Voices Festival Productions 2026-27 Season Equity Principal Actors - Voices Festival Productions Auditions

VOICES FESTIVAL PRODUCTIONS 2026-27 SEASON - WASHINGTON, DC EPA

Voices Festival Productions | Washington, DC

Notice: Audition | Call Type: EPA

AUDITION DATE

Thursday, July 30, 2026
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM (E)
Lunch 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

APPOINTMENTS

To schedule an audition appointment please email:
voices@ebcastingco.com. Please include the Subject Line: DC EPA - VFP [Role you are interested in] - Equity membership Status

CONTRACT

Independent Theatre

CONTRACT

Readings: $500 weekly minimum - HALAL BROTHERS, ZIONISTA RISING, IN THE CROSSING (20.0), SHARIF, and THE SPACE IN BETWEEN

Productions: $650 weekly minimum - WOODY SEZ, TAKES ALL SIDES, and APEIROGON: RAMI AND BASSAM

Plus - health & pension

SEEKING

Equity actors for roles in Voices Festival Productions' 2026-27 Season (See

BREAKDOWN

PREPARATION

Please prepare a brief contemporary monologue or if you may accompany yourself on your own instrument. There will be no accompanist at this audition.

LOCATION

Universalist National Memorial Church
1810 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
1st Floor - Spooky Action Theatre

PERSONNEL

Expected to attend:

Casting Director: Daryl Eisenberg, CSA
Casting Assistant: Joey Bermudez

See

BREAKDOWN

PERSONNEL

OTHER DATES

See

BREAKDOWN

OTHER

An Equity Monitor will not be provided. The producer will run all aspects of this audition.

Equity's

CONTRACT

Always bring your Equity Membership card to auditions.

VOICES FROM A CHANGING NATION FESTIVAL

WOODY SEZ: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF WOODY GUTHRIE

Devised by David M Lutken with Nick Corley and Darcie Deaville, Helen Jean Russell and Andy Teirstein
Directed by Georgette Verdin
Performing at Dupont Underground (19th & New Hampshire Ave. NW, DC)
Performance Dates: October 8 – 25, 2026

SYNOPSIS: The international smash hit brings its unstoppable spirit and foot-stomping energy to DUPONT UNDERGROUND this election season. David M. Lutken, winner of the Helen Hayes Award for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie, returns to Washington to kick off a new, 2026 production of the tour-de-force musical, from Voices Festival Productions and Woodrow Theatricals. It tells the vibrant, true story of a uniquely American hero whose radical influence, and songs of defiance, hope and resilience endure. Part of #WoodyGinDC

SEEKING:

WOODY: ALREADY CAST. Very strong storyteller. Strong emotional and accessible quality. Excellent guitar player, some harmonica.

WILL GEER / PROGRAM DIRECTOR / BLUES MAN / UNCLE JEFF / OKIE / HOBO / JACK / WILLIAM Z. FOSTER / RUTH'S DAD / UNION MAN / PETE SEEGER / CISCO HOUSTON / NEIGHBORHOOD KID: ALREADY CAST. Charming Character. Must play excellent fiddle. Also plays banjo, guitar, viola, harmonica, pennywhistle, spoons, jaw harp, and dulcimer.

NORA / RADIO SINGER 1 / STREET SINGER / CLUSTER BAKER / RAIL RIDER / MOTHER BLOOR / RUTH'S MOM / CAMP SINGER 1 / UNION GAL / BESS LOMAX / MARJORIE MAZIA: ALREADY CAST. Strong character with strength and warmth. Good Bass Player. Also plays guitar, and autoharp. Should have a wide vocal range with a warm soprano.

CLARA / RADIO SINGER 2 / BALLADEER / STREET FIDDLER / AUNT ALLENE / FREIGHT HOPPER / LEFTY LOU / ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN / BOY (RUTH'S BROTHER) / CAMP SINGER 2 / UNION MAID / SIS CUNNINGHAM / CATHY ANN: ALREADY CAST. Spunky character. Excellent fiddle player. Also plays mandolin, dulcimer, guitar, and dobro. Should have a strong alto range.

