Open auditions for all three of Silverthorne Theater’s shows this season will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Greenfield. Actors of all ages are encouraged to audition.
The auditions are Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. and Saturday 1 to 4 p.m., with callbacks on Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.
The auditions will be held at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center, 289 Main St., Greenfield. They are by appointment only, so schedule an audition by calling 413-768-7514 or emailing: silverthornetheater@gmail.com.
Auditioners should prepare a one- to two-minute monologue and bring a current resume and headshot. You can also send that information to the email above.
All roles are paid, and all ethnicities are welcome.
The first play, “The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard, will be performed the final two weekends in June. Rebecca Daniels will direct.
The characters are Miss Helen, a widow and artist in her late 60s; Elsa, a politically engaged school teacher in her 30s; and Marius, a Calvinist pastor, good-hearted and deeply conservative, in his 60s.
“The Road to Mecca” is set in 1970s South Africa. It was first staged in the United States in 1984 at Yale Repertory Theatre, had an off-Broadway run in 1988 and saw its Broadway premiere in 2012.
Fugard is best known for his overtly political plays, mostly set in his native South Africa in the days of apartheid. While this drama’s focus on the life and work of an artist might seem like a departure for the playwright, in the words of New York theater critic, Ben Brantley, the play “throbs with a despairing awareness of the South Africa of the 1970s as a broken and corrupting nation, a spiritual prison for those who inhabit it. Set in the remote village of New Bethesda, in the Karoo desert region, this play considers the nature and possibilities of freedom within such a place.”
Based on a real-life individual, Fugard’s story of Miss Helen, an aging Afrikaner widow who creates unusual sculptures in order to escape the crushing reality of her isolated life and the social expectations that accompany that life, brings together two social and political opposites who each consider themselves her friend and take a strong interest in her welfare according to their own conflicting views about artistic creativity and the challenges of aging. Her very conservative minister, Marius, wants to send Helen to an old folks home, where she will be “safe” from both criticism and harm. Her young friend, Elsa, more politically engaged than Marius, wants Helen to have the independence as a woman and an artist that society seems to find so dangerous.
The second, “White, Black & Blue,” is a world premiere by Steve Henderson and Will Chalmus. It is directed by Keith Langsdale. It will be performed later in July.
The characters are Joe Renshaw, a divorced academic type, white and age 65 to 70; Walter Jones, a black teacher and musician age 25 to 35; and Lou Rankin, a police officer, big and physically formidable, white and in his 30s.
Walter breaks into the home of Joe Renshaw, an older white man, late at night. Walter has fled the scene of an altercation with a white off-duty police officer, having taken the officer’s gun in the ordeal. It is not the way it seems. As Joe and Walter struggle to establish a fragile détente, officer Lou Rankin finds the house. A taut life-and-death stalemate ensues as the three desperate men struggle to stay alive and to protect their families. Issues of race, trust, responsibility and last straws comprise powerful themes in the story.
The final play, “Delectable Durang: A Collection of Six Unruly Comedies” by Christopher Durang will be directed by John Reese and performed in late September and early October.
Three females and three males are needed.
The 2018 season will close with the fall presentation of “Delectable Durang,” a collection of hilarious and provocative one-act plays. They will be an “homage to the theater.”
The six plays are “The Actor’s Nightmare,” “Women in a Playground,” “Nina in the Morning,” “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls,” “One Minute Play,” and “Medea.” Every theatrical element (costume and set changes, etc.) will be in full view of the audience throughout, as six actors function as a mini-repertory company.
Reese is seeking skilled and spirited actors capable of portraying a variety of multi-dimensional characters with serious personal issues who fearlessly leap into Durang’s world of comic mayhem with emotional abandon and a bountiful sense of play.
For more information, call 413-768-7514 or send an email to silverthornetheater@gmail.com.