Designer Call for One Act Double Feature at Ghostlight Stage Company

Company: The Ghostlight Stage Company – Cincinnati, Ohio

Performance & Rehearsal Venue: First Financial Bank in Covington & Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

Contract: Nonunion
Pay Rate: $350 stipend for each designer (for approx. 8 hours of required rehearsal/performance time + however much time is needed outside of rehearsal for design preparation). Additional compensation will be given for all supplies needed. Production: One Act Double Feature 2024 featuring Esther Made Me Do It by Nell Adkins and Elizabeth Sacktor and Artists and Vandals by Erin K. Considine

Directors: TBD

Seeking: 1 Set Designer and 1 Costume Designer to design for both plays (see more info on plays below). We strongly encourage BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ designers to submit their work, as we seek to uplift the voices of underrepresented artists. Additionally, we encourage artists who personally resonate with the themes in the plays to submit to keep this process as authentic as possible.

About the Event: The Ghostlight Stage Company will be producing 2 original one act plays in October 2024 (exact date coming soon) as part of its second annual One Act Double Feature event. This event is unique in that it is a hybrid between a typical staged reading and a full production. There will be a short 1-2 week rehearsal process of only 4 rehearsals per piece that concludes with performances for the public at the end. In addition, all plays will be assigned a costume and set designer who will come up with design concepts for the plays and a director who will come up with a full vision for the piece, as if they were being fully produced. These designs for set and costumes will be shared with the audience in the form of lobby displays (this can look like costume design sketches, set models, electronic renderings, etc). Additionally, the directors and playwrights will both speak during the performance about how the play could continue on in its development to give the audience a better idea of what the production would look like on a full scale. The event will “pull back the curtain” for audiences to show them what all goes into the process of developing new work, while also giving playwrights the valuable experience of having a full team of designers, a director and actors to explore their piece without it being fully produced yet.

Submission Instructions: Follow the link and upload a relevant resume, cover letter which describes why you’re interested in this project and any links to portfolio. These submissions will be reviewed by three members of our team.

To Submit: Fill out this Google form: https://forms.gle/LjHE8uFXzt6uTYYL8

Production Schedule
Rehearsals for Esther Made Me Do It: Oct. 8, 11, 14 and 18 from 6pm-9pm
Rehearsals for Artists & Vandals: Oct. 9, 12, 15, 19 from 6pm-9pm
Opens/Closes: October 21, 2024

There will be 3 4-hour rehearsals for each piece and a tech & performance day for 5 hours. Designers will do most of their work outside of rehearsal time designing, but will be required to attend a few specific dates. Designers will be required to attend one rehearsal for each piece for 1 hour or less, to share their designs with the teams (preferred attendance would be on the first dates of rehearsal for each piece). This attendance for initial rehearsals could be via zoom, if needed. Designers will also be required to attend the full 5 hour performance date in person to help with load in/load out, and set up displays of their designs in the lobby for audiences to view and be available by their designs during performance time to answer questions and talk about their design process with interested audience members.

No housing or travel stipend will be provided. All artists hired must be Cincinnati local hires.

ARTISTS AND VANDALS by Erin K. Considine

Synopsis
After years of odd jobs and struggling to make ends meet, Lyla and Knox are opening
their own Art Gallery to critical acclaim and personal pride. They have parented a son
and parented each other. Nothing could ruin this night. Nothing but Daniel: who
disappeared fifteen years ago, and is now standing in the shadows under the L.

Characters

• LYLA (Female, 38, Any Race)
  Lyla is wild and loving: a pansexual, driven, career-focused mama bear. She has built a
  world for herself with Knox and her son Christopher. After years of cobbling together
  odds and ends of an artistic existence, Lyla is finally coming into her own and receiving
  the press she deserves.
• KNOX (Nonbinary, 40, Any Race)
  Knox is the glue in any and every situation, but that doesn’t mean they’re boring. Knox
  loves to shake the beehive. They love men, all men, and they love the hell out of Lyla
  (just not that way). Knox is the grounded parental figure that Lyla and Christopher
  desperately required over the last decade and a half. They are hilarious and incorrigible,
  covering a deep, almost unseen well of hurt and sensitivity. This Gallery launch is
  everything they’ve ever dreamed of, and Knox has been dreaming for years.
• DANIEL (Male, 40, Any Race)
  Daniel is a bisexual disaster: bad with words, easily overwhelmed, effortlessly charming,
  and too fragile for the unstable life of an artist. Daniel is also Christopher’s father. He
  made huge mistakes as a young man, and he is trying to atone for those choices now.
  He’s not sure if that redemption is possible; it might not be.

ESTHER MADE ME DO IT by Nell Adkins and Elizabeth Sacktor

Synopsis
Best friends, Naomi and Ruth, are preparing to audition for their local Purim shpiel. Naomi, gunning for the part of Esther, hopes to kick start her theatrical career. Ruth questions her feelings for Naomi and how long she’s willing to put Naomi’s desires before her own.

Characters

• NAOMI (Female, 14-16 years old, Jewish)
  Maybe, sort of, almost blonde. A STAR to be, her mom is a convert to Judaism and her dad’s not THAT practicing so she’s insecure about her own Jewishness, especially her ability to speak Hebrew (she doesn’t) but she makes up for it with CHUTZPAH and a Patti LuPone-level of divaness. Don’t ask her about the teen acting conservatory she attended last summer, she hates talking about it (she doesn’t). She will stop at nothing to be cast as Esther in Temple Beth Israel’s annual Purim shpiel.
• RUTH (Female, 14-16 years old, Jewish)
  Naomi’s devoted best friend, a groupie through and through. Arguably more talented than Naomi, a budding director and choreographer, and definitely more religiously observant. Her parents are both observant Jews (her mother, Rabbi Sharon, is a rabbi) and want to pull Ruth out of public school to enroll her in a Jewish day school, at the synagogue in Baltimore that has just offered Rabbi Sharon a fancy new job. Ruth’s Hebrew is actually good.

**If interested in reading the full plays, please reach out to The Ghostlight Stage Company’s
Producing Artistic Director to get copies of the scripts: alyssa@theghostlightstageco.com**

The Ghostlight Stage Company is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy to provide equal opportunity without regard to the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and we require affirmative action to ensure equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment. All employees and volunteers (whatever their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, identity, sexual orientation, education, ability, religion, socioeconomic status, physical appearance, or attributes) should always feel valued and respected