Aurora Theatre Company
CONTRACT
Bay Area Theatre $689 weekly minimum (BAT 4)
SEEKING
Equity actors for roles in 2021-22 season (see breakdown). Local Bay Area actors particularly encouraged to submit.
INSTRUCTIONS
Self-tape monologue of choice up to 2 minutes. Submit your audition using the form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLRDOPykO8iYkp1zzWGjUE7P00TlxBqiiOUU74kHZU1GvK7g/viewform?usp=sf_link.
Deadline: Wed, Jun 30, 2021 (PST)
PERSONNEL
FATHER/DAUGHTER
By Kait Kerrigan | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by M. Graham Smith
THIS MUCH I KNOW
By Jonathan Spector | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Josh Costello
THAT’S WHAT WE’RE WAITING TO FIND OUT
By Cleavon Smith | ORIGINATE+GENERATE WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
WIVES
By Jaclyn Backhaus | WEST COAST PREMIERE
Directed by TBA
Viewing auditions:
Dawn Monique Williams, casting director
Josh Costello, artistic director
directors for each show
playwrights for world premieres
OTHER DATES
Father/ Daughter rehearsal 10/20/2021 - 11/17/2021
This Much I Know rehearsal 1/12/2022 - 2/9/2022
That's What We're Waiting to Find Out rehearsal 3/23/2022 - 4/20/2022
Wives rehearsal 6/1/2022 - 6/29/2022
OTHER
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 submit.
BREAKDOWN
FATHER/DAUGHTER By Kait Kerrigan | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by M. Graham Smith
In its world premiere, Father/Daughter by playwright Kait Kerrigan is a beautifully written contemporary romance. Two actors play both pairs of lovers in this structurally inventive play that asks how our relationships with our parents and children impact our romantic lives. In parallel stories told 23 years apart, Baldwin is Miranda’s 30-year-old divorced father who is trying to forge a new relationship with a beguiling woman, and Miranda is Baldwin’s 30-year-old daughter, who has found herself in her first serious relationship. What can we learn from the relationships we choose in order to repair the relationships we inherit? Kerrigan is an award winning playwright, librettist, and lyricist (We Have to Hold Hands, Mad Ones).
BALDWIN / LOUIS - Early thirties, attractive enough. Baldwin is charming and smart but guarded. Louis is warm and an open book. Any ethnicity.
RISA / MIRANDA - Early thirties, attractive enough. There’s a charge you might notice when she walks in a room. Miranda is quick and has a bite to her. Risa is raw and wild. She goes for laughs but doesn't always get them and that doesn’t bother her at all. Any ethnicity.
THIS MUCH I KNOW By Jonathan Spector | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Josh Costello
The writer of Eureka Day returns to Aurora with an explosively theatrical interrogation of agency and culpability. Through his all-too-personal lectures on psychology, Lukesh attempts to unravel a mystery with his wife Natalya at the center. What happened to Natalya? The search for answers will launch us on a time-hopping fugue, weaving together the stories of Stalin's daughter defecting to America, the son of a white supremacist growing to doubt the beliefs he was raised with, and the secret despair of becoming an accidental killer. How do we truly make decisions? How do we change our minds? And what does it meant o be complicit?
A/LUKESH - M, 50s, South Asian. Speaks with a British accent. Also plays Joseph Stalin, Brajesh Singh, and ensemble.
B/NATALYA - F 40s, Any ethnicity (the only relevant character fact is that she has one Russian grandparent). Speaks with a non-descript American accent. Also plays Svetlana Alliluyeva (daughter of Joseph Stalin), H.G. Wells, & ensemble.
C/HAROLD - M, 20. White. Speaks with a very slight North Florida twang. Also plays lots of ensemble.
THAT’S WHAT WE’RE WAITING TO FIND OUT By Cleavon Smith | ORIGINATE+GENERATE WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
Award-winning playwright Cleavon Smith (The Flats, an Aurora audio drama) was named Aurora’s Originate + Generate 2021 commissioned artist. In Smith’s world premiere play, Thomas, a highly regarded public intellectual and author, is brought to the University of California at Berkeley campus to help facilitate conversations concerning extrajudicial police violence. A member of the UCB Black Student Union was violently beaten by an officer while peacefully protesting and the students find themselves rejecting Thomas’ middle-ground, #NotAllCops rhetoric. Miriam and Raz, leaders of the BSU, want immediate action, radical reform, and are sick-and-tired of having to rely on a corrupt system for justice. Nina, the Vice Chancellor of the University, is caught between the demands of the students to shut Thomas down, and loyalty to Thomas, her dearest friend from graduate school.
Thomas, Black male, 40-50s, public intellectual
Nina, Black female, 40-50s, Vice Chancellor of UC Berkeley
Miriam, Black female, 18-22, student and member of Black Student Union
Raz, Black gender non-binary/non-conforming, 18-22, student and member of Black Student Union
WIVES By Jaclyn Backhaus | WEST COAST PREMIERE
Directed by TBA
From Hemingway's widow to a maharani in Rajasthan, from 16th century France to the campus of Oxbridge University today, the Great Men are left behind as their wives claim center stage in this irreverent celebration of female capability and power. Can Catherine de' Medici, queen to Henri II of France, rise above her rivalry with Henri's mistress, Diane de Poitiers? Will Hemingway's death bring his former wives together or drive them apart? Can a pact between a maharaja, his wife, and a witch survive the forces of British imperialism? Can a new student club devoted to witchcraft conjure a spell to manifest a new way of being in the world? Aurora is proud to present the West Coast premiere of this riotous and powerful story by the extraordinary playwright Jacklyn Backhaus.
wife 1 (F) South Asian, QUEEN/HADLEY/ROOP RAI/SWARN
wife 2 (F) COOK/MARY/MR. PATTERSON/WITCH
wife 3 (F) South Asian, DIANE/MARTHA/MAHARANI/SWARN/ME
man (M) South Asian, HENRI/BIG ERN/MAHARAJA/SWARN*
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 submit.
Videos
