The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

By Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Kendra Ware

PERFORMANCES:           

Thursday, May 25^th – Sunday, June 4^th

Performing Arts Theater

NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR, KENDRA WARE:

With this nontraditional production, I am aiming to create a multicultural show that reflects the melting pot of humanity since time began.  I am under the belief that we are creating a world where anyone regardless of age, creed, sex, or disabilities can and should audition to participate in co-creating this imagined space. Anyone can be anything in this time-bending play so I am adding gender and race-bending as well.  The playwright, Stephen Adly Gurgis is an Egyptian/Irish New Yorker and this informs the text greatly.  Auditioning and further performing in this play requires a serious dramaturgical investigation into the text.  I am looking to work with those who are highly imaginative and creative risk-takers.  Those who are willing to stretch and challenge themselves as artists,  and see themselves as investigative thinkers.  Feel free to make bold choices, play, re-interpret, and be willing to think out of the box in preparing your auditions or scenes from the play.  I am asking you to give yourself permission to be audacious in your dreaming and let them shine through your auditions.  I  am honored and excited to be going on this endeavor with you all and I look forward to working with you very soon.

GENERAL AUDITIONS: 

AUDITION TAPE SUBMISSIONS

 DUE: 9AM Monday, March 13^th                   

●     Email submissions to Trinity Wicklund

        (trinity_wicklund@ucsb.edu)

●     EMAIL SUBJECT LINE: Your Name - Judas Audition Tape

●     Please send as a downloadable video file, a link to a google drive folder is also acceptable (no youtube links please)

●     You will receive a confirmation email from Trinity once we have received your submission.

●     Submissions received after the deadline above will not be accepted.

CALLBACKS:            

Tuesday, March 14^th, 2023

 6pm - 11pm

TD-W 1507

1ST REHEARSAL:      

Monday, April 3^rd, 2023

REHEARSALS:

Typically 20-25 hours per week until tech rehearsals begin.  This play will rehearse Monday – Friday between the hours of 6-11 until tech week. There will be some Friday afternoon rehearsals and possibility of rehearsals on Saturdays.  There are additional hours for techs and dress rehearsals leading to performances including Saturdays and Sundays.

CREDIT:

3 units of THTR 49/149 will be given to cast members.

SCRIPTS:

The script is now available on GauchoSpace. Please go to the online student callboard at http://www.theaterdance.ucsb.edu/academics/call-board for further information.

AUDITION REQUIREMENTS:

Any full time UCSB student is welcome and encouraged to audition.

AUDITION PREPARATION:

Please read the script carefully and choose a short monologue from the play: character of your choice. This should be no more than 2 minutes, please time yourself so you do not go over. You do not need to memorize this scene, but it should be prepared well.

When recording the monologue, please move away from the camera to create a three-quarters to full length shot, rather than a close-up.

If you have questions or need more information contact

Trinity Wicklund at trinity_wicklund@ucsb.edu

THE PLAY:

Set in a time-bending, darkly comic world between heaven and hell, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot reexamines the plight and fate of the New Testament’s most infamous sinner.

THE PLAYWRIGHT:

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City, attending school in Harlem. Guirgis studied at the University of Albany, SUNY, graduating in 1992. Some of his most famous works include Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (2000), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005), and Between Riverside and Crazy (2015) for which he won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Guirgis has had his plays be produced both off and on Broadway as well as in the UK. He is also a member and the former co-artistic director of the New York City LAByrinth Theatre Company.

Guirgis is also an actor and has performed in films (Palindromes, Jailbait), TV (Law & Order), and on stage (Guinea Pig Solo). Guirgis has directed productions across the USA including Sistah Supreme (2000), Behind the Counter with Mussolini (1998, 2002), and Kiss Me on the Mouth (2009). Through his work in theatre, Guirgis has used improvisational theatre to teach HIV/AIDS prevention and conflict resolution in prisons, schools, and hospitals. He was a close friend of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and often collaborated with him in his theatre works. In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, Guirgis is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the Lucille Lortel Award, and Whiting Award.

THE DIRECTOR:

Kendra Ware is a performance-based multidisciplinary artist whose work reveals an interest in history, personal narrative, and experimental approaches to art-making. Using live performance, video, and installation, she creates hybrid staged environments that explore the intersections of race, gender, class, cultural politics, and identity while challenging social norms and notions of otherness.

Currently, she is working in collaboration with Grammy-Award-winning artist Martha Gonzalez of Quetzal, on a concept album and theatrical concert, Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind, a project of the National Performance Network Creation Fund. She is the creator/writer/performer in The American Dream Nightmare: How to Wake Yourself Up, a multimedia performance experience depicting anti-Blackness, that deep dives into the ancestral. Most recently, she staged the experimental video Soñar es Luchar at the Latino Cultural Center for Cara Mía Theater and directed the premiere of Virginia Grise’s theatrical adaptation of Their Dogs Came with Them site-specifically in Perryville Women’s Prison and under the I-19 Freeway in Tucson, Arizona with Borderlands Theater.

Her work has also been developed and/or produced by Automata LA, REDCAT, Son of Semele, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Santa Barbara Contemporary Museum of Art, East West Players, The Last Bookstore, La Mama Theater, Pregones Theatre, The Flea Theater, Pan Asian Rep, Borderlands Theater, and a todo dar productions. Ware has been a guest artist with La Mama Theater in Umbria, Italy, Long Beach Dance Foundation, Indy Convergence Indianapolis, York University, Northwestern University, Sarah Lawrence College, CalArts, Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona. Her work has been awarded a NEFA Creation and Touring Grant, NPN Documentation and Creation Fund Grant, and 2022 Drama League Directing Fellowship and is the inaugural recipient of the 2022 Lloyd Richards SDCF New Futures Residency. MFA: California Institute of the Arts.

CHARACTERS:

* NOTE: All roles are open to all ethnicities and gender identities. 14 actors will be cast: 7 actors play one role, 7 actors are in the ensemble playing multiple roles.

* Please feel free to choose any monologue

Fabiana Aziza Cunningham

Yusef El-Fayoumy

Judas Iscariot

Jesus of Nazareth

Satan

Judge Littlefield

Court Bailiff

Henrietta Iscariot

Mary Magdalene

Saint Monica

Saint Peter

Saint Matthew

Saint Thomas

Simon the Zealot

Caiphas the Elder

Pontius Pilate

Mother Teresa

Sigmund Freud

Matthias of Galilee

Butch Honeywall

Gloria

Loretta