Two comedies, a tragedy, maybe a history, all outdoors under the lights from July to August. The audition call asks for "a classical monologue, preferably Shakespeare," and you've got three weeks. If you haven't done classical work since school, that notice can feel like a wall. If you have, the trap is different: you pick the speech you know best, run it at the length you've always done it, and find out in the room that it's 40 seconds too long. The short version: a festival is casting a company, not one part. Read the call like a contract, pick pieces you can fit inside the time with room to breathe, show that you can ride the verse without sounding like a museum, and get your voice ready for a stage with no roof. Then make your conflicts and your availability easy to say yes to. ## Know how festivals cast a season A festival that runs more than one play in a season may cast them together. The Utah Shakespeare Festival says it plainly in its [2027 audition guidelines](https://www.bard.org/media/2027-season-non-aea-submissions-guidelines.pdf): it casts for repertory, so every performer will be in more than one show. The Houston Shakespeare Festival's [2026 call](https://www.uh.edu/shakespeare/_files/hsf-auditioninfo-2026.pdf) also runs its two plays in rep at an outdoor theater. That changes what the panel is looking for. They may not only be asking "is this our Viola?" They may be asking whether you could play Viola in one show and a servant, a soldier, and a messenger in the other. A clear, flexible actor who handles verse well can fill a lot of a season. It also changes your timeline. Some festivals audition many months before opening. Utah held its 2027 season auditions in September 2026, with in-person Equity Principal Auditions in Los Angeles and Cedar City and a two-day window for video submissions. Others audition closer to the season. Houston, for example, auditioned in February for a July opening. ### Where to find the calls - Festival websites, usually under "Auditions," "Casting," or "Get involved." Bookmark the ones near you and check in the fall and again in winter. - Union audition listings, for Equity Principal Auditions. Non-members can sometimes be seen from a waiting list. - Regional unified auditions for classical work. Portland's PATA, for example, runs a [Unified Shakespeare & Classical Auditions](https://portlandtheatre.com/event/actor-registration-unified-shakespeare-2025). Our guide to [unified theatre auditions](https://www.offbook.com/blog/unified-theatre-auditions) covers how those days work. ## Read the call like a contract Shakespeare festival notices look alike at a glance and differ in the details that matter. Here are four real ones side by side: - **Houston Shakespeare Festival (2026):** one comic and one serious Shakespeare monologue, both together no more than two minutes. In person only; it does not cast from video. - **Utah Shakespeare Festival (2027, in person):** for non-singers, a 90-second Shakespeare monologue, no sonnets, or a 90-second contemporary piece. Singers do the Shakespeare piece plus 16 bars. At the Los Angeles Equity auditions you have three minutes in the room in total, including saying hello. - **Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival (2025):** one [classical monologue](https://shakespeare.nd.edu/shows/events/2025/02/01/328897-ndsf-2025-auditions/), preferably Shakespeare, two minutes or shorter, with sides from the upcoming production available on the day. - **Knoxville Shakespeare (Tennessee Stage Company):** two [contrasting monologues](https://tennesseestage.com/audition/) of no more than a minute each, at least one classical, and preferably both in metered language. Notice how different "two minutes" can be. At Houston it's two speeches sharing two minutes. At PATA's unified auditions, the notice says transitions between pieces count as part of your two minutes. At Notre Dame it's one speech. Prepare the exact shape the call asks for, not a general "classical package." Watch for the small words too. "No sonnets" means a speech from a play. "Verse" rules out prose speeches, even good ones. "Contrasting" means the two pieces should show different sides of you. Our guide to [choosing contrasting monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-choose-contrasting-monologues) goes deeper on that. ## Choose a speech you can live in Actors lose a lot of sleep over "overdone" speeches. The advice from schools is calmer than you'd think. Juilliard's [monologue FAQ](https://apply.juilliard.edu/www/documents/Monologue%20FAQs.pdf) says it keeps no list of pieces to avoid, and asks for pieces you feel a connection with, whether they're common or obscure. A drama-school audition coach writing for [Acting Coach Scotland](https://actingcoachscotland.co.uk/blog/most-over-done-shakespeare-monologues-drama-school-auditions/) makes the same point: the popular speeches are popular because they're good, and the originality is in what you do with one. So choose on these grounds instead: 1. **A character you could be cast as.** Look at the festival's season and pick a speech near a role you'd honestly be seen for, in age and energy. You don't have to pick a speech from the season itself. 2. **Someone who needs something now.** A character trying to change a mind, or to work out a problem in the moment, gives you more to play than a general reflection on life. 3. **Verse, unless the call says otherwise.** Knoxville prefers metered language and PATA requires at least one verse piece, and handling verse is the skill a classical season leans on. 4. **The whole play read.