Rehearsals begin September 18, 2010, evenings and weekends. Run Oct. 23-Nov. 14, 2010. Thursday-Sunday. 16 performances. All auditions, rehearsals, and performances at The Gallery Players.

Reefer Madness: The Musical is inspired by the 1936 film of the same name and takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana, leading them on a hysterical downward spiral filled with evil jazz music, sex, and violence.

Open call auditions for all roles Tuesday Sept. 7th 7:30-9:30 pm (sign-in begins 7 pm). AEA priority. (if you have already attended our August open call please do not attend this one). Callbacks Sunday Sept. 12th.

Auditions by appt. Tuesday 9/7 from 6:30-7:30 pm for Jimmy Harper and Jack Stone ONLY. Email headshot/resume to auditions(at)galleryplayers.com. No phone calls. Clearly indicate in the subject line the character(s) for which you are submitting. (if you have already attended our August auditions please do not attend re-submit).

Please prepare 32 bars of a musical theater song in the style of the show. Please provide sheet music in the correct key, no lead sheets. An accompanist will be provided.

Seeking

7 men, 6 women

Principals

4M/3W (All principles should be singers who dance/strong movers.)

Lecturer
M. 30’s-50’s
The narrator. An authority figure who warns the audience of the perils of reefer, while popping in and out of the action to further teach us of its danger (doubles as Goat-Man, Mr. Poppy, Irish Priest, Old Man, Radio Announcer, Ticket-Taker, Policeman, & FDR.) Range: baritone-tenor, G2-C5

Jimmy Harper
M. 20’s
A wholesome, trusting, teenager who runs into trouble after he is lured into the dangerous world of reefer. Range: baritone-tenor, G2-C5

Jack Stone
M. 30’s-40’s
The proprietor of the Reefer Den. A sexy 1930′s gangster movie-type who pushes reefer on unsuspecting teenagers. (Doubles as Jesus & George Washington). Range: baritone, F2-A4

Ralph Wiley
M. Late 20’s-30’s
A denizen of the Reefer Den. A former college student who was lured into the world of reefer long ago. (Doubles as Sally’s baby, Switch-Puller, & Uncle Sam) Range: tenor, B2-A4

Mary Lane
F. 20’s
Jimmy’s sweetheart. A naïve, virginal teenage girl who herself is not impervious to the dark world of reefer. Range: mezzo-soprano, G3-G5

Mae
F. late 30’s-40’s
The hostess of the Reefer Den. Attractive, yet slightly haggard. Would leave this life of sin if she were not so addicted to reefer. Range: alto, F3-F5

Sally
F. 20’s-30’s
A resident of the Reefer Den. A seductive, Mae West type with moxie. Will do nearly anything for a hit. (Also plays Lady Liberty). Range: mezzo-soprano, G3-B5

Ensemble

3 M. 3 F. 20s-30s
Members of the ensemble will play Reefer Zombies, Kids at the Five-and-Dime, Orgy dancers & Angels, etc. Should be strong versatile dancers, who also tap (tumbling & special skills a plus) and have good comic/character skills. Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass soprano to C6, alto to E5, tenors A4, basses to E4. All are featured.

All roles are open. All ethnicities are encouraged to audition. Equity/Non-Equity. No Pay. (AEA members receive travel stipend)

Where can a playwright find an outlet? Where can an audience see new works? The Gallery Players provides both of these in this Festival. Over the years of producing the Festival, we have developed works by countless playwrights, many of whom continue to work with The Gallery Players each year to incubate their new ideas. More than 300 plays have appeared in the Black Box New Play Festival since its inception and this year will bring even more writing and acting talent to the stage. Who knows what you’ll discover in the Box?

Performance Schedule:
Thursday, June 2 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Friday, June 3 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, June 4 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, June 5 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, June 9 at 8:00 PM
Friday, June 10 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, June 11 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, June 12 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, June 16 at 8:00 PM
Friday, June 17 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, June 18 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, June 19 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, June 23 at 8:00 PM
Friday, June 24 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, June 25 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, June 26 at 3:00 PM – final performance

Book, Music and Lyrics by Lionel Bart

Nothing works on the stage like a well-crafted tale, and Oliver! is just such a show. Based on the Dickens novel, you will be engaged by its pathos and drama, while delighting in its outstanding musical numbers. Food, Glorious Food, I’d Do Anything, Where is Love?, Consider Yourself, As Long As He Needs Me, Who Will Buy and Reviewing the Situation are musical theatre classics. Dickens’ characters are brought to life-perhaps larger than life-in this show.

Winner of 3 Tony Awards in 1963.

