Noho Screenwriter's Workshop is holding an open audition for it's first
Script-to-Screen event - two staged readings of
Wade Wofford's original screenplay
The Southerland School.
Psychologist Ed Southerland runs a very unique school that turns out brilliant students. His methods are now under investigation as Tasha, his first graduate, is coming to terms with the unique nature of the education that's been given her.
Auditions will be held on:
- Sunday, December 4, 4-6pm at the Media Education Foundation
60 Masonic St. in downtown Northampton near Packard's
Map here
- Monday, December 5 6:30-9:30pm at the Bangs Community Center
70 Boltwood Walk in Amherst behind Starbuck's
Map here
Sides are available below. Email director Kevin Tracy with further questions.
The performances will take place on:
- Thursday, January 26 at the Media Education Foundation in Northampton
- Friday, January 27 at Amherst Community Television Station (a live/televised event)
The rehearsal schedule will be very light, to be determined after casting.
Character Descriptions and Sides
Ed Southerland - 40-60 (male)
A lifelong student of Psychology, Ed has led a controversial life. While doing a case study for his dissertation, Ed worked with two monozygotic twins, both raised in the same home. One brother became a successful businessman and family man; the other a death-row inmate. Trying to make sense of how this could happen, Ed began a theory of child development that hinged upon removing children from their homes at birth and raising them in a controlled atmosphere. His school has been under constant fire for the past 23 years since its inception, and Ed has spent most of his professional life defending it. He is married to his job, so has no family - other than the students that he teaches, which consistently have the highest IQs of their age. Ed is a determined, thoughtful man who will hear both sides of an argument and carefully consider both.
Download sides for Ed here:
Tasha (20-30) & Young Tasha (6-10) - female
Tasha was removed from her parents' home at birth and handed over to The Southerland School. She spent the first decade of her life as the school's only student, growing up in a controlled psychological environment that taught logic and shielded her from emotional outbursts. Her exposure to emotion was through the study of its errors in logic. She scored a perfect score on the SAT, ACT, and GRE, and graduated with a PhD in Art from Harvard at 17 years of age. Drawn to the one thing logic could not fully explain, Tasha took an interest in art early in life. Too constrained to create it herself, she became a world-renowned critic by 20, and now writes for a number of newspapers.
Download sides for Tasha here:
Casey - 20-30 (male)
Casey lives by his gut. He bounces from job to job, getting fired for outbursts once his contempt overtakes his ability to hold his tongue. This lifestyle doesn't bother him in the least, because his true passion comes in the creation of art. He builds his wardrobe from thrift stores, has no working phone, and has set his ratty two bedroom apartment up as a bedroom-studio combo. His studio has paint all over the floors and ceiling from the tantrums he throws while painting, and several holes punched in the drywall. Still, to the outside world, he is an incredibly charming, self-confident young man with a keen wit and dry sense of humor.
Download sides for Casey here:
Rebecca 35-55 (female)
Rebecca has spent most of her life as an outsider in affluent world of Boston academics. Her husband and Tasha's father (Gerald) was a Professor of Philosophy at Boston University since they were married, and she has stayed at home and run the house. When their only daughter (Tasha) was born, Gerald convinced Rebecca that it was in Tasha's best interest to hand her over to The Southerland School for a proper education. Rebecca reluctantly deferred to his judgment, and on his death, finds a lifetime of resentment has built up in her - with no recipient except the school itself, which she plans to shut down before another mother is denied a child.
Download sides for Rebecca here.
Nolan and Atkins - 40-60 (male or female)
Two lawyers, cut from similar cloth. Articulate, confident, and sometimes both vicious and sarcastic.
Download sides for Atkins and Nolan here.
Debbie - 30-60 (female)
Debbie is a lifelong art hustler, editor, and general wheeler-and-dealer. She can work a room like nobody's business, sell a Republican on voting pro-choice, and out-talk a Mississippi car salesman. She knows Tasha's the best writer she's got, despite her eccentric upbringing.
Download sides for Debbie here.
Various doctors - 30-60 (male or female)
Doctors to testify in a court case.
Download sides for Doctors here:
Also need character actors to play a multitude other smaller roles - 20-60 (male or female).
Audition with sides above.
For further questions, contact Kevin Tracy or producer Joan Robb-Fradkin.