** Juilliard asks applicants not to pick from monologue books and to read the entire play. A panel can hear when you don't know who you're talking to. Browse our [Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/shakespeare) to find candidates, then read the full play before you commit. ## Fit it to the clock, then cut more Time your speech out loud at a real acting pace, not muttering. Then compare it to the limit. If the call allows 90 seconds, a speech that runs 88 seconds is too long, because nerves, a breath before you start, and a moment at the end all take time. Leave yourself real room under the limit. If you need to trim, cut whole thoughts, not words inside a line, so the verse still scans. Our guide on [how to cut a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-cut-a-monologue) walks through it. Then rehearse the whole slot, not just the speech: walk in, say your name and your pieces, perform, transition, finish, say thank you. At an Equity audition with three minutes in the room, or at PATA where the switch between pieces is on the clock, that rehearsal is what keeps you from rushing your best line. ## Show the panel you can ride the verse A festival panel wants to know one thing above all: can this person make the language sound like thought happening now? You don't need a special "Shakespeare voice." You need the sense, the rhythm, and the end of the line. Take the start of Viola's speech after Malvolio has chased her with a ring she never gave: > I left no ring with her; what means this lady? > Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her! > She made good view of me, indeed, so much, > That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, > For she did speak in starts distractedly. *Twelfth Night*, Act 2, Scene 2, from the public-domain [Project Gutenberg text](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1526). Look at where the lines end: "lady," "charm’d her," "so much," "tongue," "distractedly." Viola is working something out, and each line ending is a step in it. If you let the end of each line land, the panel hears her figure it out. If you drop the line endings and race to the full stop, it turns into a recitation. Three habits help in the room: - Know what every word means, so nothing is said on faith. - Keep the energy to the end of the line, and let the most important word sit near the end. - Know who you're talking to. If the speech is to another character, put them just past the panel, not on it. If it's a soliloquy like Viola's, you're thinking out loud with the audience. Our guide on [how to perform Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-perform-shakespeare-monologues) covers scansion, antithesis, and breath in detail. ## Learn it cold, then learn it again for nerves Classical pieces are hard on shaky memory. A paraphrase that might slip by in a contemporary speech can break the meter, and a panel that knows the play may hear it. Get every word, then keep testing until you can say it while distracted. The fastest way is to test yourself, not reread. Cover the text, say a line, check it, and repeat. Our [free first-letter tool](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer) turns a speech into first-letter cues, so you can see the shape of each line without the words. In Offbook you can hide your lines while the rest of the script stays visible, or swap them for first-letter cues, then hide the whole script for a final test. The video below shows how. Video: [Hide your lines](https://www.offbook.com/learn/hide-your-lines) (1:07) For a video callback like Utah's, or any sides you get ahead of time, read the scene aloud with another voice in it. Offbook's realistic voices read the other parts of a scene and wait for your line, so you can hear the cues the way you will in the room. Our guide on [how to memorize Shakespeare](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-shakespeare) has more techniques built on meter and rhyme. ## Get your voice ready for the open air Plenty of Shakespeare festivals play outdoors. Houston's runs at Miller Outdoor Theatre. A panel casting for a stage with no roof needs to know you'll be heard, and in the audition room you can show a voice that fills the space without pushing. Mel Churcher, who spent 12 years as resident voice and text coach at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, notes in a [post on projecting your voice](https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/8534980-projected-voice-we-re-not-yet-dead-not-yet-dead) that open-air spaces give you little resonance back, so you can't rely on hearing yourself. You have to trust the voice. Her note on eye level is simple: "if they can't see you, they can't hear you." Keep your eyes up and your face open to the house. Brownsea Open Air Theatre suggests a [partner exercise](https://www.brownsea-theatre.co.uk/stir-up-shakespeare/performing/romeo-and-juliet-prologue/) you can do in any park. Speak your lines to a partner outside, then take 10 steps apart and say them again, building volume only as far as it's comfortable. Their warning, in capitals, is not to shout. A few rounds before your audition help you find a full voice that doesn't push. ## Callbacks, sides, and conflicts At some point, expect to read from the season. Notre Dame makes sides from its upcoming production available on audition day. Utah holds its callbacks by video submission, so you may be filming a scene at home. Our guide on [breaking down audition sides](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-break-down-audition-sides) will help you work fast. Be ready with your calendar. Houston asks for your summer conflicts with your headshot and resume. Knoxville asks you to bring every known conflict from audition day through the date it names in the call. Houston's rehearsals run six days a week, so list everything honestly up front. A clear, short conflict list is far easier to cast than a surprise in June. Finally, bring what the call asks for. That usually means a current headshot and resume. Some festivals want them by email before the day, and some want a printed copy in the room. ## Questions actors ask ### Do I need classical training to audition for a Shakespeare festival? Not always. Festivals want to see that you can handle verse, and training helps with that, but calls like Houston's and Notre Dame's list the pieces to prepare, not a training requirement. Prepare a verse speech you fully understand, and say it clearly and simply. That shows more than a list of classes. ### Can I use a sonnet as my Shakespeare piece? Check the call, and when in doubt, don't. Utah's guidelines say "no sonnets" outright. The festival is casting characters in plays, so a speech from a play shows them what they need to see. ### Should my second piece be Shakespeare too? Follow the call. Houston asks for two Shakespeare speeches, one comic and one serious. Knoxville prefers two pieces in metered language but accepts one classical and one contemporary. If the call gives you a choice, contrast matters more than the author. ### How do I rehearse a scene for a callback if I have no one to read with? Record the other lines with gaps for yours, or use Offbook, where voices read the other parts and wait for you to speak. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to the scene on your phone on the way to the callback.