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, April 30 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, May 1 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, May 5 at 8:00 PM
Friday, May 6 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, May 7 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 8 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, May 12 at 8:00 PM
Friday, May 13 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, May 14 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, May 14 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 15 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, May 19 at 8:00 PM
Friday, May 20 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, May 21 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, May 21 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 22 at 3:00 PM – final performance

Producer – Lanie Zipoy/The Gallery Players
Director – TBA

Set in 1977 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh that is served by a makeshift taxi company, August Wilson’s Jitney is a beautiful addition to the author’s decade-by-decade cycle of plays about the black American experience in the twentieth century. The men who drive gypsy cabs, or “jitneys,” strive to find honor and accomplishment in a harsh world. When the station owner’s estranged son returns from prison, their reunion unleashes two decades of brutal, raw emotion.

“Explosive… Crackles with theatrical energy.” N.Y. Daily News

“Throughly engrossing, Jitney holds us in charmed captivity.” New York Times

“Comic, soulful and immensely moving.” Time Out

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, March 19 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, March 20 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, March 24 at 8:00 PM
Friday, March 25 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, March 26 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, March 26 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, March 27 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, March 31 at 8:00 PM
Friday, April 1 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, April 2 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, April 2 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, April 3 at 3:00 PM – final performance

Music and Lyrics by Lisa Morrison & Greg Lambert; Book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar

Producer – TBA
Director – Hans Friedrichs

A rare combination of unprecedented originality and blinding talent, The Drowsy Chaperone boldly addresses a great unspoken desire in all of our hearts: to be entertained. It all begins when a die-hard musical-theater fan plays his favorite cast album on his turntable, and the musical literally bursts to life in his living room, telling the rambunctious tale of a brazen Broadway starlet trying to find, and keep, her true love. The Drowsy Chaperone is a wildly entertaining tribute to jazz age musicals.

Winner of the 2006 Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score.

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, January 29 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, January 30 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, February 3 at 8:00 PM
Friday, February 4 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, February 5 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 6 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, February 10 at 8:00 PM
Friday, February 11 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, February 12 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, February 12 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, February 17 at 8:00 PM
Friday, February 18 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, February 19 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, February 19 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 20 at 3:00 PM – final performance

by Brian Friel

Producer – Hannah Mason/The Gallery Players
Director – Heather Siobhan Curran

This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. The action of the play is told through the memory of the illegitimate son of one of the sisters as he remembers the five women who raised him, his mother and four maiden aunts. Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this haunting play is Friel’s tribute to the spirit and valor of the past. Winner of the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

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“The most elegant and rueful memory play since The Glass Menagerie.” TimeOut

“…this play does exactly what theater was born to do, carrying both its characters and audience aloft on those waves of distant music and ecstatic release that, in defiance of all language and logic, let us dance and dream just before night must fall.” New York Times

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, December 4 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, December 5 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, December 9 at 8:00 PM
Friday, December 10 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, December 11 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, December 11 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 12 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, December 16 at 8:00 PM
Friday, December 17 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, December 18 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, December 18 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 19 at 3:00 PM – final performance

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Book by Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney; Music by Dan Studney; Lyric by Kevin Murphy

Producer – Heather Siobhan Curran/The Gallery Players
Director – Dev Bondarin
Musical Director – Brandon Sturiale
Choreographer – Joe Barros
Set Designer – Lilia Trenkova
Lighting Designer – Dan Jobbins
Costume Designer – Soule Golden
Sound Designer – Kim Fuhr
Props Designer – Jennifer Stimple
Production Stage Manager – Jodi Witherell

Associate Producer – Robert Earle Jones
Assistant Director – Rachel Dart
Assistant Choreographer – Jackie Covas
Assistant Stage Manager – TBA

Originally directed by Andy Fickman and produced by Stephanie Steele for Dead Old Man Productions

Inspired by the original 1936 film of the same name, this raucous musical comedy takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana, leading them on a hysterical downward spiral filled with evil jazz music, sex and violence. The addictive and clever musical numbers range from big Broadway-style showstoppers to swing tunes like “Down at the Ol’ Five and Dime” and the Vegas-style “Listen to Jesus, Jimmy,” featuring J.C. himself leading a chorus of showgirl angels. Reefer Madness is a highly stylized and satirical political commentary.

