SLEEPING ROUGH - Page 73 Productions Auditions

Page 73 Productions (NYC)  Equity Transition Contract; $218/week (30 hour work week)

Executive Directors: Liz Jones and Asher Richelli

Associate Director: Michael Walkup

Playwright: Kara Manning

Director: Sam Buntrock

Rehearsals will begin around March 4, 2013, with performances April 3 - April 27, 2013 at the Wild Project (195 East 3rd St., NYC). (Schedule is subject to change.)

A world premiere play by Kara Manning, recipient of the 2007 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting, directed by Tony-nominated director Sam Buntrock (SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE) presented by Page 73 Productions, an off-Broadway company in its 15th year of developing and producing the work of playwrights who have yet to receive their professional premiere in New York City. SLEEPING ROUGH alternates between tense family scenes and revealing and lyrical monologues as it follows the complicated and unexpected process of healing that an estranged family undergoes in the wake of the son's death in the war in Iraq. Joanna and Mark were often at odds with both their children and always with each other. Now divorced, their son's sudden death brings them face to face when Joanna travels to London -- Mark's hometown -- in an attempt to start a new life free from the pain of mourning. Their adult daughter follows her mother across the ocean and eventually succeeds in forcing the three surviving family members to forge new bonds of kinship and accept the untimely loss of her brother.

Seeking:

JOANNA

American, late 40s. A graphic designer. Izzy’s mother and Mark’s ex-wife. Youthful, athletic in both body and imagination, determined, dreaming, grieving, temperamental, at a crossroads. Not matronly or suburban; there's a downtown, wiry edge to her.

IZZY

American, Joanna and Mark's daughter, 23. An apiologist. Pragmatic, reserved, ferociously fragile, protective, outdoorsy. She's not a "mean girl," but a young woman who has a studious demeanor, a softness that easily turns steely when necessary.  

MARK

British, Caucasian, a BBC Radio 1 presenter, Joanna’s ex-husband, Izzy’s father, late 40s. Charismatic and charming, attractive, laddish, occasionally awkward when things get lost in translation, also at a crossroads. There's a rock edge to him; music's been his entire life.

(Note re: Mark's accent/dialect: Mark works for BBC Radio 1, the UK’s major pop/Top 40 station with more eclectic specialist music programming in evenings. He would never utilize RP — don’t think “BBC News” — and even though he went to a public school, he speaks with a natural, middle class regional dialect, perhaps leaning to greater London, Essex or Oxfordshire. Estuary English fine for audition, but no Mockney please).