Theater Emory announces auditions for Brave New Works 2016.
Director, Playwriting Center of Theater Emory- Lisa Paulsen
WHEN
• Equity auditions by appointment on Saturday, November 7 from 10:00AM –
1:00PM and 2:00PM – 6:00PM.
• Non-Equity auditions by appointment on Sunday, November 8 from 10:00AM –
1:00PM and 2:00PM – 6:00PM.
• Callbacks, if needed, on Monday evening, November 9.
• First Rehearsal for Brave New Works 2014 is Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016.
• Project presentations between Jan. 27 and Feb. 13, 2016.
PREPARATION
• Prepare a contemporary monologue of one to two minutes in length.
• Actors can also expect to read from sides to be provided at the audition and
available at the theater and online in advance.
• Please bring a picture and resume, stapled together.
LOCATION & SCHEDULING
• Auditions are in Room 205 of the Rich Memorial Building at 1602 Fishburne
Drive on the Emory University campus in Atlanta.
• Beginning Tuesday, Oct. 27, schedule an appointment by sending email to
emma.e.yarbrough@emory.edu. If no email access, call Emma Yarbrough at
404-712-9118. Email preferred.
FURTHER INFORMATION
• Theater Emory casts entirely from the Atlanta/North Georgia area. No housing is
available to out-of-area performers.
• Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to attend.
• Actors are paid for rehearsal and performance.
• Theater Emory operates under a SPT contract with Actors Equity Association.
• Audition notices for this production are also posted in “Casting Call” on the AEA
website www.actorsequity.org and locally on the ACPA website
www.atlantaperforms.biz.
Brave New Works is a biennial festival of new play readings and workshops produced
by the Playwriting Center of Theater Emory. The projects-in-process will be rehearsed
and presented over a 3-week period by a combined company of student and
professional actors. Weeks of employment are certain – per project casting is subject to
change, given the developmental nature of the scripts.
See below for character descriptions, followed by project descriptions.
Character Descriptions / Actor Tracks (see also Project Descriptions)
Female Actor #2: Actress, 30s, African-American (Roles TBD in Fellowship A, Female
line #2 in The Bonobo Project, Roles TBD in Fellowship C) – 3 weeks
Female Actor #3: Actress, 30s, any ethnicity (Female line #1 in The Bonobo Project,
Dorothea/Agna in Looking Glass) – 2 weeks.
Male Actor #1: Actor of color, mid 30s-40s (Please ensemble, Roles TBD in
Fellowship B, General Norris/Court Clerk 2 in Looking Glass) – 3 weeks
Male Actor #2: Actor, mid 50s-60s, African-American (Domitius/Claudius/Guard in
The Younger, Papa Shaw in King James) – 3 weeks
Male Actor #5: Actor, 30s, African-American (Roles TBD in Fellowship A, Andre in
King James) – 3 weeks
The following positions are cast (i.e. offers accepted). Auditioning actors will be
considered as possible replacements, should any become necessary.
Female Actor #1: CAST. Auditioning actors will be considered as possible
replacements, should any become necessary. Actress, 30s-early 40s, AfricanAmerican (Roles TBD in Fellowship B, Widow Norris in Looking Glass) – 3 weeks
Male Actor #3: CAST. Auditioning actors will be considered as possible replacements,
should any become necessary. Actor of color, 30s (Please ensemble, Male line #2 in
The Bonobo Project, Roles TBD in Fellowship C) – 3 weeks
Male Actor #4: CAST. Auditioning actors will be considered as possible replacements,
should any become necessary. Actor, late 20s-early 30s, Caucasian (Seneca in The
Younger, Male line #1 in The Bonobo Project, Court Clerk 1/Historian in The Looking
Glass) – 3 weeks
BRAVE NEW WORKS Project Descriptions
Fellowship Readings (A, B and C). Staged readings of scripts from candidates for the
2016-18 Emory Playwriting Fellowship. (Candidate selection not yet finalized.)
• Actors are ‘as cast’ in these TBA projects.
The Younger, by Ann Hughes
Director: Jeremy Cohen
Dramaturg: Edith Freni
Julia Agrippina is a young bride living in 1st century Rome. When she meets the
scholar/philosopher Seneca at a party to celebrate her recent marriage to the controlling
Domitius, she becomes infatuated with him. Her pursuit of Seneca’s affections leads to
his expulsion from the city and a desperate quest to bring him back regardless of the
cost.
• Seneca - 38, male. Perhaps a bit on the lanky side. A quiet, kind and thoughtful
man. Spends his days writing plays and teaching at the center of philosophy.
• Domitius - 48, male. Agrippina’s husband and right hand man to the Emperor.
• Claudius - 55, male. Agrippina’s uncle.
• Guard - Any age, male.
