THE JEWISH KING LEAR - NYC Appointments
Metropolitan Playhouse
APPOINTMENTS
NYC auditions to be held on an upcoming date TBD by APPOINTMENT ONLY.
CONTRACT
Showcase-NY $700 stipend
SEEKING
Seeking actors of any ethnicity for 19th-century tragi-comic play from the Yiddish Theater. Facility with period and manner essential. The production will be in English, and while actors familiar with Yiddish theater are encouraged to submit, so are actors from all backgrounds and ethnicities for a play about a very specific time and place that resonates broadly with many traditions and immigrant experiences.
INSTRUCTIONS
Email or mail picture and resume ASAP for consideration. Deadline for receipt is 3/5
Deadline: Mon, Mar 5, 2018
SUBMIT TO
casting@metropolitanplayhouse.org
Metropolitan Playhouse
Attn: Alex Roe
220 E 4th Street
New York, NY 10009
PERSONNEL
Author: Jacob Gordin. Translator: Ruth Gay
OTHER DATES
First rehearsal 3/22/18
First Performance: 4/21/18
Closing: 5/20/2018
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
The play that began the tradition of “serious” Yiddish theater in America. Not a translation of Lear, but a self-conscious retelling of the story in 1892 that is farcical, introspective, and politically pointed all at once. Reb Dovidl Moysheles seeks to divide his estate among his three daughters before his move to Israel. The youngest, whose unflagging devotion to him is unrecognized, and her Rabbinical student boyfriend doubt the wisdom of Dovidl's plans, comparing him to that great writer Shakespeare’s character, King Lear. The two eldest daughters self-centeredly misuse his largess with their respective husbands--one a Hasid, the other a Misnagid--and ultimately turn him out of their house when he returns, disenchanted, from the promised land. For years he wanders alone but for his devoted, irreverent servant. All is set to rights when the dutiful youngest, now become a doctor …. cures his blindness.
KHANE LEAH 55 to 70 years old, female. Loyal if more pragmatic wife to the optimistic if midguided patriarch.
ETELE 30 to 40 years old, female. Eldest daughter, self-serving, but certain of her own goodness. (Goneril, were this King Lear).
GITELE 25 to 35 years old, female. Second daughter, like her older sister: self-serving, but certain of her own goodness. (Regan, were this King Lear).
TAYBELE 20 to 30 years old, female. Idealistic, frank youngest daughter (Cordelia, were this Lear.)
REB DOVIDL MOYSHELES 55 to 70 years old, male. Prosperous pater familias, devoted to his tradition and his family, and with a core of loving humor...but a core that is deeply hidden by his arrogant, purposeful ways. Ultimately reduced to incoherence by the betrayal, real and imagined, of his daughters.
AVROM HARIF 30 to 40 years old, male. Husband to Etele, Reb Dovidl's eldest daughter, strict, conservative, and unfeeling to the plight of his benefactor.
MOYSHE HASID 25 to 35 years old, male. Husband to Gitele, Reb Dovidl's second daughter, carousing, boisterous and equally indifferent to others as is his brother in law.
HERR YAFFE 20 to 30 years old, male. Earnest and clever student, in love with Taybele and so patiently forbearing of her father.
TRYTEL 35 to 45 years old, male. A servant: comical, irreverent in attitude but devoted in action, and long suffering.
PURIM REVELERS 20 to 50 years old, male or female. Singers and revelers who form both a context and a counterpoint to the story of the good man betrayed by his own foibles and his family.
Singers, Musicians Sought.
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.
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