Casting Notice: WTF seeks actress with lived experience with disability

Casting Notice:

 

Women’s Theatre Festival seeks actress with lived experience of disability to play the role of Amalia in Freakshow by Carson Kreitzer.

 

Location: Raleigh, North Carolina.

 

Contact: Johannah Maynard Edwards, Executive Director

info@womenstheatrefestival.com / 919-710-6635

 

Local and non-local submissions accepted. Non-AEA member preferred. Weekly stipend provided. Travel and accommodations available for non-local actor. Compensation range: $150-$300/weekly.

 

Women’s Theatre Festival is committed to providing an accessibility coordinator on production staff, accessible rehearsal and performance venues, and accessible accommodations for a non-local hire.

 

Rehearsal Dates:  

April 27-May 27

 

Performance Dates:

May 28, 2020 (preview) 

May 29, 2020

May 30, 2020

May 31, 2020

 

June 4, 2020

June 5, 2020

June 6, 2020

June 7, 2020

 

Show synopsis:

 

Freakshow introduces the audience to the inner world of Mr. Flip’s Freakshow, a traveling spectacle featuring The Woman With No Arms Or Legs (Amalia), The Pinhead, and Aquaboy the Human Salamander. Mr. Flip runs the show and, as they travel from town to town, keeps an eye out for potential new acts—often children with a physical difference that he can mold and exploit into something sensational to bring the punters in. Behind the scenes, Judith (formerly known as the Dog Faced Girl—she was once part of the show and now assists Amalia) and Matthew (a handyman), keep the show running. The Girl encounters the Freakshow when it comes to her town; she falls in love with Aquaboy and joins the troupe as they leave for their next destination.

 

The people of the Freakshow are trapped. The show is their family, their home, and their livelihood rolled into one. While they all—Mr. Flip included—recognize the horror of their day-to-day existence, they are loathe to part with the show. It is what they know and it is what keeps them together.

 

The spectacle of Freakshow will dazzle and discomfort the audience, but the heart of the story is about love, sacrifice, and choosing to put others’ happiness above your own. This is a show that holds together the grotesque and the sublime so that we can look through that shared lens and see how very human we all are, no matter what we look like.

 

Character description:

 

Amalia: The Woman with No Arms Or Legs

 

Please note: the actress playing Amalia does not have to be share the same physical characteristics as the character. We are, however, seeking an actress with lived experience of disability for this role.

 

Amalia is a woman of contradictions. She is (in no pointed order) beautiful, intelligent, haughty, kind, compassionate, vicious, vulnerable, sexual, sexy, shy, dependent, coy, kind, loyal, manipulative, caring, and calculating. She cannot often wield physical power but has become adept at using (both genuine and manufactured) sentiment, desire, and logic to exert control over others. It is possible that Amalia knows herself through and through, but almost no one else does because knowing her requires one to allow all of her different, disparate facets to exist as one.

 

Amalia is in love with The Pinhead, a boy who will never mentally grow up even though his body is. Perhaps she loves his forever innocence and lack of guile. Matthew is in love with Amalia, and she willingly enters into the actions of a relationship (sex, sometimes spending time together) although she has no reciprocal feelings for him. Judith loves Amalia as if she were her own child or family; Amalia loves Judith as a mother figure, a friend, and, perhaps, as a possible version of herself born into a different deformity at a different time.

 

To submit your audition:

 

Please upload a digital audition to YouTube or Vimeo and email us the link.  Your video audition should include:

• A one-two minute monologue or reading from the script

and

• A one-two minute personal story about love or loss

Sides from the script can be found HERE.

(Note: these sides are for reading/audition purposes only.)

 

You may also include any of the following with your emailed audition link:

• Headshot/photo

• Resume/CV

• Website/Reel

• Personal Statement

 

We are happy to accommodate any requests for an alternative audition format if needed. Please contact us for more information.

 

WTF is accepting digital auditions for Freakshow now until role is cast. 

Priority Deadline: January 31, 2020.

 

Women’s Theatre Festival is supported by United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County.

This project is funded in part by the City of Raleigh based on recommendations of the Raleigh Arts Commission.