Writing is Live casts will feature a mix of graduate and undergraduate actors working together. As these plays are works in progress, elements of the piece may shift over the course of the process, allowing actors to collaborate with playwrights and directors on the performance.  

The Writing is Live festival is committed to casting inclusively and thoughtfully across race, gender, ability, culture, and neurodiversity. As these projects engage with many specific stories about identity and experience, we encourage all to audition. 

Grace is staging a wedding in order to take pictures for a green-card marriage. Whose getting married? Tashie recently came from Trinidad with her son Likkle and is marrying her ”cousin” Nap. Nap brings his “friend” Cian to the wedding. At the same time, four fraternity pledges are experiencing their last night of hell week before becoming full fledged brothers. Flower, Mayo, Middle-Pledge, and Little (all grown up) make dances, crack jokes, and test one another’s commitment. Both stories take place in the same basement, with actors taking part in both stories and blurring the lines of identity. “If cat mek kitten in an oven does that make it bun?” is a Trini saying our mothers might tell us anytime we dare suggest we are not Trini. “Is Cry You Cry’n?” is a full-length play interrogating the dream this proverb aspires to make real. 

Casting Note: 
The fraternity pledges are white cis-het young men and are trying their best to be good guys. They fall in and out of stereotypes just as people do in real life. Likkle is from Trinidad and is a child who’s working very hard to lose his accent, do well in school, and be accepted in America.

Character Descriptions:
Caribbean Family:

• Likkle: 9, a son, will grow up to be an American.

Fraternity Pledges: 

• Flower: Named to soften him (freshman)
• Mayo: Tougher than he seems (freshman)

In a not-so-distant future, a mysterious illness has swept the globe, where afflicted children fall asleep and are unable to wake back up. Lucy hires Ina to help take care of her sick child, Chip. Lucy lives in an architecturally impressive house with her food entrepreneur husband, Reeve, and her and her venture capitalist dad, Chip Senior. Ina is on a top-secret mission. A classic family drama submerged in fungus. 

Content Warning: sick children, domestic conflict

Character Descriptions:

• Chip: 8-year-old sick child. Looking for someone physically small, and passable as a child.

• Lucy: Chip’s mom 

• Reeve: Chip’s dad

• Chip Senior: Lucy’s dad 

• Ina: live-in nurse, secret mad scientist, Asian 

A play about two straight people on their wedding day. No wait. It’s a play about why straight people get married. Actually it’s about Grindr. It’s about abolishing the family. It’s not about straight people at all. Straight people don’t exist. 

Casting Note: 
The characters are straight, ideally, the actors are in on the joke 

Character Descriptions:

• Bride: young, straight 

• Groom: young, straight 

• Groom’s friend: young, straight

• Father-of-the-Bride: older, on Grindr, married age 

• Mother-of-the-Bride: older, Straight, married age 

• Man in the Yellow Mask: a threat 

In an adaptation of Antigone set in the Providence Place Mall, Whatever, Major, and Loser (and a chorus) are cursed by something in the fallout of the death of Whatever’s brother. It’s about loving in the mall. And loving in the post-war-always-war era. And loving your dead brother so much you want everybody to be him.

Casting Note: 
Other than Whatever, all these characters can be played by an actor of any gender/race. Whatever, Major, and Loser have sexual content during the course of the play but the chorus does not. The chorus contains the heart of the play (and love for the mall) and operate like a Greek chorus. I’m looking for camp, devastation, and tenderness.

Content Warning: Suicidal ideation, incest, sexual content

Character Descriptions:

• Whatever: A girl with a dick (trans-fem)

• Major: Mall cop, Whatever’s fianceé

• Loser: A loser, Whatever’s sister who wants to be her brother

A chorus of 3 people will play everybody else:

• Warren-And-His-Fuckpole: Mall security chief, Whatever’s uncle 

• Auntie Anne: She works at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

• Claire: She works at Claire’s

• Kid: A kid

2004, Halloween Night. A tragedy unfolds at an Evangelical ‘Hell House,’ captured from every angle by a fervent reporter and the two camera-eyes of God. Who will be Saved, and what will be left of them? 

Casting Note: 
These are people behaving with an intense sincerity; they are not objects of ridicule or commentary. This said, looking especially for actors with a keen sense of comedy, scale, urgency, and simplicity. 

Content Warning: This play engages with the Evangelical tradition of Hell Houses - haunted houses which graphically feature topics like abortion, school shootings, rape, drug use, suicide, and AIDS. The play also features on-stage violence, incest, religious fanaticism, and sacrelige. 

Character Descriptions

• Jake Hassbinther: Father. Youth pastor vibes.

• Mary Hassbinther: Senior. Heart-first. 

• Pardon Hassbinther: Junior. Wears eyeliner. Fake punk. 

• Abundance Hassbinther: Sophomore. Quietly fervent, devout.

• Love Hassbinther: Freshman. In Control. Stressed. 

• Bevlyn Crummings: Reporter. An extreme professional. Maniacal.  

• Duke Joy Jr./Sr.: A high schooler and his father.

A group of actors and their director join for their weekly class where the lines blur between their acting exercises and real life. Someone has died, but everyone is acting like everything is okay. Everyone is being held hostage by their desire to do a good job. There is a Janitor that’s making sure everyone is okay.

Content Warning: Notions of Death / Murder, Kidnapping or Abduction

Character Descriptions

• Kristal: Black Woman late 20’s

• Janitor: Man late 50’s / early 60’s

• Domenica: White / Latina woman mid to late 30’s

• Logan: White Man early 30’s

• Trent: Black Man late 20’s

• Director: White Woman late 40’s / early 50’s 

• Dead Body: White Woman early 20’s