Monthly Archives: May 2017

Casting requirements are listed below for the six Finalist plays for the 2017 FutureFest; the plays are listed in alphabetical order by title. Directors for each of the plays will be announced soon. FutureFest will be presented at the Dayton Playhouse the weekend of July 21-23, 2017.

Auditions for these roles will be as follows:
Fully Staged plays will audition on Monday, May 29, 2017 starting at 7:00 PM
Staged Reading plays will audition on Tuesday, May 30, 2017 starting at 7:00 PM

Auditions will consist of cold readings from the play scripts. Auditioners are encouraged to arrive before 7:00 PM to complete an audition form, and should be prepared to list all conflicts between June 1 and July 23.

CASTING REQUIREMENTS
35 actors (21 F, 13 M, 1 boy)
FIRST, DO NO HARM – READING

Synopsis: Our recent election galvanized a tsunami of concerns about race and healthcare. The CDC reported black Americans suffer higher rates of disability and preventable diseases than non-minorities. While blatant discrimination is no longer rampant, stereotyping persists. Hospitals emphasize the need for cultural diversity but, perhaps, have fallen short. Inspired by a real case, FIRST, DO NO HARM is the story of two African American mothers journeying along parallel paths of grief and guilt. It doesn’t attempt to answer the questions raised. There are no easy answers, and no single clinical guideline is useful in unraveling the spectrum of human physical, mental, and emotional response to illness.

5 actors (4F, 1 M) with doubling
DR. ELISSA KERRY – 40s, African-American, surgeon and mother.
DR. ALISON TAYLOR – 40s, Caucasian, Elissa’s wife, a family physician.
MATTIE CLESTER – 50s, African-American woman, uneducated but street smart.
DWAYNE HATCHER – 50s, Hospital CEO, African-American. Comes from a Ben Carson background, but has a Donald Trump attitude (also plays various other small parts).
FEMALE ACTOR – Scrub nurse, Valerie, Patient Advocate, Medical Board Nurse.

MAGNIFICENT HUBBA HUBBA – STAGED

Synopsis: A teenage boy tracks down his downtrodden, fiery, and foulmouthed idol –“The Magnificent Hubba Hubba” – an old-time woman wrestler now over 70 and working as a greeter at a hotel casino. He aims to set up the rematch of the century between her and her arch rival of years gone by. But what he really wants is to win the love of her estranged granddaughter, a high school wrestling star who hates his guts. A comedy about how true passion never grows old, and sometimes the best partnerships are the most unlikely ones.

7 actors (5 F, 2 M) with doubling
LUCILLE – 70s
ROY – 16
ALICE – 70s
LULU – 16
ZANE – 70s, ANNOUNCER
WANDA, NADYA, YOUNG LUCILLE, REFEREE (20s-50s)
TEDDY, NURSE, YOUNG ALICE, HOSTESS (20s-30s)

ON PINE KNOLL STREET – STAGED

Synopsis: Thelma is a colorful and quick-witted 87-year old woman struggling with her memory.  Her devoted daughter Marilyn, with whom she now lives, is trying to make the best of the situation.  When Marilyn asks her neighbor Curtis, a struggling writer and stay-at-home father, to care for her mother and her beloved cats while she is at the beach, it sets in motion a friendship that tethers two families.  Funny and heartbreaking, On Pine Knoll Street is an intimate look at the joy and fragility of life, the meaning of home, and the things we do for love.

5 actors (3 F, 1 M, 1 boy)
THELMA – 87, F
MARILYN – 52, F
CURTIS – 40, M
KRISTIE – 38, F
MITCHELL – 8, M

THE PUPPETEER – STAGED

Synopsis: When Constance, a 1920’s jazz singer, chooses to stand on her own, not only is her name carried on through multiple generations, but so is her determination to find an identity in an ever changing world. Spanning five generations, starting in the Harlem Renaissance and ending in present day, the women from one African-American family struggle to overcome the roles assigned to them by society in order to find their way home.

7 actors (5 F, 2 M)

CONSTANCE/CONNIE (played by the same actress) – 20s – mid 30s, African – American woman
ROBERT/CHRISTOPHER (played by the same actor) – role spans 20s -late 40s, Caucasian man
ERNIE/MR. HOTCHKISS (played by the same actor )- 30s – 40s, Caucasian man
MISS DUNSTON – 20, Caucasian woman
MRS. COVINGTON – Early – mid 20s, Caucasian woman
MS. JENKINS – Early – mid 30s, Caucasian woman
MS. EVANS – role spans early 50s – early 70s, Caucasian woman.

THE SPANISH PRAYER BOOK – READING

Synopsis: In 2007, a committed atheist inherits a collection of rare and extremely valuable illustrated Hebrew manuscripts, including a prayer book from fourteenth-century Spain.  Financial struggles and a child’s recent hospitalization favor an initial plan to auction the books.  A moral dilemma, historical mystery, and matters of the heart converge, however, following the discovery that the books, which bear witness to overlapping Jewish and Islamic traditions, were stolen, some six-hundred years after their creation, from a library in Berlin. Inspired by true events and a late twentieth-century court case, and using images from the books themselves, the play explores the allure of sacred manuscripts, the ethical issues generated by cultural treasures displaced during wartime, and the power of art to forge human connections.

6 actors (3 F, 3 M) with doubling
JACOB ADLER – 80s; beloved emeritus history professor and progressive rabbi. Gentle and understated, a man of Talmudic wisdom and agonizing secrets.
JOAN ADLER – 70s; Jacob’s wife, raised in London. Cosmopolitan and frank, especially when it comes to the patriarchies of academia and organized religion.
MICHAELA ADLER – 40s; Jacob and Joan’s daughter. A long-time atheist who has abandoned a legal career to teach inner city kids. Attractive and reasonably well presented, but also divorced, exhausted, and broke.
JULIEN NAZIR – 40s; Jacob’s protégé, a non-practicing Muslim, born in the Middle East and educated in the West. Handsome, accomplished, and socially conscious; a tenured historian at Berkeley, currently guest teaching in London.
ALEXANDER ADLER – 60s; a rabbi born in Budapest, but a mystic of many times and places. Well-versed in Jewish texts, but favoring life and humanity above all. The same actor plays CHRISTOPHER HOWELL, a British newspaper reporter.
CHANNA WILD – 30s; reserved, highly intelligent, and beautiful librarian at the Hebrew Institute of Berlin. The same actor plays an icy auction house ASSISTANT and a nervous male LAW CLERK

WAKE – READING

Synopsis: Dan and Eric have a new marriage license, a new baby, and a new house in the country. As they settle into this new life, Dan is having what seem to be sleepwalking episodes. A ghost story told by a young visitor leads Eric to suspect that Dan’s sleepwalking is actually something far more sinister — but is it what he thinks it is? Or are there other forces at work? WAKE is a ghost story for the post-AIDS generation, a play about marriage, expectations, and the power of narrative to both heal and harm.

5 actors (1 F, 4 M)
DAN – 45 – 50, Caucasian, married to ERIC.
ERIC – 30 – ish, Caucasian, married to DAN.
TERRELL – 45 – 50, African – American, friend of DAN.
ESME- 20s, African – American, niece of TERRELL.
CHARLIE – 30-ish, friend of ERIC.