THE HALAL BROTHERS

Written by Alaudin Ullah
Director: TBD
At Universalist National Memorial Church (UNMC)
One week rehearsal begins: November 3
Readings: November 6-8, 2026

SYNOPSIS: The latest from award winning filmmaker, comedian and playwright/performer, Alaudin Ullah, creator of DISHWASHER DREAMS. Set in Harlem on February 21, 1965, THE HALAL BROTHERS follows Mohammed and Haroun, two Bengali Muslim immigrant brothers struggling to keep afloat through their small butcher shop while preparing food for a gathering at the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X is scheduled to speak – and where he is eventually murdered. Illiterate and overworked, Mohammed has sacrificed everything to bring his younger brother to America to attend City College, hoping Haroun will earn a business degree and build a future for the family and the store. But Haroun is secretly in love with Zuleika, an African American student who represents a life far different from the one his brother imagines for him. As news from the Audubon Ballroom spreads throughout Harlem, buried grief, divided loyalties, and conflicting ideas of race, faith, and belonging push the brothers toward an emotional reckoning on one of the most pivotal days in American history.

SEEKING:

HAROUN: 22, Male - From tiny village in East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) called Noahkali. He is a closet poet, impressionable, innocent full of life. He is in America to fulfill a promise he made to his brother. He must go to City College to get his degree to help out his older brother run the Halal store. The other part of that promise is once he has that degree they both will return to their village to have arranged marriages. The Problem: he's fallen in love with his classmate which will throw a wrench in the entire plan.

MOHAMMED: 38, Male. Older brother of Haroun. He arrived in America at 16 years old. He worked on a ship as a lowly tender shoveling coal in oppressive conditions. He was treated horribly and jumped ship. He arrived with no skills. Being illiterate the only job he was able to get was as a dishwasher and cook in a kitchen under horrible conditions working for racist bosses. He fell in love with a Black Puerto Rican as she encouraged him to open a store of his own. The love of his life, she passed away giving birth to his son which he gave away for adoption. This left him heartbroken and bitter. Now that Mohammed has finally got his store, he's relying on his younger brother with this last chance of chasing the American Dream.

ZULEKA: 22. Female. Beautiful African American classmate of Haroun, born and raised in Harlem. She's a City College senior about to graduate. A 100 percent Harlem girl with a swagger and bounce in her step. She has just received her acceptance into City College Graduate program for Afro-American Studies. She is part of a new progressive movement to have African studies be part of the New York curriculum. She envisions herself a teacher who will inspire her students to move forward in a world that will be filled with Black Power inside the classroom and not full of street rhetoric. She is full of unlimited potential; a trailblazer and a take-no-shit kind of young lady. She believes education is the best weapon to fight as she encourages Haroun to follow his heart and not his older brother's demands on him. She is Haroun's champion even though he's scared to display how much he is smitten by her.

MALIK: 29. Male. Older brother of Zuleka. A former Columbia University student that got kicked out for constantly protesting the Ivy league's Eurocentric curriculum. He has joined Malcolm X's congregation and been a loyal sidekick to him. He is part of the Malcolm X's new organization the OAAU (organization of Afro American Unity). He is constantly trying to get people to attend Malcolm's speeches in hopes of recruiting members.

JOSE: 37. Male. Puerto Rican (More on the Nuyorican side). Lovable, sweet, heart of gold Mohammed's first and oldest friend in NY. He is a Korean War vet suffering from PTSD. Mohammed urges Jose not to mention his late sister who was the love of his life. Mohammed wants no reminders of the past despite Jose mentioning her occasionally. Jose is the only one who knows of Mohammed's secret but can feel the dilemma Haroun is in. Jose wants to just be connected to anyone because he has no one.

TAKES ALL KINDS

Written and performed by Dan Hoyle
Directed by Aldo Billingslea
Tech Rehearsals: November 10-11
Performance Dates: November 12 – 22, 2026, At UNMC

SYNOPSIS: Dan Hoyle's hilarious, essential new piece of shape-shifting Journalistic Theater channels powerful, funny and complex people caught in the social forces roiling the country. In tender portraits of everyday Americans turned unlikely changemakers, it offers hope and ways forward in deeply challenging times. See why the San Francisco Chronicle calls Hoyle's work, Stunning… mind-blowing metamorphoses. No character is a stereotype. Everyone surprises and everyone has wisdom, as Hoyle becomes a Gen Z working-class Christian socialist from Colorado using humor to disrupt the grievance-based politics of his co-workers; a former gang-member from Chicago turned social worker who deradicalizes violent extremists in Missouri; a preacher's son who switched to the religion of Phish and finds purpose in Florida school-board activism after his daughter comes out; and Atlanta voting rights canvassers who win over the apathetic and apolitical with riveting family stories and a penetrating, comic honesty. Hoyle mines the heart and humor of each American he interviewed – with authenticity and specificity in each portrayal – offering invaluable insight to our current national convergence.

