Company: The Ghostlight Stage Company – Cincinnati, Ohio
Performance & Rehearsal Venue: to be announced by the end of July 2024
Contract: Nonunion
Pay Rate: $20/hour (approx. 22 hours of work with workshopping process rehearsals, tech/performance day and casting process)
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
Seeking: 2 directors. 1 for each play (see more info on plays below). We strongly encourage BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ directors 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.
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 3 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 sets 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 google form link below and upload a relevant resume, cover letter which describes why you’re interested in this project and any links to your portfolio. These submissions will be reviewed by three members of our team. All submissions are due by August 4, 2024 at 11:59pm EST.
To Submit: Fill out this Google form: https://forms.gle/CbXyvLU1EaWn4PJL8
Production Schedule
Auditions: August 2024
1st Rehearsal: on or around October 8, 2024
Opens/Closes: TBD in October 2024
Auditions will be completed virtually via self tape, with in-person callbacks, as needed. There will be 3 4-hour rehearsals for each piece and a tech & performance day that lasts approximately 6 hours. These dates will be spread apart over the course of 2-2 1/2 weeks to give time in between for playwrights to make changes to the scripts and provide new pages, as needed. Director must be available for all rehearsals and tech/performance dates in person in Cincinnati. Rehearsal dates can be slightly flexible with director and playwright schedules, but will be set in stone prior to casting notice going out July 29. After they are set, no new conflicts will be accepted.
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.
Title: Technical Director
Behind the Curtain Cincinnati 