AUDITIONS for A Particle of Dread, By Sam ShepardJanuary 18 – 20, 2025
Pertinent Information:
Production: A Particle of Dread, by Sam Shepard
AUDITION DATES: January 18-20, 2025. Saturday at 3:00, Sunday at 6:30. Invited call-backs Monday at 7:00
Directed By Jeff Kirwan
Audition Location: Theatreworks at the EVERGREEN, 1705 Poplar Ave.
Needed: 9 characters of various ages. ALL ROLES ARE AVAILABLE
Audition Material: Readings from the script. Sides are posted on website.
Production dates: May 23 - June 8, 2025
Rehearsal Dates: Mid April, 2025.
More info: 901-484-3467
Audition sides are locate here: https://www.newmoontheatre.org/auditions
IMPORTANT! All participants must be fully vaccinated for Covid. Please bring your CDC card.
Synopsis: As a young man, Oedipus is told by a seer that he will grow up to K*ll his own father and marry his mother. He flees from home to avoid this terrible fate, but there is no escape—the dreadful prophecy finally catches up with him. Celebrated playwright Sam Shepard reimagines this Ancient Greek tale as a modern thriller. A murder is committed. Who is the victim? Who is responsible? What are the consequences for generations to come? There are many versions of the crime in this intriguing tale. People are hiding from the truth, even when it stares them in the face
Oedipus/Otto: Male-Identifying, 30+
Oedipus, King of Thebes. A strong, proud, but short-tempered leader, determined to rescue his city from the plague by finding out who killed its former king. Also plays Otto, in a wheelchair, possibly a retired teacher. Mild mannered and curious. He has a close loving relationship with his daughter Annalee.
Antigone/Annalee: Female-Identifying, 20+
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus. Strong, determined, passionate about how she lives her life. Also plays Annalee, daughter of Otto. Married to a violent man who has killed their babysitter. Terrified it will affect her baby son's future because of what he has seen. Blunt, outspoken, determined, loves her father.
Jocasta/Jocelyn: Female-Identifying, 40+
Jocasta, Queen of Thebes. Attractive, sensual, high status, proud, a strong match for her husband Oedipus. He is in fact her son. Perhaps she has always known or suspected this and does not want the truth to come out. Also plays Jocelyn, the wife of Otto. A Southwestern housewife. Otto is an anxious man, but she is the calm one. A gently warm personality.
Uncle Del/Traveler/Tiresias/Maniac Of The Outskirts: Male-Identifying, 35+
Strong comic sense, irony, bemused detachment from society's madness. Plays multiple roles, including Uncle Del, based on the Oracle at Delphi. Reads entrails, throws the bones; Traveler, blind, lives in the hills and can see the future; Tiresias, a blind seer called to Oedipus to reveal what he knows about why the city is ridden with plague; and Maniac of the Outskirts, an anonymous madman who lives on the outskirts of society and gets blamed for everything. Bitter, pissed off, sarcastic, comic.
Laius/Larry/Langos: Male-Identifying, 40+
Powerful presence, threatening, simmering, high status. Plays multiple roles including Laius, King of Thebes and father of Oedipus; Larry, a younger, modern version of Laius, consulting a healer because his wife cannot conceive; and Langos, a gangster casino boss who denies at first that he ever had a son but then admits that he did abandon the child in the hills.
Randolph: Male-Identifying, 25+
An American detective and self-proclaimed forensics expert. He is so obsessive about what one can glean about a crime from the evidence that he begins to picture the crime and fantasize about the people involved. Must have a strong comic sense.
Harrington: Male-Identifying, 25+
A highway policeman from the American Southwest. He is laid back and very cynical about forensic experts. He sees the crime in a very straightforward way and simply assumes it is Mexican gang warfare. Bemused by Randolph's fanciful ideas gleaned from the evidence. Must have a strong comic sense.
AUDITION SIDES
https://www.newmoontheatre.org/auditions
Event Venue
1705 Poplar Ave, Memphis, TN 38104-6416, United States