SOLO SHOW

Performer: ALREADY CAST. Multiple roles.

VOICES FROM A CHANGING MIDDLE EAST FESTIVAL

ZIONISTA RISING

A workshop reading By Alexa Derman
Directed by Will Steinberger
Winner of the 2023 Jewish Plays Project
One week rehearsal begins: December 8, 2026
Readings: December 11 – 13

SYNOPSIS: Two Gen Z interns working at a Jewish American media organization compete on a daunting assignment: to rebrand Israel and Zionism in the American mind as a #girlboss #progressive #diversity-win via an AI-generated Instagram influencing avatar. Meanwhile, a Jewish American playwright wrestles with a question she can't escape: Who are we if not a nation?

SEEKING:

LIZ: White, Jewish, 40s, female. The president of JewToo.

RHONDAL: White, Jewish, 40s, female. The co-president of JewToo.

DAVID: Black, Jewish, college-aged, male. An intern at JewToo. Wears a yarmulke.

ELLA: White, Jewish, college-aged, female. An intern at JewToo.

AVA THE ZIONISTA: Late 20s. Mizrahi, Jewish female. A fiction. Doubles as ALEXA DERMAN, STAFF REPORTER and FLIGHT ATTENDANT.

MAX THE CONSULTANT: Not White, male. Doubles as A COMMENTER / HIP LIB REPORTER / EIC / ANNOUNCER / MEGHAN MCCAIN. A Gentile.

APEIROGON: RAMI AND BASSAM

Based on the 2020 National Book Award winning novel by Colum McCann
Adapted by Avner Ben-Amos
Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa Production
Originally directed by Sinai Peter
VFP staging: Kathryn Chase Bryer
First Rehearsal: January 4, 2027
Previews Begin: January 27
Press Opening: February 1, 2027
Closing: February 21, 2027

SYNOPSIS: A theatrically distilled adaptation of the acclaimed 2020 National Book Award winning novel by Colum McCann that tells the fractured story of two fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, brought together by the loss of their daughters. Despite being raised to hate one another, they find common ground in their grief and form an unlikely friendship. The novel, inspired by the real-life stories of Rami Elhanan, an Israeli, whose daughter, Smadar was killed by suicide bombers, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian whose daughter, Abir was killed by a rubber bullet shot by the IDF. Despite their backgrounds and the hatred ingrained in their societies, the two fathers accidentally connect and, through their shared grief and trauma, recognize the humanity in each other's stories and history to begin a difficult journey of healing and reconciliation. A week of workshop readings in English were presented last winter in Washington, following the world premiere staging in Hebrew and Arabic at the Jaffa Theatre where the work continues to play in repertory to sold out houses. VFP'S American Premiere production offers updated material to account for so many newly unfolding realities.

SEEKING:

BASSAM ARAMIN: ALREADY CAST. Male. 40s. Arab. Carries depression and a determination, not to succumb to hopelessness. Steadfast. Soft spoken. Strong. With an impish humor too. Doubles as Soldier.

NURITH ELHANAN: ALREADY CAST. 30s. Rami's wife. Doubles as Abir Aramin (Bassam's daughter), Mother of Salwa, Yigal Elhanan, Soldier, Nurse, Israeli Physician, Prison Warden, Vendor, Commander of Border Police unit, Combatant for Peace A, and Security Guard at BG Airport A.

RAMI ELHANAN: ALREADY CAST. Male. 40s. Israeli. More effusive, emotional, but weary from war and loss. Despite aging, hasn't lost his youthful rebelliousness. Doubles as Soldier, and Senator John Kerry.

