Monthly Archives: May 2022

Cast Requirements for FutureFest 2022 at Dayton Playhouse running July 15-17

Auditions are May 23 (Fully Staged – The Wild Boar, The Little Sisters of Littleton, and The Docent) and May 24 (Readers – Griswold, Lakshmi Counts Her Arms and Legs, and Every Livin’ Soul). Auditions will begin at 7:00 PM both nights.

Dayton Playhouse, located inside Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark at 1301 East Siebenthaler Avenue, Dayton, OH 45414.

Actors from all ethnic backgrounds encouraged to audition.

THE WILD BOAR (Fully staged) – July 15 at 8pm
Jennifer Lockwood, director
3M, 2F

• Marlotta – 60s
• The Boar – teens/early 20s
• Ray Cordova – late 40s-50s. sheriff.
• Steve Harmon – late 40s-50s, neighbor
• Germaine – 70, Marlotta’s older sister.

A newly retired teacher moves to a remote island, seeking nothing but solitude and serenity. However, when a boar arrives at her house one day, an unlikely relationship develops, bringing about unexpected feelings from her past, while placing her at odds with the local authorities and the island’s other inhabitants.

GRISWOLD (Staged reading) – July 16 at 10am
Shanna Camacho, director
1M (African American or African descent), 2F (one woman of color)

• Estelle Griswold – A one-woman dynamo who will, at the age of 65, do nothing less than change the course of history.
• Actor 1 (Female) – multiple (10+) roles.
• Actor 2 (Male) – multiple (10+) roles.

Griswold is inspired by the forgotten history behind the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established a right to sexual privacy. Fusing magic realism, docudrama, and comedic truth, the play mines the spirit and drive of the overlooked 65-year-old woman whose actions set the Griswold case in motion, the extraordinary events leading to establishment of the right of sexual privacy, and the essential link between sexual privacy and personal dignity.

LAKSHMI COUNTS HER ARMS AND LEGS (Staged reading) – July 16 at 3pm
Annie Pesch, director.
2M (2 South Asian), 2F (1 South Asian) Actors from all ethnic backgrounds encouraged to audition.

• AAKIL – mid 40s
• GAYLE – late 30s
• SARESH – mid 20s
• DEEPSHIKHA – mid 20s

When a child with four arms and four legs is born in rural India, the villagers see it as blessing. People come from miles around to pray to the reincarnation of the goddess Lakshmi. However, neurosurgeon Aakil Singh knows that the child needs a life-saving operation. Accompanied by his American wife, they go to visit the child and meet her parents. However, just as Aakil starts the hard work of convincing them to remove the child’s limbs, his wife has an unexpected spiritual epiphany. Based on the true story of Lakshmi Tatma.

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF LITTLETON (Fully staged) – July 16 at 8pm
Dawn Roth Smith, director
1M, 2F

• Em – late 70s. A quick-witted and cantankerous divorcee with a sharp tongue and even sharper hearing.
• Ann – mid-late 70s. While ANN is the sweeter of the two sisters, she is by no means a pushover. She is a genuine romantic, recently widowed after a 50-year happy marriage.
• Frank – late 70s. Quick-witted, sarcastic, and a professional womanizer. And yet there is a sincerity about him that makes him lovable.

When a recent widow is caught sneaking a man out of the house in the wee hours of the morning, her man-hating sister is forced to confront the ex-husband she divorced over thirty years ago. The door-slamming comedy, with one sister trying to conceal her antics and the other determined to root them out, turns serious when real feelings are dredged up and unanswered questions demand a response.

EVERY LIVIN’ SOUL (Staged reading) – July 17 at 10am
Ray Gambrel, director
2M, 2F

• Hannah Winship Grey – mid 40s. Generous to a fault and a bit of a dreamer, Hannah longs for a more prosperous future.
• Herk Winship – 40, Hannah’s brother. Herk is a farmhand with a taste for adventure and melodrama.
• Dot Winship – mid to late 30s, Herk’s wife. Heartbreak and bitter disappointment have intensified her religious fervor.
• Choc – 30, a drifter, haunted by his past and looking for a new start.

In the darkest days of the Depression, a stranger finds refuge in an Ohio farmhouse. He begs a meal from Hannah, the widowed owner, and the two form a kinship. For Hannah, this handsome young man might be the harbinger of a brighter future. As her husband used to say, “There’s a little bit of good in every livin’ soul.” But when the stranger’s perilous secret is revealed, Hannah finds herself in a struggle for her family’s very existence. Loosely based on a true story, Every Livin’ Soul celebrates the triumph of hope in the face of heartbreak and desperation.

THE DOCENT (Fully staged) – July 17 at 3pm
Aaron Washington, director
2M, 2F

• Edna Gregory – 50s-60s, an expert in urban forestry.
• “Eddie” Gregory – young Edna in her 20s. An Urban Park Ranger, NYC in 1981.
• Charles Calder – late 20s-early 30s. Gay travel agent living on Christopher Street, NYC in 1981.
• Raymond – 30s. Charles’s former lover, 1981. Also plays Vinnie and Ted – both in 1981.

The Docent is grounded in a lecture on the trees of Central Park given by Urban Forestry expert, Edna Gregory. During the course of the lecture we flash back to Edna’s first encounter with her life’s work – her first job as an Urban Park Ranger in New York City in 1981. Just out of High School, she comes to the big city for the first time and rents a room in the West Village with a young man named Charles. All through the play New York City’s trees become a tribute to the astonishingly beautiful and devastatingly tragic history of New York City and the soul mate that Edna has loved.