Future Fest

The Dayton Playhouse will hold auditions for it’s annual “FutureFest” new play festival on the following dates:  May 30 & 31 at 7 p.m. Fully staged plays will audition on Monday and staged readings on Tuesday.

FutureFest is a festival of previously unproduced plays, which have been submitted from playwrights across the United States.  Hundreds of submissions are read and the top six are selected to be performed at the festival.  Playwrights of these plays will attend the festival, as will five adjudicators from across the country.  Three plays will be performed as staged readings and three will be fully staged over the 3-day festival.  Feedback will be given by adjudicators and audience members and a festival winner will be selected.  This year marks the 26th FutureFest, which is the largest new play festival in the country sponsored by a community theatre.

The finalists in this year’s “FutureFest” include:

Memories of the Game (fully staged)

Synopsis:   Memories of the Game centers on the McIntosh household, an African-American family of four, who must struggle with the father’s progressing Alzheimer’s disease, while grappling with their own demons and strained family dynamics.

Cast:  2m, 2f

• Kenneth McIntosh: mid-late 60s, African-American, big personality, loving father and husband, loves the game of football.
• Karen McIntosh: early 60s, African-American, faithful wife and mother, loves her family.
• Sharon Evans: mid 30s, African-American, the good child, always willing to help, dealing with a great loss.
• Michael McIntosh: early 30s, African-American, a drug addict who uses his family for money to feed his habit. Has a good soul that has been lost.

[Miss] (fully staged)

Synopsis:  Frances Oldham Kelsey saved an estimated 20,000 American children from crippling deformities by battling the William S. Merrell Company over the release of thalidomide in the United States from September 1960 to November 1961. Merrell’s brand of thalidomide, called Kevadon, was one of the first two drugs Dr. Kelsey was given upon starting her career at the FDA.  Despite constant threats and intimidation, Dr. Kelsey stubbornly refused to approve the drug because she had concerns about its possible effect on the fetus. When the story broke that thalidomide had caused a world-wide epidemic of infant deformities and death, Dr. Kelsey learned that Merrell had been distributing the drug without approval through a sham investigational study. The fall-out from this revelation combined with the heroism of Dr. Kelsey’s actions caused the United States to reform its regulation of prescription drugs.

Cast:  6m (4m with doubling), 4f

• Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey:  40s for most of the play, FDA investigator
• Dr. Raymond Stehle: McGill professor
• Dr. Eugene Geiling: University of Chicago professor
• John: husband of Betty
• Betty: pharmaceutical rep
• Dr. Joseph Murray: Merrell contact man
• Dr. Raymond Pogge:  Merrell medical director
• FDA staff: female
• Mary: pharmaceutical rep
• Dr. Ray Nulsen: physician

The Griots (fully staged)

Synopsis:  Set in rural Georgia in the late 1930s, The Griots focuses on an elderly African-American woman (Ada) who grew up in slavery, a young woman who is the descendant of the plantation owner’s family (Lizzie), and a young white man from Ohio (John) who has been sent to the South to interview ex-slaves as a part of the WPA Writers’ Project. As John gains Ada’s trust over a period of several weeks, her stories turn from quaint tales of happy field hands, to brutal accounts of violence and intolerance. And when her tales contradict Lizzie’s family legends, exposing the truth may have too great a cost.

Cast:  1m, 2f

• Lizzie Dupree:  mid 20s, pleasant looking, Caucasian. Lizzie has grown up in rural Georgia, in a relatively affluent family.
• John Holt: mid 20s, a somewhat bookish Caucasian man who has grown up in a Quaker family in Ohio.
• Ada Coalson:  elderly, African-American, a former slave who now lives alone in a cabin on the land that used to be part of Lizzie’s great grandfather’s plantation.

Shepherd’s Bush  (staged reading)

Synopsis:  England, 1930: renowned man-of-letters E. M. Forster, 52, meets and falls in love with 28 year old policeman, Bob Buckingham. Their secret romance blossoms until police scrutiny inspired Bob to court and eventually marry May, a young nurse. Jealousy and rivalry evolves into a lifelong friendship with surprising consequences.

Cast:  3m, 2f

• Bob Buckingham: 28 to 68, roguish young policeman with aspirations of being more.  Forster’s friend and lover. Darkly handsome, masculine, athletic and temperamental.  Bob is very physically affectionate.
• May Buckingham: 23 to 62. Formerly May Hockey. Bob’s fiancée and later his wife. A nurse. Strong willed, direct and patient. Never wears make-up.
• E. M. Forster: 51 to 91.  The writer. Acerbic, witty, generous, either a cynical romantic or a romantic cynic.
• J. R. Ackerley: Friend of Forster & the Buckinghams. Strikingly handsome and distinguished radio producer and writer. Flamboyant homosexual.
• Lily Forster: 70s-80s, E. M. Forster’s mother. A very strong, often overbearing woman.

N   (staged reading)

Synopsis:  “N”   explores both the personal relationship and the working relationship from the opening of The Emperor Jones in 1920 through the last major revival of the play  of African-American actor Charles S. Gilpin and playwright Eugene O’Neill, 1926.

Cast:  2m, 1f

• Charles S. Gilpin: 35-40 (40 at the start of the play), African-American, Charles is an average size and build, but he has confidence, and a presence. He’s intelligent, somewhat sophisticated, and always looks sharp.  Charles lives and dies by his emotions but also knows how to live in his very segregated times.
• Eugene O’Neill: 35-40 (37 at the start of the play), Caucasian. O’Neill, the brooding master playwright, early in his career. He is brilliant, cynical, and dryly sarcastic; he doesn’t smile or laugh easily so when he does it is noticeable.
• Florence Gilpin: 25-30 (30 at the start of the play), African-American, Charles’s wife. She’s pretty and curvy.  She is the woman behind the man who is proud of the man she loves but tries to keep him grounded.

The Violin Maker (staged reading)

Synopsis:  The Violin Maker is the story of Karl Mosel, who after his father’s death, tries to learn from his grandfather the family trade of Violin making.  Ultimately he must decide whether he will continue the 300 year old family tradition or let the family legacy go.

Cast:  2m, 1f

• Wilhelm Mosel:  80s, a Master violin maker.
• Karl Mosel:  early 20s, Wilhelm’s grandson.
• Angela Brunelle:  20s, an intern.

Auditions will consist of cold readings from the scripts.

Auditions will be held at the Dayton Playhouse, 1301 E. Siebenthaler Ave., Dayton, OH 45414.   Those auditioning should bring a list of any scheduling conflicts through July 24.  Rehearsals are typically in the evening, or on weekends.

FutureFest performances will be July 22-24.  Weekend passes are $100 and will be available by calling the box office at 937-424-8477. The box office is staffed Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30 – 4:30 p.m., however messages may be left at any time and calls will be returned.  Tickets to individual performances will be $18.

The Dayton Playhouse is a community theatre providing outstanding theatrical productions to Miami Valley audiences of all ages for more than fifty years. The Playhouse is nationally recognized for “FutureFest,” a festival of new plays.