Mice are nice: Melinda Ring's performers get into character.

PHOTO BY PAULA COURT

The Headlands residency is part of Ring's ongoing development of a piece whose potential she feels is still unfolding. Indeed, though it originated in a museum gallery, Ring sees Mouse Auditions as applicable to a wider set of spaces and social settings, since its themes and structure are rooted in a provocative examination of some basic material and social realities.

The Marin setting, with its distinct environment (and competing wildlife), will no doubt set up its own reverberations, not least because the participants (unlike in New York) will be almost entirely strangers to Ring. But wherever it lands next, there's something in the piercing comedy, subtle negotiation and absurd, Sisyphean optimism of a potentially endless audition — in which every applicant is already a performer in a piece about a piece that will never be made — that sure sounds close to home. *

MOUSE AUDITIONS

Sun/4, noon-5pm, free

Headlands Center for the Arts

Building 961

944 Simmonds, Sausalito

headlands.org/event/mouse-auditions