At Santa Paula Theater Center, we value the health and safety of our patrons, staff and performers and will be following CDC, State, County, and other governmental agency COVID-19 pandemic current mandates, recommendations and public health guidelines and requirements. We are taking enhanced health and safety measures for the protection of our patrons, staff and artists. You must follow all posted instructions while visiting Santa Paula Theater Center. Cast will be required to provide vaccination and booster confirmation and wear masks during rehearsals and perform periodic covid tests throughout the run of the show. Due to the ever changing circumstances surrounding COVID-19, these event requirements are subject to change.
Santa Paula Theater Center announces auditions Saturday Dec. 3rd 2:00-4:00 PM and Monday Dec. 5th 7:00-9:00 PM, with callbacks
TBA for the first Main Stage show of Season 2023, the award-winning play THE CHILDREN by Lucy Kirkwood.
at The Santa Paula Center.
125 S. Seventh Street, Santa Paula, CA 93060. Phone # 805-525-4645.
THE CHILDREN will play from February 3rd - March 12, 2023 with performances on Friday and Saturday Evenings at 8:00 PM and Sunday Matinees at 2:30 PM. No appointments necessary, cold readings from the script. This is a non-equity production. THERE IS NO PAY. Jessi May Stevenson directs and inquiries about auditions and play may be directed to her at jessimaystevenson@me.com. *For the safety of all, Santa Paula Theater Center requires all actors, staff, crew, patrons and volunteers to be fully vaccinated. Please bring proof of vaccination with you to be eligible to audition. 2018 Tony Award Winner: Best Play. Writers’ Guild Award winner: Best New Play. 3rd place on The Guardian’s: “List of the Greatest Theatrical Works since 2000!” The Children, by Lucy Kirkwood, is a thrilling, humorous new play that questions
the responsibility each generation has for the way it leaves the world. In the wake of a devastating environmental accident, two early retired physicists are quietly living out their days in a cottage on the coast. When an old colleague turns up with a shocking request, the three friends must come to terms with their shared culpability. The Children is a searing pressure cooker about responsibility, guilt, reparation and redemption, but it's also a declaration of love. The extent of sacrifice one is willing to make, not just for one’s own “children,” but for everyone’s children. Lucy Kirkwood’s astonishing storytelling turns the very large idea of Climate Change into a thrilling narrative that centers around the humans living in it. Brilliantly written, The Children is not an ethics text. It’s a quirky three-character tragicomedy about aging, sexual competition, parenting, and the catastrophic result of certain scientific “advances” that end up ravaging the planet we call home…and it is actually very funny. The Playwright: "We all know we are living through a climate emergency, and yet we continually fail to change our behavior. Those changes are enormous, and frightening, and demand that we give up things we have all come to feel we are entitled to." Who among us can distinguish between our necessities and luxuries: 24/7 electricity, year-round air conditioning, any fruit in any season, and all the meat we’re interested in eating? “The Children is generous, honest, and unsentimental about how difficult it will be to make the changes that we need to, about how overwhelming that might feel – an awakening perhaps, but a terrifying
one. I believe that if I had been 20 in 1970, I'd have made similar choices to the characters in the play.” What will happen if we don’t bring our appetites into scale? “That’s what drama is-- looking at human beings under pressure trying to do
things that they find difficult.” “THE CHILDREN raises profound questions about whether having children sharpens, or diminishes, one’s sense of social responsibility…a genuinely disturbing play: one not simply about nuclear power but about the heavy price we may pay in the future for the profligacy of the present.” —Guardian (UK).
“…a richly suggestive and beautifully written piece of work…Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.” —The Independent (London). “THE CHILDREN is tantalizingly hard to define… Somewhat menacing, and often
funny…What THE CHILDREN is not is a polemic about the oft-cited irresponsibility of baby boomers; instead it rather penetratingly asks what they owe younger generations, exactly.” —Time Out London “THE CHILDREN is THE BEST NEW PLAY to hit our poor maligned cultural desert oasis in a long time, introducing to our shores a new playwriting voice in
Lucy Kirkwood that could prove to rival some of the best and most appreciated theatrical wordsmiths of the last century.” - Travis Michael Holder
All roles OPEN
ROSE-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities, female. Nuclear scientist/engineer. Sharp
wit. No-nonsense. Strong-willed. Independent. A survivor. But these are shields to
hide regrets and deep pain. Never married. Never had children. Lived in America
for many years. A city person. She’s on a mission to save the world, to be
accountable. She has many secrets, including being the former lover of ROBIN.
She’s come to visit HAZEL and ROBIN after 28-38 years, out of the blue, with a
request, with one of those secrets that is the turning point of the play.
HAZEL-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities, female. Nuclear scientist/engineer.
Retired. Has lived in the countryside most of her life. She’s the homemaker, the
caretaker. She believes in routine. She believes routine and salad and yoga will keep
her and ROBIN and the world safe. She just wants everything to be nice, to be
okay, to be controllable. But when that’s challenged by ROSE, she can be a fierce,
formidable foe. Married to ROBIN for 30-40 years. Mother of 4. She will do
anything to keep everyone safe. And she will not let ROSE steal ROBIN from
her… and she will not let ROSE’s secret mission destroy her world.
