Production Auditions

• Rehearsals Begin: 8/30
• Tech: 9/19 - 9/25
• Performances:
• • Thursday, September 26 - Saturday, September 28 | 7:30pm
  • Sunday, September 29 | 2:00pm
  • Tuesday, October 1 - Thursday, October 3 | 7:30pm

This project conflicts with rehearsals for Mainstage show The Resistable Rie of Arturo Ui and Second Stage Project Trojan Women: Reworked.

Co-Directors’ Casting Considerations

Auditions will welcome performers of any race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, ability, body physicality, religious affiliation, form of neurodivergence, nationality, citizenship status, etc. We will use the information in the character descriptions above as our primary guide for casting, and, as we do, we will actively aim to work against forms of exclusion and historical underrepresentation and to feature the most diverse cast possible. Performers in each role must be willing to carry out actions in the script as they are described. Regarding the gender of specific characters, the script provides information through pronouns, description, and other dialogue. Pronouns indicated in dialogue will not change in performance. When pronouns are indicated, the performer will be asked to craft a performance that in some way responds to those pronouns as one of many truths about the character. We’ll be dedicated to more or less capturing gender dynamics that are indicated, as gender is an integral factor in the relationships depicted.

AUDITIONS: Tuesday, August 27 | 6-10PM | Gabel Rehearsal Studio (MUND 409)

Each actor auditioning is asked toprepare a 60-second monologue from a contemporary play (1955-present). Even if you do not have a monologue prepared, please still feel warmly welcomed to audition; in that case, we will give you something to read right there in the moment. 

AUDITION FORM: Available HERE.

CALLBACKS: Wednesday, August 28 | 6-10PM | Gabel Rehearsal Studio (MUND 409)

The stage manager Charlote Froiland (cfroiland@luc.edud) will notify you if you are called back.

NUT:“A young trans-masculine person. Tough and masculine.” The playwright has indicated that Nut can be played by a trans actor and/or a non-binary actor. At one point in the script, a reference is made to Nut imagining his skin as “darker more olive” than it is in actual life, but race is not designated in the original character description, and actors of all races and ethnicities will be considered for this role if they are interested in it.

JULIUS:“Nut’s father, a man in his fifties - sixties.” Implied at one point in the script as white, but the race is not indicated in the official character description, and actors of all races and ethnicities will be considered for this role if they are interested in it.

FRANCE:“Nut’s mother, a woman in her fifties - sixties.” Race/ethnicity not specified by the playwright. 

CRIMP: “Nut’s sister, a woman in her mid-thirties. Feminine sexuality, but tough working class.” Race/ethnicity not specified by the playwright. OL BOY: “A young man in his early twenties. He’s a hyper-masculine figure of Nut’s creation.” At one point, Ol Boy embodies a drag king version of himself, and the production team has envisioned his hyper-masculinity as also being drag-like in the rest of his appearances onstage. Ol Boy could be played by anyone of any gender; the actor must be willing to explore and embody multiple degrees/forms of hyper-masculinity. Race/ethnicity not specified by the playwright.

For some, the war ended decades ago. For Nut and his father Julius, it still rages on. Nut wrestles with the contradictory faces of wartime: the aggressive patriotism from the movies against his father’s brutal souvenirs from the Vietnam War. In towering memorials and quiet burials, Orange Julius searches for answers amidst generations of questions, showing that no matter how far in place or time a conflict can seem, its repercussions still ring. This abstract and poignant drama invades the Underground Theatre to demonstrate the fallacies of war and possibilities of peace.

We look to cast an ensemble of 15-16 actors of any gender or color. All will play multiple roles, from Brecht's play and from our frame device of the radio studio. Valuable special skills will include experience with microphones or radio work, dialect and vocal character work, and Foley (manually manufactured sound effects).

Crime. Corruption. Cauliflower. Bertolt Brecht’s cutthroat satire chronicles gangster Arturo Ui’s bloody ascension to power. Set in Chicago amidst a city-wide scandal, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui gets to the heart of hometown corruption and global fascism. Boundaries are blurred between high and low art, rich and poor crime, broken and fixed systems. In responding to the rise of tyranny in 1940s Germany, Brecht conducts a disturbingly timeless takedown of who runs systems and who lets them. 

Brecht's play is an allegorical depiction of the rise of Hitler and the 3rd Reich during the period 1932-38, leading to the occupation of Austria. Brecht shows this through the story of a Chicago mobster in the 1930's who attempts to take over the Cauliflower "industry" by any means possible. You'll note references that feel like they could be about Al Capone, and dialogue that sounds like Hollywood gangster films of the 1930's. We will present Brecht's play, completed in 1941 but not performed onstage until 1958, using the convention of a radio play, broadcast in the mid 1940's. The ensemble of characters performing The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui will come from a cast of radio actors, production staff (stage managers and directors) and technicians (sound and Foley artists).

Arturo Ui
Ernesto Roma
Dogsborough
Betty Dullfleet
The Califlower Trust
Emanuele Giri
Giuseppe Givola
Ignatius Dullfleet
An Actor
Sheet
Bowl
Young Dogsborough
Dockdaisy