Open Calls
Audtions for "UPSTATE" by Dorothy Lyman
Sunday, March 16 (4-6 pm)
Monday, March 17 (6-9 pm)
Directed by Dorothy Lyman
Brief Synopsis of the Play:
UPSTATE involves three generations of women who meet on their family dairy farm in Upstate New York to decide the fate of their recently widowed matriarch.
Director's/Writer’s VISION:
This play deals with the time in our lives when hard decisions need to be made about our future. These crossroads appear at various times in our lives, and this play deals with one of them: Our third act. The challenges of aging and the inevitable change of a previous way of life. Can the future hold something more than loss and diminishment for our widowed dairy farmer? The loss of her farm mirrors in many ways the loss of a rural way of life in America, the connection to the land and the livestock. What price has been paid for the industrialization of the farming industry? But UPSTATE is also about legacy, and a generational pull as seen through the eyes of our three female leads, The Grandmother, The Mother and The Granddaughter.
Dorothy Lyman is a two-time Emmy© Award-winner for her work as Opal Gardner on “All My Children” and is widely known for her co-starring role on “Mama’s Family,” alongside Vicki Lawrence and Carol Burnett. In addition to her numerous film and television appearances, Ms. Lyman also directed 75 episodes of Fran Drescher’s sitcom “The Nanny.” Her other plays are Enemy (an adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People), A Rage in Tenure and Soft Landing (directed by John Tillinger) were all developed and produced by Players Workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Upstate was produced in New York City and Westchester in 2019. We Have To Hurry, starring Elliott Gould, Kathleen Chalfant and Alfred Molina was produced on ZOOM during the pandemic.
Ms. Lyman’s directing career began in 1980 when she produced and directed the original off-Broadway production of A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking starring Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan, and the subsequent national tour starring Elizabeth Ashley and Susan Anton. Her feature film The Northern Kingdom is available on Netflix.
She lives in Washington Depot, Connecticut and New York City. Violet And Me A Mama-logue Ms. Lyman’s one-person play premiered in August 2023 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her first one-person play, My Kitchen Wars, adapted from the book of the same name by Betty Fussell was produced in New York City and Los Angeles.
Characters:
Elizabeth (cast) - LEAD, to be played by Dorothy Lyman
Betsy - (40-50 yr. old) (Daughter) New York Chic, urban, Ad agency executive
Tom - (40-50s) (Son-in-Law) New Yorker, Finance Manager, Urban
Liz - (20’s) (Granddaughter) 1st year elementary school teacher, High strung, emotional
Jason (20-30 yrs. old) Boyfriend to Granddaughter, PHD in Agronomy at Cornell, smart, practical
Christie - (50-60s) Neighbor, Farm Hand, Local, Salt of the Earth type
Auditions for "Circle Mirror Transformation" by Annie Baker
Sunday April 6 (4-7 pm)
Monday, April 7 (6-9 pm)
Brief Synopsis of the Play:
Four lost New Englanders enroll in Marty's six-week-long community center drama class. As they experiment with harmless games, hearts are quietly torn apart, and tiny wars of epic proportion are waged and won. We see in hilarious detail and clarity, the antic sadness of a motley quintet.
Director's/Writer's vision:
What roles do we play in life and how do we discover our voice? How do we learn to trust, to risk, and to believe in ourselves and our ability to reinvent our lives? Sometimes, even if unsure, you need to take a step.
Characters:
Marty - (Mid 50s) (Married to James) co-executive director of the community center and leader of the acting class, originally from New Jersey, into alternative healing, hopes to move to the southwest US some day
James - (Early 60s) (Marty's husband) previously married, attended law school at UC Santa Barbara but didn't take the bar exam, father was an alcoholic
Schultz - (Late 40s) Carpenter, met his wife in college, recently divorced, originally from Maryland, mother died when he was young
Theresa - (Mid 30s) born in a small New Hampshire town, moved to New York to become an actress, recently broke with her boyfriend, moved to Vermont to feel more connected
Lauren (16) introverted, stubborn, troubles at home, taking Marty's class to help prepare for a part in the upcoming schol production of West Side Story
Audition Preparation:
In addtion to the side listed below, please, prepare a short humorous monologue and be prepared to demonstrate your improvisational skills.