The First Flight Theatre Company Audition information for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer directed by Ferdinand Alvaro.

AUDITIONS: Saturday and Sunday, May 24 & 25 from 12 noon - 4pm at the Hermitage, 335 North Franklin Turnpike, Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423 with director Ferdinand Alvaro.

OUTDOOR PERFORMANCES: Saturday and Sunday, July 26 at 7pm and July 27 at 6pm. 

REHEARSAL DATES TO BE CHOSEN FROM: Saturdays and Sundays, 12 noon - 4pm, June 28 & 29, July 5 – 20.

FULL CAST REHEARSALS: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, July 23 - 25 from 6pm - 9pm at the Hermitage.

For the auditions actors should prepare a one-to-two-minute memorized monologue and bring a photo and resume.

Actors cast will be given a $100 stipend to help with transportation expenses

For more about the First Flight Theatre Company visit www.firstflighttheatreco.com.

Following are text examples from the play that you may be asked to read at the audition. Choose one monologue to read that appeals to you most.

AUDITION SIDES FOR MAY 24 & 25, 2025

Monologues and a Scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

AUNT POLLY (to audience)

Hang the boy, can’t I never learn anything? Ain’t he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what’s coming? He ’pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it’s all down again and I can’t hit him a lick. He’s full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. He’ll play hookey this evening, and I’ll just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. It’s mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I’ve got to do some of my duty by him, or I’ll be the ruination of the child.

JOE HARPER

Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! (The headway runs almost out, and he draws up slowly toward the sidewalk.) Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling! (His arms straighten and stiffens down his sides.) Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow! (His right hand, mean-time, describes stately circles—for it is representing a forty-foot wheel.) Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow! (The left hand begins to describe circles.) Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! lively now! Come—out with your spring-line—what’re you about there! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now—let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH’T! S’H’T! SH’T! (trying the gauge-cocks).

TOM (to audience)

I gave up my brush with reluctance and while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, I sat in the shade close by, dangled my legs, munched my apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with—and so on, and so on, hour after hour. Besides the things I already mentioned I got twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar—but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.  (All actors exit. TOM is alone.) I had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If I was a great and wise philosopher, like the writer who wrote about me, I would have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. A good day! I am off to headquarters to report.

HUCKLEBERRY

You take and split the bean and cut the wart so as to get some blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and dig a hole and bury it ’bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece that’s got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the wart, and pretty soon off she comes. Why, you take your cat and go and get in the grave-yard ’long about midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it’s midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can’t see ’em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear ’em talk; and when they’re taking that feller away, you heave your cat after ’em and say, “Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I’m done with ye!” That’ll fetch any wart.

OLD JOE

Yes, and you done more than that. Five years ago you drove me away from your father’s kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn’t there for any good; and when I swore I’d get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I’d forget? And now I’ve got you, and you got to settle, you know!

JOE HARPER’S MOTHER

It was just so with my Joe—always full of his devilment, and up to every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he could be—and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed it out myself because it was sour, and I never to see him again in this world, never, never, never, poor abused boy! (She sobs as if her heart will break.) The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away—Blessed be the name of the Lord! But it’s so hard—Oh, it’s so hard! Only last Saturday my Joe busted a firecracker right under my nose and I knocked him sprawling. Little did I know then, how soon—Oh, if it was to do over again I’d hug him and bless him for it.

MUFF POTTER

You’ve been mighty good to me, boys—better’n anybody else in this town. And I don’t forget it, I don’t. Often I says to myself, says I, “I used to mend all the boys’ kites and things, and show ’em where the good fishin’ places was, and befriend ’em what I could, and now they’ve all forgot old Muff when he’s in trouble; but Tom don’t, and Huck don’t—they don’t forget him,” says I, “and I don’t forget them.” Well, boys, I done an awful thing—drunk and crazy at the time—that’s the only way I account for it—and now I got to swing for it, and it’s right. Right, and best, too, I reckon—hope so, anyway. Well, we won’t talk about that. I don’t want to make you feel bad; you’ve befriended me. But what I want to say, is, don’t you ever get drunk—then you won’t ever get here. Stand a litter furder west—so—that’s it; it’s a prime comfort to see faces that’s friendly when a body’s in such a muck of trouble, and there don’t none come here but yourn. Good friendly faces—good friendly faces. Git up on one another’s backs and let me touch ’em. That’s it. Shake hands—yourn’ll come through the bars, but mine’s too big. Little hands, and weak—but they’ve helped Muff Potter a power, and they’d help him more if they could.

SCENE WITH TOM AND BECKY

TOM

Do you love rats?

BECKY

No! I hate them!

TOM

Well, I do, too—live ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your head with a string.

BECKY

No, I don’t care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum.

TOM

Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now.

BECKY

Do you? I’ve got some. I’ll let you chew it awhile, but you must give it back to me.

(They chew the gum taking turns. They dangle their legs against the bench in excess of contentment.)

TOM

Was you ever at a circus?

BECKY

Yes, and my pa’s going to take me again some time, if I’m good.

TOM

I been to the circus three or four times—lots of times. Church ain’t shucks to a circus. There’s things going on at a circus all the time. I’m going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up.

BECKY

Oh, are you! That will be nice. They’re so lovely, all spotted up.

TOM

Yes, that’s so. And they get slathers of money—most a dollar a day, Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?

BECKY

What’s that?

TOM

Why, engaged to be married.

BECKY

No.

TOM

Would you like to?

BECKY

I reckon so. I don’t know. What is it like?

TOM

Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.

BECKY

Kiss? What do you kiss for?

TOM

Why, that, you know, is to—well, they always do that.

BECKY

Everybody?

TOM

Why, yes, everybody that’s in love with each other.