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Seeking
Equity actors for the upcoming season to include:
World Premiere of IRREVERSIBLE
and
The Developmental/Staged Reading Series, shows TBD.
see breakdown.
Preparation
Prepare a brief Comedic or Dramatic contemporary monologue under two minutes.
Bring picture and resume, stapled together
Other Dates
IRREVERSIBLE:
1st reh: 1/29/15. Performs: 3/12 - 3/29/15 at The Theatre at the 14th Street Y
Staged Reading Development Series - Dates TBD
Other
www.redferntheatre.org
Personnel
Jack Karp, Playwright
Melanie Moyer Williams, Director, IRREVERSIBLE, RFTC Executive Artistic Director
Ken Hall, Managing Director
· EPA Rules are in effect.
· A monitor will be provided.
Performers of all ethnic and racial background are encouraged to attend.
Always bring your Equity Membership Card to auditions.
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Breakdown
Red Fern seeks actors for its upcoming 2014-2015 Season to include the world premiere of IRREVERSIBLE by Jack Karp as well as its development/staged reading series.
IRREVERSIBLE
by Jack Karp
1st reh: 1/29/15. Performs: 3/12-3/29/15
In IRREVERSIBLE, it is 1944 and Robert Oppenheimer and his brother, Frank, are frantically working to beat the Nazis to the nuclear bomb. With difficulties mounting and growing concern over his Communist associations, Robert has no time to think about the consequences of his “gadget.� But in 1945, when they finally see the power of their new weapon, the two men are torn apart in a battle over whether or not to use it, and Robert is forced to choose between his conscience and his ambition, his brother and his bomb.
FULL PLOT DESCRIPTION for ACTORS:
Physicist ROBERT OPPENHEIMER and his brother FRANK are desperately working late into the night to beat the Nazis to the first nuclear bomb. Woken by the noise, ROBERT’S wife KITTY interrupts the two and forces FRANK home to sleep. With FRANK gone, ROBERT confesses to KITTY his fear that he can’t do what he has set out to do, and KITTY pushes him to keep at it.
Encouraged, ROBERT pitches a new idea to his boss, GENERAL LESLIE GROVES, asking for the added time, men, and money he will need to make it work. GROVES is furious about yet another delay on a project that is already so far behind schedule, but agrees. This pressure increases even further when ROBERT’S mentor, NIELS BOHR, arrives to show ROBERT the plans for a Nazi version of the bomb that he has smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Denmark.
But ROBERT has more to worry about as he sneaks away to Berkeley, where his mistress JEAN, depressed and suicidal, has been sending him frantic letters threatening to kill herself. JEAN works to get ROBERT to give up his family and his physics and return to her, pulling him in one direction as the potential failure of the Trinity test of his new weapon pulls him in another and the potential failure of his marriage to KITTY, who has found out about JEAN, pulls him in yet a third.
Act Two opens at the Trinity test site shortly after the detonation of the first nuclear bomb. GROVES is ecstatic and already planning its use against Japan, while FRANK, realizing for the first time just how devastating their new weapon will be, pleads with ROBERT to postpone the attack. ROBERT agrees to consider the possibility on the condition that FRANK can find a problem with the bomb that would justify the delay.
But GROVES finds out about FRANK and the other scientists’ attempts to keep the bomb from being used, and threatens ROBERT that he will use his secret visit to Berkeley to ruin ROBERT and his brother’s careers if ROBERT tries to stop the attack. Meanwhile, FRANK threatens to go to the press with the scientists’ concerns if ROBERT doesn’t stop it, and KITTY, realizing the fame this will bring her husband, pressures ROBERT to do what is best for his career and family.
ROBERT is now forced to make the choice in the face of GROVES’S threats, FRANK’S rebellion, KITTY’S encouragement, and his heartbreak over JEAN, all while BOHR and GROVES are already pulling him in opposite directions over the even bigger bomb that will come next.
SEEKING:
ROBERT OPPENHEIMER
40, male. Physicist and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. Unbelievably intelligent, obsessively focused, and constantly thinking five steps ahead of everyone else, ROBERT is always the smartest person in the room and knows it. He doesn’t sleep or eat when working on a problem, and lives fueled on coffee and cigarettes. But his obsessiveness is driven in part by a growing fear that he will never accomplish the great things he was supposed to.
FRANK OPPENHEIMER
32, male. ROBERT’S younger brother and a junior scientist on the Manhattan Project. FRANK is earnest, idealistic, excitable, and easily distracted. He idolizes ROBERT who, because of their age difference, is almost more of a father figure to him than an older brother. He would follow ROBERT to the ends of the earth.
KITTY OPPENHEIMER
34, female. ROBERT’S wife. A scientist in her own right, KITTY is smart, ambitious, and pragmatic, and can be calculating when needed. She loves ROBERT and knows how to manipulate him into doing what is best for him.
GENERAL LESLIE GROVES
48, male. The overall director of the Manhattan Project. GENERAL GROVES is decisive, forceful, and a doer rather than a thinker. After spending his entire life in the military, he is used to being in charge and obeyed. But he is also insecure being surrounded for the first time by people who are smarter than he is.
DR. NIELS BOHR
60, male, speaks with a Danish accent. ROBERT’S former teacher and mentor. BOHR is the senior statesman of quantum physics and the only person who can keep up with ROBERT intellectually. He is thoughtful and contemplative, and willing to shoulder the responsibility that comes with being in his position.
JEAN TATLOCK
30, female. ROBERT’S mistress and the true love of his life. Willful, fierce, passionate, and self-destructive with a razor-sharp wit, JEAN is also, ironically, a psychiatrist. She lives a frantic whirlwind of a life, and suffers from depression and what would probably be labeled bipolar disorder today. She drinks to self-medicate.
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DEVELOPEMENTAL STAGED READING SERIES:
Shows TBD.
To be performed on dark nights of Irreversible run.
Seeking all types/ages.
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