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“Reefer Madness broadly expands on the skeleton plot of the original film and turns it into a deliciously campy, wickedly funny romp… This show combines the main character from Godspell with the kinkiness of The Rocky Horror Show and the traditional musical theatre aesthetic of A Chorus Line…” Johnnie Walker, Strand (Toronto)

“Reefer Madness…is deliberately outlandish and silly. And that’s what makes it so good…[the show includes] a dozen or so over-the-top and hilarious production numbers.” Robert Dominguez, New York Daily News

“The funniest thing to come down the pike — or the pipe — in a while.” Eric Marchese, Backstage

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Performance Schedule:
Saturday, October 23 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, October 24 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, October 28 at 8:00 PM
Friday, October 29 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, October 30 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, October 31 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, November 4 at 8:00 PM
Friday, November 5 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, November 6 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, November 6 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, November 7 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, November 11 at 8:00 PM
Friday, November 12 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, November 13 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, November 13 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, November 14 at 3:00 PM – final performance

by Joe Orton

Illustration by Michael C. Malbrough

Producer – Neal J. Freeman/The Gallery Players
Director – Zac Hoogendyk
Production Stage Manager – Katherine Schroeder
Set Designer – Starlet Jacobs
Costume Designer – Erica Evans
Lighting Designer – Austin R. Smith
Props Master – Dustin Cross
Sound Designer – Ann Warren
Associate Producer – Alanna Degner
Assistant Stage Manager – Evangeline Rera

The Cast

Dr. Prentice – David Sedgwick*
Mrs. Prentice – Nicole Fitzpatrick*
Geraldine Barclay – Emily Taplin Boyd
Nicholas Beckett – Kane Prestenback*
Dr. Rance – Tom Cleary*
Sergeant Match – Nat Cassidy*

*appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association

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Director Zac Hoogendyk and actors David Sedgwick and Emily Taplin Boyd discuss What the Butler Saw.

The Prentices are not an ordinary couple. Dr. Prentice is a psychiatrist with his own hospital who believes that the best way to interview a girl for a job is to seduce her. Geraldine Barclay does her best to comply, but nothing is going to work smoothly in this nut house that includes Mrs. Prentice, a nymphomaniac who is seduced by a bellhop in a hotel, or maybe it’s vice versa. Mrs. Prentice brings home her reluctant bellhop just as the state inspector decides to pay a visit to the hospital. What ensues is a wild melee of disappearances, disguises and discoveries as husband and wife try to hide their prizes from the inspector and from one another. The ending is one of those delights that Oscar Wilde might have dreamed up in a sequel to The Importance of Being Earnest.

What the Butler Saw premiered in London’s West End in 1969, two years after rising star playwright Orton was bludgeoned to death with a hammer by his male lover at the age of 34. The play has never had a Broadway production. 


“The goal of this production is nothing short of leaving the audience spasming with laughter,” said director Zac Hoogendyk. “The cast has taken up this goal as their own, and it has been very exciting to watch them sink their teeth into one of the funniest plays I have ever read.”

“Hilarious, outrageous… It dazzles!… Wonderfully verbal, toying with words as if they were firecrackers.” N.Y. Times.

“Brilliant, witty, the funniest show so far this season.” NBC TV.

“Madly antic humor.” AP.

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Performance Schedule:
Saturday, September 11 at 8:00 PM – Opening night
Sunday, September 12 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, September 16 at 8:00 PM
Friday, September 17 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, September 18 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, September 18 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, September 19 at 3:00 PM – matinee
Thursday, September 23 at 8:00 PM
Friday, September 24 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, September 25 at 2:00 PM – matinee
Saturday, September 25 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, September 26 at 3:00 PM – final performance

The awards will be announced at a ceremony in September.

Seeking:

One producer and one associate producer to work on The Drowsy Chaperone (opens 1/29/2011).

The right individuals will possess a theater background, attention to detail, the ability to prioritize, and will be creative thinkers with excellent people skills. Most work will take place evenings and weekends.

Producers are involved in every aspect of the production from hiring designers and stage managers to casting, scheduling, and budgeting within the structure of The Gallery Players producing guidelines.

The Associate Producer will assist Producer/GM in all of the above areas.

These are great opportunity for reliable, organized individuals who seek real-world producing experience in New York theater. The right individuals will possess a theater background, attention to detail, the ability to prioritize, and will be creative thinkers with excellent people skills. Most work will take place evenings and weekends. Previous producing/GM experience is not necessary, but the desire to gain this kind of experience is.

We are also seeking the same positions for Oliver! (opens 4/30/2011)

Persons passionate for this type of experience should forward an informative cover letter and their resume with two references that we can call to designstaff(at)galleryplayers.com. Please indicate in the subject line which position you are applying for. Please also indicate your availability for an interview during evening/weekend hours.

Very small stipend availble, as well as great connections and networking opportunities. No phone calls please.

We produce under the AEA showcase code; there is no salary – small stipend pay only.