Actor/pianist needed
to perform in and help us create
Wormwood
a play about the horrors of absinthe
based on the novel by Marie Corelli

VENUE: Bryant-Lake Bowl

PERFORMANCE DATES: TBA, but the show will certainly open in May, probably on the 8th, and run through the end of the month, maybe into the first week of June.

YOU: Male. No particular type, though older is better than younger. Given a melody, you are able to devise and play piano accompaniment. Compositional ability would be a plus. And if you can sing a little, that’s good too.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE: The show will be (mostly) created during February and March. During those months we won’t need too much of your time – maybe a couple of hours a week. We’ll start rehearsing in early April.

PAY: $250

Wormwood tells the story of Gaston Beauvais, a very proper young banker who comes unglued when his fiancée falls in love with, and is seduced by, another man. To ease the pain, he takes up drinking absinthe, which destroys his moral faculties and drives him mad. As Gaston descends deeper and deeper into addiction, he hallucinates more and more, and in his madness he causes all the main characters to wind up dead by suicide or murder.

We’re going to have a lot of fun with this, especially in staging Gaston’s hallucinations. Since the BLB is among other things a bar, we’ll pretend it’s a bar where Gaston goes to drink; we’ll make the show partly interactive and serve samples of absinthe to the audience. Absinthe was sometimes called “the green fairy,” so we’ll have a Green Fairy character. In fact the color green will feature prominently in the show, including special lighting effects.

As for the music, Wormwood will be neither a conventional musical nor a sung-through operatic piece. Instead we’re imagining that the characters will occasionally break into short bits of song – probably no more than a minute at a time, often less – as the scenes reach peaks of intensity. (The scenes will be very intense, expressionistic, hallucinatory…)

The actor/pianist we’re looking for will use the piano onstage at the BLB to accompany these short bits of song, as well as to underscore some of the action. We hope he’ll be able to help compose the melodies. And he’ll play a few roles as an actor.

Interested? Please get in touch with us ASAP (see below).

CREATIVE TEAM: Written & directed by Steve Schroer. Stage managed by Deb Ervin. Graphic design/sound design by Ryan Ripley. Costume design by Sara Wilcox. Tech direction/scenic design by John Adler. Music & lyrics by Steve Schroer, Mark Manns, &…you?

CONTACT: To schedule a conversation/informal audition with Steve, please send your resume and headshot (if you’ve got it in digital form) to hardcovertheater (at) gmail (dot) com. If we think you might be a good fit, we’ll get back to you soon.