Upcoming
Auditions

What to prepare:

Fill out and bring the conflict calendar.

Headshots and resumes welcome, but not required.

For your audition, please choose a poem, prayer, song, hymn, passage, piece of writing, or other text that somehow speaks to your personal view of God.

And I mean God however you understand God.

Whether you don’t believe in God or have a deep faith or are curious, angry, agnostic, etc - choose a piece that reflects that feeling. Choose something that feels personal to you.

You will perform your selection as a monologue, not as a song. If you choose a song, do not sing it. Speak the words. Let us hear what the words mean to you.

After you perform it, I will ask you to give me one sentence that explains how this piece reflects your view of God.

There is no right answer here. I am not looking for a particular belief, religion, or point of view.

I am interested in what you believe when you are asked to look honestly at something bigger than yourself.

Bring something that matters to you.

If you are having difficulty finding a text, you can use one of the following texts (feel free to only select the portion that is most meaningful to you):

It is Well with My Soul

When peace like a river, attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well, with my soul

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come

Let this blest assurance control

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate

And hath shed His own blood for my soul

It is well (it is well)

With my soul (with my soul)

It is well, it is well with my soul

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

It is well (it is well)

With my soul (with my soul)

It is well, it is well with my soul

"God Our Mother" by Allison Woodard

To be a Mother is to suffer;

To travail in the dark,

Stretched and torn,

exposed in half-naked humiliation,

subjected to indignities

for the sake of new life.

To be a Mother is to say,

“This is my body, broken for you,”

And, in the next instant, in response to the created’s primal hunger,

“This is my body, take and eat.”

To be a Mother is to self-empty,

To neither slumber nor sleep,

so attuned You are to cries in the night—

Offering the comfort of Yourself,

and assurances of “I’m here.”

To be a Mother is to weep

over the fighting and exclusions and wounds

your children inflict on one another;

To long for reconciliation and brotherly love

and—when all is said and done—

To gather all parties, the offender and the offended,

into the folds of your embrace

and to whisper in their ears

that they are Beloved.

To be a mother is to be vulnerable—

To be misunderstood,

Railed against,

Blamed

For the heartaches of the bewildered children

who don’t know where else to cast

the angst they feel

over their own existence

in this perplexing universe

To be a mother is to hoist onto your hips those on whom your image is imprinted,

bearing the burden of their weight,

rejoicing in their returned affection,

delighting in their wonder,

bleeding in the presence of their pain.

To be a mother is to be accused of sentimentality one moment,

And injustice the next.

To be the Receiver of endless demands,

Absorber of perpetual complaints,

Reckoner of bottomless needs.

To be a mother is to be an artist;

A keeper of memories past,

Weaver of stories untold,

Visionary of lives looming ahead.

To be a mother is to be the first voice listened to,

And the first disregarded;

To be a Mender of broken creations,

And Comforter of the distraught children

whose hands wrought them.

To be a mother is to be a Touchstone

and the Source,

Bestower of names,

Influencer of identities;

Life giver,

Life shaper,

Empath,

Healer,

and

Original Love.

Character Breakdown:

Many roles will be doubled. We encourage actors of all backgrounds, ages, and identities to consider any role that interests them. The original production used extensive doubling, and we will as well.

JUDAS ISCARIOT — The man at the center of the most famous betrayal in history. He is broken and waiting for his judgement. 

FABIANA AZIZA CUNNINGHAM — Judas's defense attorney. She has taken a case nobody wanted and is fighting for fierce compassion and a fire for justice. 

YUSEF EL-FAYOUMY — The prosecutor. He is funny, theatrical, and absolutely certain Judas is guilty. Certainty is his greatest weapon and his greatest vulnerability.

SATAN — The adversary. Charming, funny, and more honest than anyone else in the room. 

JUDGE LITTLEFIELD — He has been in Purgatory for a hundred and forty years and has very little patience left for anyone's spiritual crisis.

JESUS OF NAZARETH — Finds his way to Judas in Purgatory with a bucket of water.

HENRIETTA ISCARIOT — Judas's mother. She opens the play. She has buried her son alone in a field and she is not here to argue theology.

GLORIA — She works in Hope, which is located in downtown Purgatory. She knows everybody and has seen everything and still believes in people.

SAINT MONICA — She nagged God into saving her son. She is not modest about this. She knows what it costs to love someone who is lost.

MOTHER TERESA  — A saint who spent decades in spiritual darkness and kept showing up anyway. She is tougher than she looks.

SAINT PETER — He denied Jesus three times and became the rock of the church anyway. He has opinions about second chances.

MARY MAGDALENE — She was there at the beginning and the end. She knew Judas better than most, and she has not stopped grieving him.

SAINT MATTHEW — A former tax collector who became an apostle. He knows something about being an unlikely choice.

SAINT THOMAS — The one who needed proof. He got it. He's still working out what that means.

SIMON THE ZEALOT — A man of fierce conviction who had to learn the difference between what he wanted the Messiah to be and what the Messiah actually was.

MATTHIAS OF GALILEE — A witness. The first friend Judas ever made.

CAIAPHAS THE ELDER — The High Priest of the Sanhedrin. A man of law and power who believes he did what had to be done.

PONTIUS PILATE — The Roman governor who washed his hands of it. He is still washing them.

SIGMUND FREUD — Called as an expert witness. He has a diagnosis for everything, including God.

LORETTA — A woman currently on life support in Purgatory who helps tell the story. She is matter-of-fact about her situation.

BUTCH HONEYWELL — The jury foreman who found Judas guilty. He has come to Judas's lair with a twelve-pack of beer and something he needs to say.

BAILIFF / JULIUS OF OUTER MONGOLIA — The court bailiff, on work-release from Purgatory, whose name is Julius of Outer Mongolia.

SISTER GLENNA — An Irish nun who appears briefly in Mother Teresa's memory carrying a truth she didn't know she was delivering.

UNCLE PINO — Loretta's uncle, who believed because it was absurd.

SOLDIERS — Three soldiers in service to Rome. They have a job to do and they are going to do it.