Yale Repertory Theatre 2019-20 Season - NYC EPA
Yale Repertory Theatre / Drama Productions Inc.
AUDITION DATE
Thu, May 02, 2019
9:30 am - 5:30 pm (EDT)
Lunch 1 to 2
CONTRACT
LORT Non-Rep LORT C and D; ($696-$1325/week).
SEEKING
Equity actors for various roles in the upcoming 2019-20 season.
All roles at Yale Rep are understudied
Yale Rep is committed to an inclusive casting policy and encourages all actors to audition regardless of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression. Please refer to breakdown for details.
Currently there are no SM/ASM positions available.
PREPARATION
Required: 1 to 2 minute contemporary or classical monologue, your choice; preference for heightened or poetic language by great writers. Please bring a picture/resume, front and back, or stapled together.
LOCATION
Pearl Studios NYC (519)
519 8th Ave
12th Fl
New York, NY 10018
STUDIO D - holding room - please sign in there. (Studio A is audition room.)
PERSONNEL
Artistic Associate, Yale Repertory Theatre, Kay Perdue Meadows
Associate Artistic Director, Yale Repertory Theatre, Jennifer Kiger
Literary Associate, Charles O'Malley
In attendance:
Laura Schutzel, Casting Director, Tara Rubin Casting
OTHER
EPA Procedures are in effect for audition.
An Equity monitor will be provided.
Equity’s contracts prohibit discrimination. Equity is committed to diversity and encourages all its employers to engage in a policy of equal employment opportunity designed to promote a positive model of inclusion. As such, Equity encourages performers of all ethnicities, gender identities, and ages, as well as performers with disabilities, to attend every audition.
Always bring your Equity Membership card to auditions.
BREAKDOWN
Yale Rep 2019-20 season
GIRLS
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Choreography by Raja Feather Kelly
Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz
First rehearsal: August 26 / Opening: October 10, 2019 / Closing: October 26, 2019
Exiled to boarding schools for his entire life, Deon returns to his birthplace with a vengeance––luring the women of the town to the woods for a night of uninhibited partying. Meanwhile, a young reactionary with a big social media following condemns the debauchery and vows to restore order. Pulsing with a beat that is as dangerous as it is seductive, Girls is an electrifying contemporary spin on Euripides’s The Bacchae with a killer DJ, bumping dance music, and live-streaming video
This play is after Euripides’s The Bacchae. It is set on the side of a mountain. Everyone should be prepared to dance, to sweat, to be physical, to be possessed, and ideally would be excited by the idea of that. There are ideally as many women, non-binary, gender fluid actors for the ensemble roles of the GIRLS as possible; they should be of varying ages, ethnicities, body types, etc.
seeking
DEON – early 20s/30s. Should feel younger. A black man. Mysterious, androgynous, intelligent, and angry. He’s a DJ. He likes to stir up trouble with a flair of nonchalance.
GAGA – late 40s/50s. Theo’s mother. A woman. A housewife, seemingly meek, but powerful. She transforms from a wallflower to the most powerful and terrifying person in the room.
THEO – early 20s/30s (but feels younger). A man. Probably white. Angry, still feels like he’s in the midst of puberty. Insecure, performs hyper masculine, but transforms unexpectedly into the most glorious drag queen.
DADA – late 50s. Theo’s grandfather/Gaga’s father. A man. Probably white. Serious but not without a sense of fun. Practical. Political. Former Sheriff of the town.
RERE – late 50s/60s. A man. Dada’s friend. He can see the future. He seems clownish but he’s wise.
ACTING SHERIFF OFFICER RONNIE – 40s/50s. A man. Acting sheriff of the town, but was just a regular police officer. Seemingly decent guy. Likes the status quo.
COWHERD – 40s/50s. A man. Theo’s father. He was demoted from sheriff after he made some politically insensitive comments. Unexpectedly macho for such a willowy frame. He’s married to GAGA.
MEME’s GHOST – Deon’s mother. Gender fluid. Haunts the mountain with an intense theatricality. Sometimes appears in the form of fog.
GIRLS:
Some of them recall other famous characters like Electra, Medea, Phaedra, etc. A sense of comic timing and a joy in transformation is important.
GIRL 1 – Her family is driving her insane, to the brink of murder. She’s come to the mountain for a release. She has a temper, on the brink of snapping
GIRL 2 – Feels like a teenager, bored, disinterested, came to the mountain because there was nothing better to do.
GIRL 3 – Ultimate hype girl. She loves music. She loves her dog. She’s lost her dog. A bit spacy but she loves to dance. She later in the frenzy of the mountain becomes her dog.
GIRL 4 – She worked for Deon’s family, is aware of the whole scandal, working class woman who knows all the secrets and likes to spill the tea.
GIRL 5 – Going through a bit of a midlife crisis. She’s in love with her stepson, a bit lost, and has come to the mountain to work it out/dance it out with her girls.
GIRL 6 - Sexually free and independent from men…does not need a man. She likes sex but doesn’t want to be labeled by it. As another character she was an impressive clown in the 1920s; she’s now a ghost with a temper, trapped on the mountain.
GIRL 7 – Incredibly smart woman in a mundane but powerful job (involving drones and bombs), frustrated and exhausted by the stupidity of a system that leads her back to where she started. She came to the mountain to let off some steam.
_____________________
THE PLOT
By Will Eno
Directed by Oliver Butler
First rehearsal: October 21, 2019 / Opening: December 5, 2019 / Closing: December 21, 2019
The writer of The Realistic Joneses returns to Yale Rep with this moving, mysterious, at times hilarious story of a tiny plot of land and some people with grand and incompatible designs on it.