Please (working title)
Adaptors: Jericho Brown and Snehal Desai
Director: Snehal Desai
Dramaturg: Vincent Murphy
A stage adaptation of Jericho Brown’s, Please, which won the American Book Award in
2008. “Please explores the points in our lives at which love and violence intersect.
Drunk on its own rhythms and full of imaginative and often frightening
imagery, Please is the album playing in the background of the history and culture that
surround African American/male identity and sexuality.”
NOTES ON CASTING: All of the characters are envisioned as African-American, but
for this workshop we are open to multi-ethnic casting. Three professional and three
student actors will be cast in the ensemble. Specific character lines will be assigned by
the director in rehearsal.
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Detroit: an escaped convict, early to mid 20s, smart, educated, poetic, a person
caught by bad circumstances.
Chicago: an escaped convict, early to mid 20s, a little shadier then Detroit and of
the streets.
Austin: more obviously effeminate than other members of the cast late 20s to
30s
Claremont: 30s, black, thin or at least svelte-looking in a suit and tie throughout
Birmingham: 30s, brawny, wearing t-shirt and jeans and a tool belt throughout
Philly: late 20s, black, a more stocky character, wears a beret throughout
The Bonobo Project by Johnny Drago, Daryl Fazio, Michael Winn and Edith Freni.
Four Atlanta playwrights took inspiration for these four distinct new plays from common
source material, “Sex at Dawn: the Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality,” by
Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha: The Flower Room by Daryl Fazio, The Mystic by
Edith Freni, Homo Sapiens is Latin for Man Who Knows by Michael Winn, and Cul-deSac by Johnny Drago. Directors are to be announced.
The plays will utilize the same company of four actors in multiple roles:
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Female line #1: early 30’s, African-American. Plays multiple roles including an
uptight anthropologist, a plantation slave who time travels to modern America, a
woman literally tormented by demons, and a ‘welcome wagon’ suburban wife
with plenty of winks and grins to spare.
Female line #2: late 20s’-mid 30’s. Plays multiple roles including a young wife
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(‘kind of a noodle’) trying to fit into her new neighborhood, a minister’s daughter
navigating a relationship with a man full of secrets and impossible surprises, the
overwrought adult child to an aging matriarch, and a crotchety old lady with
dementia.
Male line #1: 20’s. Plays multiple roles including a charismatic hunk, a slaveowning master and early researcher in male sexuality, a ‘welcome wagon’
suburban husband with plenty of winks and grins to spare, a lawyer who is also a
‘Dom.’
Male line #2: early 30’s. African-American. Plays multiple roles including a
husband resistant to fitting in to his new neighborhood, modern metrosexual who
has to live as a slave when he is pulled through time to a plantation, a software
engineer with a quick wit and plenty of sexual hang-ups, and a conservative
department chair at a university.
King James, by David Garrett. Directed by David Garrett.
King James is a film adaptation of Woyzeck, Georg Buchner’s play about poverty,
morality, madness, and violence. This re-imagining brings the action into present-day
Atlanta, about a black cop named King James buffeted by societal upheavals sparked
by police brutality and race.
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King James (30’s) A cop stressed by psychological issues, working feverishly to
provide for his wife and child.
Andre (30’s) King’s childhood friend, a disabled and homeless veteran, and
political activist.
Papa Shaw (70’s-80’s) King James’ father-in-law, originally from New Orleans
but displaced by Katrina. Bitter and fragile.
The Looking Glass, by Jim Grimsley
Director: Joseph Megel
Dramaturg: Elizabeth Corley
The Looking Glass tells the story of the Widow Evangeline Norris, whose history is
similar to the infamous 17th century figure Elizabeth Bathory, “The Blood Countess,”
although the play is set in an imagined future when our modern world has collapsed
back into slavery and serfdom. Widow Norris is visited in prison by her now dead
husband, General Norris, while the grim reality and scope of her crimes are revealed as
her accomplices (Agna, Katy, Dorothea) are put on trial.
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Crown Clerk 1 (Johnson) & 2 (Marbury), law clerks whose duty it is to elicit
testimony of the crimes of the Widow Norris
Katy, Laundry manager to the Widow Norris’s children and later one of her inner
circle
Dorothea, wet nurse to the children of the Widow Norris
General Gregory Norris, military leader in the new Kingdom of Texas and hero
of the times of chaos
Widow Evangeline Norris, daughter of a wealthy billionaire and wife to the
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General, part of the nobility of the new Kingdom of Texas; she is veiled and
masked when she appears onstage
Agna, secretary to the Widow Norris, procurer of young women, chief among her
accomplices
Historian, an apologist for the Crown
Roles to be doubled:
Katy/Widow Norris
Dorothea/Agna
Crown Clerk 1/Historian
General Norris/ Crown Clerk 2