The Sheboygan Theatre Company announces that open auditions for the musical "All Shook Up,” the first production of the 2009-2010 season, will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, August 12 and 13 and Monday, August 17.

“All Shook Up” is an all singing, all dancing musical based on the hit songs of Elvis Presley that tells how a guitar-playing roustabout shakes up a dreary Midwest town in the summer of 1955. The book by Joe DiPietro is a romantic fantasy (not unlike Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) about star-crossed lovers involved in unrequited romantic entanglements. But the dialogue is really only an excuse to sing, dance and perform all the music made famous by the King of Rock-and-Roll.

“All Shook Up” requires a cast of 30 to 40 high-energy singer/dancers of all ages equally divided between male and female. While 10 will play the parts described below, the remainder will be performing in an incredible number of fast-paced, high-powered, fun-filled, raucous Rock-and-Roll production numbers. Other than 42^nd Street STC has never done such a dance-focused show and might not do another one soon.
Natalie Haller, a young woman and an excellent mechanic, is much more at home in greasy overalls than a dress. Chad is great-lookin', motorcyclin', guitar-playin', leather-jacketed roustabout. Jim Haller, middle-aged and messy, is Natalie’s widowed father who still longs for his wife. Sylvia is the no-nonsense, African American owner of “Sylvia’s Honky Tonk.” Lorraine is Sylvia's pretty, smart and totally romantic teenage daughter.

Dennis is an awkward young man who aspires to be a dentist, while Miss Sandra is the beautiful, intellectual caretaker of the town's museum. Matilda Hyde is the town's very conservative mayor and Dean Hyde is her teenage son who has spent his youth at military boarding schools and has never disobeyed his mother. Sheriff Earl is the law in town and a man of not many words who loyally follows the Mayor wherever she goes.

All Shook Up deals with a small town that recognizes the unjustness of segregation. In keeping with this spirit, All Shook Up was performed on Broadway with an interracial cast, featuring both African-American and white performers. However, to remove any specific casting issues a theatre group may have, it is acceptable to perform an alternative version of All Shook Up in which the town is divided not along racial lines, but along class lines.

Initial auditions will take place on Wednesday and Thursday at the Leslie W. Johnson Theatre at Horace Mann Middle School, 2820 Union Avenue, Sheboygan, beginning at 6:00 p.m. Monday is reserved for callbacks. All those auditioning should bring sheet music for, and be prepared to perform an upbeat, popular, traditional, Rock-and-Roll song. There will of course also be a high-energy dance audition (so dress accordingly) and readings from the script. Though the selection process does imply some competition, it is made as pleasant as possible. Direction is given along the way and people need not fear that they will in any way be embarrassed.

Scripts and chorus books are available for a forty-eight hour loan at the Theatre Company’s office in the Community Recreation Department. A deposit of $15 for chorus books and $25 for scripts is required. They may be picked up Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. and must be returned by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 11.

“All Shook Up” will run from September 25 to October 3, 2009, with rehearsals beginning Tuesday, August 18. Over a six-week period there will be approximately 30 rehearsals, the majority of which will be Monday through Friday, 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. There will be two weekend rehearsals on the afternoons of September 19 & 20.

For further information contact Ralph Maffongelli at 459-3779.