Geva Theatre Local EPA for 2025-2026 Season, ROCHESTER NY
AUDITION DATE
APPOINTMENTS
We will be accepting both in person and video auditions to increase accessibility for this casting. All submissions will be reviewed and weighed equally, whether in person or via video.
To sign up for Geva Theatre Local EPAs, please submit to the following form:
https://forms.gle/f3jTvWXmhTWHjq1i7. Please submit this form for BOTH in person and virtual submissions.
If you are not a member of AEA but are a local actor, please feel welcome to drop in during EPA hours and we will endeavor to see you.
CONTRACT
SEEKING
PREPARATION
LOCATION
PERSONNEL
OTHER
BREAKDOWN
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, & Henry Shields
Synopsis: A long-running commercial success on the West End and Broadway comes to Geva! The intrepid thespians of the Cornley Drama Society are more or less ready to raise the curtain on the grandest production the village has ever seen, The Murder at Haversham Manor—until things go from bad to calamitous. There’s an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that won’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines)—and that’s only the first act. It’s nothing you want in a show—and everything you want in a comedy!
Character Breakdown
TREVOR - any ethnicity, 25-35, the play’s lighting and sound operator; he simply wants to get on with the show, curmudgeonly and doesn’t care for actors, easily distracted and does many things he shouldn’t, including engaging with the audience, when things go really sideways he is forced to act in the play, and he hates acting
SANDRA - any ethnicity, 25-35, vain with a huge ego; wants to be loved, has ambitions to go to Hollywood and will hurt anyone standing in her, smart enough to stay on the good side of someone who can help her (like the director), her stakes are very high
ANNIE - any ethnicity, 25-35, the stage manager, cannot bear to be on stage, but must step in to one of the roles, initially terrified by acting, she grows to live it and by the end is willing to kill for it, the biggest journey of any of the characters; starts small but grows and grows
JONATHAN - any ethnicity, 25-35, a bit bland, but sees himself as a James Bond type, excited and having fun, but not naïve, cares about the play, but not to the same extent as the others, actor has to drive the show; very physical role
ROBERT - any ethnicity, 25-35, wannabe Richard Burton, declamatory style, an actor with real vocal power, unaware of others around him, does not feel badly when things go wrong and never learns from his mistakes, desperate to become president of the Cornley Poly Drama Society
MAX - any ethnicity, 25-35, has never been on stage before; knows his lines and does exactly what he’s told, no more, no less, has zero connection with any of the other actors, but when he gets a laugh he breaks the 4th wall and engages with the audience, childlike and naïve; his mistakes are fundamental, doesn't think anything through, just looks for approval
CHRIS - any ethnicity, 25-35, the director of the show and this is the biggest day of his life, rigid, uptight, self-important, his pain is evident and every time someone laughs the pain deepens, equal amounts of contempt for his fellow actors and the audience, high status clown
DENNIS - any ethnicity, 25-35, no interest in theatre, he just wants to make friends (of which he has none), slightly oblivious, but understands when he gets things wrong, laughter from the audience is a personal tragedy and failure for him
SANCOCHO by Christin Eve Cato
Synopsis: Caridad is determined to teach her younger sister to cook the family recipe for the traditional beef stew, sancocho—but Renata only wants her to review their father’s will. Simmering between the two Puerto Rican sisters is a family tension that finally comes to a boil as their father enters hospice care. Christin Eve Cato’s Sancocho explores family secrets, generational divides, and the healing that can only come from a meal made with love.
Character Breakdown
A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens, adapted by Harrison David Rivers, original direction by Elizabeth Williamson
Synopsis: Charles Dickens’ holiday classic returns to the Geva stage in a new adaptation by Playwright in Residence Harrison David Rivers. Over the course of a single night, notorious grump Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts. But will their intervention prompt him to change his “humbug” ways? A Christmas Carol reminds us that it is never too late to have a change of heart.
Character Breakdown
SUSAN HILL’S THE WOMAN IN BLACK adapted by Stephen Mallatratt
Synopsis: The second longest-running play in the history of the West End, The Woman in Black is a chilling drama, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the 1983 novel by Susan Hill. Mallatratt conjured a complete world into which generations of young people have entered, surrendering to the ultimate magic of theatre: their own imaginations. A dark and scary mystery unfolds as an old man recounts the events of his youth when he went to the fog-embanked countryside of England to settle the estate of a family shrouded in a tragedy that continues to haunt (literally!) anyone who comes too close.
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK by Neil Simon
Synopsis: Opposites attract in Neil Simon’s celebrated romantic comedy. Newlyweds Paul, a straight-laced lawyer, and Corie, a free-spirit, have barely returned from their honeymoon, and their marriage is already on the fritz, like the telephone line in their new apartment. Corie wants Paul to be more spontaneous and do things like run “barefoot in the park,” and Paul just wants to get a good night’s sleep. When Corie’s prim and proper mother drops by for an unexpected visit, and their eccentric upstairs neighbor, Mr. Velasco, climbs in through their upstairs window, hilarity ensues! This slice of newlywed life is sure to remind even long-married couples of the pleasures and perils of falling in love.
Character Breakdown
FURLOUGH’S PARADISE by a.k. payne
Synopsis: Winner of the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and Winner of the 20th Annual Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. On a three-day furlough for her mother’s funeral, Sade stays with her only cousin. Mina is also on a brief reprieve from her life on the West Coast, and the cousins, who were once so close, come together to try to make sense of grief, home, and kinship as time ticks toward Sade’s return to prison. “An abolition play or simply a play about cousins” from one of America’s most promising new playwrights.
Character Breakdown
BARON VAUGHN: CYCLE BREAKER by Baron Vaughn
Synopsis: Nothing brings your own childhood into focus like raising your own children. Married 40-something father, Baron Vaughn digs into his own past to understand how it formed him and how he’ll approach parenthood in his funny and deeply human solo show. Baron explores his relationships with his parents and grandparents as he uncovers the values he wishes to instill and the damage he’d rather not pay forward to his own children. Part stand-up comedy, part memory play, Baron Vaughn: Cycle Breaker is a meditation on family and what it takes to truly break a cycle.
ANASTASIA book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, & lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Synopsis: This Tony Award-nominated musical inspired by the beloved films takes us on a journey to the past. Iconic songs like Once Upon a December, Learn to Do It, and Journey to the Past transport us from the darkness of Soviet Russia to the opulence of Paris in the ‘20s, as Anya and new friends Dmitry, a handsome conman, and Vlad, a bumbling ex-aristocrat, hatch a plan to pass her off as Grand Duchess Anastasia to her grandmother, the Dowager Empress. But could it be that Anya really is the long-lost Romanov?
Character Breakdown
Videos