The acting style and approach for all characters should be simple yet detailed, unfussy, and grounded. The comedy in the play is best played straight. Casting should be inclusive and reflect the contemporary world.
seeking
JOANNE: 60s-70s, woman. Capable, resourceful, and a caretaker, but also can be fragile and quietly overwhelmed. She hasn’t gotten what she’s wanted in life, but continues to make the best of it, making her a figure of great sympathy for the audience. She is generally sweet but can be a little gruff and bluntly matter-of-fact, at times. At various moments, we see an almost effortless authority.
RIGHTY: 60-70s, man. He seems to be suffering from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia. This is usually expressed in him operating according to an inner logic, rather than him seeming doddering. He is unfussy, conservative in ways, even uncomplicated, though a little sly at times. He seems like someone who ran a small company and did a good but occasionally insensitive job at it.
TIM: 40s-50s, man, probably white. Direct, blunt, over-confident. He is cruel and dismissive without having to lean into it. He often rolls over other people on the way to making what he feels is an important point. A light touch, with both humor and pathos and harshness. A plausible real-estate developer type.
DONNA: 30s-40s, woman. An ambitious person, resourceful, but maybe she feels she’s missing a crucial piece in order to really thrive in the business world. Or maybe there’s something in her that wants to succeed in a different world. She could look the part of the attractive and successful corporate player, if she committed to it. She is buoyed by a very dry sense of humor.
GREY: 30s-40s, man, probably not white. A quiet and confident style, with a dry sense of humor, and a lover of nature. A professional, highly organized person. We might come to realize he is more at the center of things than we have believed, though he will have achieved this by flying under the radar a bit and seeming to mind his own business.
_________________
MANAHATTA
By Mary Kathryn Nagle
Directed by Laurie Woolery
First rehearsal: December 5, 2019 / Opening: January 30, 2020 / Closing: February 15, 2020
It’s 2008 and securities trader Jane Snake has landed a lucrative job on Wall Street, where her ancestors, the Lenape, were violently removed four hundred years before, when the Dutch “purchased” the island of Manahatta. Past and present intertwine as Jane is caught in the center of a looming mortgage crisis that threatens financial ruin for millions of families––including her own. Suspenseful and sweeping in scope, Manahatta illuminates an interlocking legacy of commercial exploitation and attempts to eradicate the culture of Native people, giving rise to the America we know today.
seeking
Jane Snake/Le-le-wa'you: 20s to 30s, woman, Lenape
Deborah/Toosh-ki-pa-kwisi: 30s to 40s, woman, Lenape
Mother/Bobbie: 50s to 70s, woman, Lenape
Se-ket-tu-may-qua: 20s to 30s, man, Lenape
Peter Minuit/Dick Fuld: 50s to 60s, man, white
Jacob/Joe: 40s, man, white
Jonas Michaelius/Michael: 50s to 60s, man, white
____________________
A RAISIN IN THE SUN
By Lorraine Hansberry
Directed by Carl Cofield
First rehearsal: February 3, 2020 / Opening: March 19, 2020 / Closing: April 04, 2020
On the South Side of 1950s Chicago, Lena Younger dreams of using her deceased husband’s insurance money to move her family out of their cramped apartment to a better neighborhood. Her son, Walter Lee, Jr., wants to use it instead to set himself up in business; while her daughter, Beneatha, dreams of medical school. In Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking, defiantly hopeful drama, an African American family’s dreams and conflicts are amplified by external tensions and prejudice in a country on the cusp of change.
A Raisin in the Sun is Yale Rep’s 2019–20 WILL POWER! production. The run includes 10:15AM performances on March 31, April 1, 2, and 3, 2020, available only to high school groups.
The role of Walter Lee Younger is cast. All other roles are available.
____________________
TESTMATCH
By Kate Attwell
Directed by Margot Bordelon
First rehearsal: March 16, 2020 / Opening: April 30, 2020 / Closing: May 16, 2020
London, today: A rain-delayed women's cricket match between India and England leaves tensions bare. Pent up in the locker room all day, neither side can play nice anymore. Calcutta, near the turn of the 19th Century: Two British imperialists debate the rules of engagement, the problem of women, and the trouble with mosquitoes, as famine ravages East India. An all-female cast takes the stage for this energetic, sharp-witted tale of sport, gender politics, and colonialism, interrogating the present by rethinking the past.
seeking
Eng 1: Woman, 20-40s, white/European; batsman, captain. Also plays Memsahib, wife of ONE. Athletic, muscular, a highly strung, confident woman.
Eng 2: Woman, 20-40s, white/European; batsman. Also plays ONE, a male member of the Lords Cricket Club in India. Somewhat aggressive, but under the guise of banter. Has worked hard for her place in this originally upper class sport. A clown.
Eng 3: Woman, 20s-40s, white/European; wicket keeper. Also plays TWO, a male member of the Lords Cricket Club in India. A team player, a backseat driver, a peace keeper. Goes with the flow to a fault. A clown.
India 1: Woman, 20-40s, South Asian; fast bowler, captain. Also plays Messenger and Neha. Confident, a leader of the entire company. A storyteller. Gravity, age, experience compared to the others.
India 2: Woman, 20-40s, South Asian; batsman. Also plays Abhi. A watcher, taking in everything that happens around her. A quiet confidence.
India 3: Woman, 20s, South Asian. Also plays Daanya and Dipti. The youngest: wide eyed, enthusiastic.
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Equity’s contracts prohibit discrimination. Equity is committed to diversity and encourages all its employers to engage in a policy of equal employment opportunity designed to promote a positive model of inclusion. As such, Equity encourages performers of all ethnicities, gender identities, and ages, as well as performers with disabilities, to audition.
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