Calling all Arizona actors! Auditions are now open for two new plays.
When Churchyards Yawn: All the dead Hamlet characters have graduated from Limbo to Purgatory. Seems there’s been a bit of a backlog. Hamlet Senior is ancient and over it. Polonius is befuddled, as ever. Rosencrantz feels like a nit wit, Guildenstern blames Rosencrantz. Ophelia is innocent and furious, Gertrude is spitting mad. Claudius is contrite to the point that you want to smack him. When Churchyards Yawn asks the question - will all these fatally flawed characters ever make it to Heaven?
Pineapple and Other Options: Drenching rain pummels Nimipuu County as Helen, an idealistic middle-aged American History educator, sits alone in her kitchen recovering from a double mastectomy and looking at a pile of bills and an employment termination letter. What makes more sense than suicide? Newly retired social worker and rookie crisis hotline volunteer, AJ sits alone in the office desperate to save Helen from herself. As Helen slips between the worlds after eating a huge assortment of pills, Elizabeth “Betsy” Pennington greets Helen and takes her on a journey designed to convince her to return and invent a new kind of educational model. Pineapple and Other Options braids the stories of three women into a – literally – constructive theatrical experience.
"The character of AJ, in Pineapple, is a lesbian," explains the playwright Jeanmarie Simpson. "She engages in a series of phone conversations with her mate, Maryanne, who is home alone. It's clear that the two have an impossibly codependent relationship, and AJ emerges as the quintessential rescuer.
Casting Pineapple and Other Options for production in the Phoenix Metro area will be this fall. Rehearsals begin in October, and shows are November 5-21.
Casting When Churchyards Yawn in Reno/Sparks region happens next July. Show dates are July 1-31, rehearsals begin in June, though there will be meetings throughout the year and on-paper staging in the winter/spring.
ROLES AVAILABLE
MAIN CAST
Gertrude
Rosencrantz
Guildenstern
UNDERSTUDIES
Gatekeeper
Hamlet Sr.
Claudius
Polonius
Gertrude
Rosencrantz
Guildenstern
Ophelia
Hamlet
Laertes
More information - arizonatheatre.org. Questions - arizonatheatrematters@gmail.com