ROBIN-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities male. Nuclear scientist/engineer. Retired.
Down-to-Earth. Has that lived-in look. Husband of HAZEL. Married for 30-40
years. Father of four. Former lover of ROSE. He’s the jokester. The little boy. He
needs to turn pain and discomfort into humor and playfulness whenever possible.
He’s also a workaholic. Always got to be doing something. Working the former
farm. Taking care of the animals. Fixing the cottage. Can’t sit still. Like ROSE, he,
too, has secrets… but ROSE’s secret request forces him to confront a moral
dilemma that will change everything.
Audition Sides (taken from Dramatists Play Service)
HAZEL monologue- pages 18-19
ROSE monologue- pages 50-51
the responsibility each generation has for the way it leaves the world. In the wake of a devastating environmental accident, two early retired physicists are quietly living out their days in a cottage on the coast. When an old colleague turns up with a shocking request, the three friends must come to terms with their shared culpability. The Children is a searing pressure cooker about responsibility, guilt, reparation and redemption, but it's also a declaration of love. The extent of sacrifice one is willing to make, not just for one’s own “children,” but for everyone’s children. Lucy Kirkwood’s astonishing storytelling turns the very large idea of Climate Change into a thrilling narrative that centers around the humans living in it. Brilliantly written, The Children is not an ethics text. It’s a quirky three-character tragicomedy about aging, sexual competition, parenting, and the catastrophic result of certain scientific “advances” that end up ravaging the planet we call home…and it is actually very funny. The Playwright: "We all know we are living through a climate emergency, and yet we continually fail to change our behavior. Those changes are enormous, and frightening, and demand that we give up things we have all come to feel we are entitled to." Who among us can distinguish between our necessities and luxuries: 24/7 electricity, year-round air conditioning, any fruit in any season, and all the meat we’re interested in eating? “The Children is generous, honest, and unsentimental about how difficult it will be to make the changes that we need to, about how overwhelming that might feel – an awakening perhaps, but a terrifying
one. I believe that if I had been 20 in 1970, I'd have made similar choices to the characters in the play.” What will happen if we don’t bring our appetites into scale? “That’s what drama is-- looking at human beings under pressure trying to do
things that they find difficult.” “THE CHILDREN raises profound questions about whether having children sharpens, or diminishes, one’s sense of social responsibility…a genuinely disturbing play: one not simply about nuclear power but about the heavy price we may pay in the future for the profligacy of the present.” —Guardian (UK).
“…a richly suggestive and beautifully written piece of work…Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.” —The Independent (London). “THE CHILDREN is tantalizingly hard to define… Somewhat menacing, and often
funny…What THE CHILDREN is not is a polemic about the oft-cited irresponsibility of baby boomers; instead it rather penetratingly asks what they owe younger generations, exactly.” —Time Out London “THE CHILDREN is THE BEST NEW PLAY to hit our poor maligned cultural desert oasis in a long time, introducing to our shores a new playwriting voice in
Lucy Kirkwood that could prove to rival some of the best and most appreciated theatrical wordsmiths of the last century.” - Travis Michael Holder
All roles OPEN
ROSE-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities, female. Nuclear scientist/engineer. Sharp
wit. No-nonsense. Strong-willed. Independent. A survivor. But these are shields to
hide regrets and deep pain. Never married. Never had children. Lived in America
for many years. A city person. She’s on a mission to save the world, to be
accountable. She has many secrets, including being the former lover of ROBIN.
She’s come to visit HAZEL and ROBIN after 28-38 years, out of the blue, with a
request, with one of those secrets that is the turning point of the play.
HAZEL-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities, female. Nuclear scientist/engineer.
Retired. Has lived in the countryside most of her life. She’s the homemaker, the
caretaker. She believes in routine. She believes routine and salad and yoga will keep
her and ROBIN and the world safe. She just wants everything to be nice, to be
okay, to be controllable. But when that’s challenged by ROSE, she can be a fierce,
formidable foe. Married to ROBIN for 30-40 years. Mother of 4. She will do
anything to keep everyone safe. And she will not let ROSE steal ROBIN from
her… and she will not let ROSE’s secret mission destroy her world.
ROBIN-
54 to 68 years old, all ethnicities male. Nuclear scientist/engineer. Retired.
Down-to-Earth. Has that lived-in look. Husband of HAZEL. Married for 30-40
years. Father of four. Former lover of ROSE. He’s the jokester. The little boy. He
needs to turn pain and discomfort into humor and playfulness whenever possible.
He’s also a workaholic. Always got to be doing something. Working the former
farm. Taking care of the animals. Fixing the cottage. Can’t sit still. Like ROSE, he,
too, has secrets… but ROSE’s secret request forces him to confront a moral
dilemma that will change everything.
Audition Sides (taken from Dramatists Play Service)
HAZEL monologue- pages 18-19
ROSE monologue- pages 50-51
sides
| robin_monologue.pdf |
| rose_monologue.pdf |
| hazel_monologue.pdf |
| rose_robin_hazel_pgs_46-49.pdf |
| rose_robin-_pgs_51-54.pdf |
| hazel_robin-_pgs_33-35.pdf |
| rose_hazel-_pgs_11-14.pdf |