SALWA ARAMIN: ALREADY CAST. Female. Arab. 20s. Bassam's wife. Doubles as Smadar Elhanan (Rami's daughter), Araab Aramin, Yitzhak Elhanan, Palestinian physician, Security Guard, School Principal, Judge, and Senator Kerry's Secretary, Combatant for Peace B, Security Guard at BG Airport B, and Adolescent.

IN THE CROSSING (20.0)

Written By Leila Buck
originally developed with Shana Gold, Yuval Boim, Adam Green, Kathryn Grody, Lameece Issaq and Maya Serhan
Director: TBD
One week rehearsal begins: February 6, 2027
Readings: February 9 – 10, 2027 At UNMC

SYNOPSIS: In 2006, as Lebanese-American writer/performer Leila Buck was introducing her Jewish husband Adam to her family in Lebanon, war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, and the couple found themselves caught in the crossfire. Now, 20 years and many trips back to the region Israel later, they've been asked (by Adam's aunt) to share their experiences at a conference of the Society for Intercultural Dialogue and Education. And you're invited to join them! Blurring the line between truth and fiction, theater and town hall, In The Crossing (20.0) returns to probe the messy intersections of family and politics — the boundaries between us, and what happens when we choose to cross them.

SEEKING:

MAYA: ALREADY CAST. 40s. A Lebanese-American writer/performer based in New York.

ADAM: MAYA's husband. Mid-40s. Photographer and filmmaker based in New York. American - from a Jewish family.

JOAN: ADAM's maternal aunt. 60s-70s. Jewish American, lives and works in Philadelphia. A mediator by personality, and profession.

NOURA: MAYA's cousin. Mid-late 40s. An elegant, vibrant Lebanese woman.

SHARIF

Written by Tomer Aldubi
Translated from Hebrew by: Shir Freibach
Director: TBD
Rehearsals: Friday, February 12 (in NYC) moving to DC on February 15
For Readings: on Feb 16-17, In collaboration with Dirty Laundry Theatre Company

TIME & SETTING: The play takes place over two years, predominantly in a Palestinian village near Ramallah, Palestine; and in Tel Aviv, Israel.

SEEKING:

SHARIF NASSAR: ALREADY CAST. (18) Youngest child of his family.

NOUR: ALREADY CAST. (25) Sharif's boyfriend.

DANIEL SHMUELI: ALREADY CAST. (27) A volunteer at an Israeli charity that supports LGBTQ+ Palestinians.

AMAL NASSAR: ALREADY CAST. (50s) Sharif's mother.

OFFICER: ALREADY CAST. (30s) An army Major in the COGAT unit of the Israeli Army's Civil Administration 1.

LIAT: ALREADY CAST. (40s) The owner of a bakery in Israel.

SUBCHI NASSAR: ALREADY CAST. (50s) Sharif's father, the owner of a bakery in Palestine.

KOBI: ALREADY CAST. (50s) The manager of a small convenience store in Israel.

IN THE SPACE BETWEEN

Written by Mona Kasra and Adam Kassim
Rehearsals begin: Thursday Feb 19
Readings: Feb 21-22 @ UNMC

SYNOPSIS: In the aftermath of a shattering crash, a child carrying a handful of seeds sets out on a journey across the Middle East in search of a grandparent's lost garden.

Longer Blurb: Created by Iranian-American new media artist, projection designer and interdisciplinary scholar Mona Kasra and Palestinian-American theater maker and director Adam M. Kassim, In the Space Between explores migration, wars, displacement, resilience, and the friendships that help us carry what cannot be repaired.

Blending humor, magical realism, and multimedia performance, two storytellers move between characters, memories, dreams, and generations as they struggle to piece together a fractured world of family stories, languages, and places left behind. Memories unravel and the boundaries between past and present, storyteller and story, slowly dissolve, revealing unexpected connections shaped by the complexities of Middle Eastern diasporic life, including longing, belonging, and the search for home across generations.

SEEKING:

A: Female, Iranian American (Immigrant), 30s - 40s. Storyteller who portrays: Daughter, Father, Homeland Security, Cab Driver, Podcast Interviewee, Grandchild, Friend, Museum Guide.

B: Male, Palestinian American (US Born), Gay, 30s - 40s. Storyteller who portrays: Son, Mother, Podcast Host, Grandmother, Homeland Security Officer, Iranian Intelligence Officer, Reflection, Friend, Traveler.