Kayfabe by Kim Finn

READING: Tuesday 3rd March at 7:30pm

AUDITIONS: Thursday 5th March at 7:30pm

PERFORMANCE DATES: Wednesday 3rd - Saturday 6th June at 7.30pm, with a 2.30pm matinee on the 6th.

Set in the modern-day era of the travelling circus, the plot follows Billy Thunder, a third-generation ringmaster who has received a letter that could change the course of his future. Reluctant to share the news with his partners, family and friends in the Big Top, Billy bids goodnight to them all after the evening’s performance, only to find that his peaceful, pensive evening is about to be disturbed over and over again.

Despite his wish to be alone, members of the troupe come to him for the usual advice, grievances, and check-ins, until midnight draws near. Haunted by the weight of the decisions ahead of him, Billy falls asleep in the centre ring, awakened by a stranger in the dead of night. A hallucination? A vision?

A ghost? Billy cannot be sure. The only certainty is that this will not be the only apparition to visit him in his hour of need.

CASTING: 7 roles available

The central role, ringmaster BILLY THUNDER, could be played by any male presenting actor of around 35 to 55. He features in every scene of the play and is never offstage, but is sometimes silent, joining the audience, or asleep on set whilst other performances take place.

The remaining 6+ roles fall into two categories: ENSEMBLE and APPARITIONS. Factors such as age, physicality, ability, ethnicity and gender in casting these roles will be totally flexible. The Ensemble characters interact with Billy throughout the story in scripted scenes, whilst the Apparitions appear for one ‘moment’ of around 5 to 10 minutes per Apparition.

The Ensemble roles are the troupe of Billy’s modern-day circus, his lovers, friends, and employees, but each of them could also double as one of the Apparitions that visit Billy. If suitable doubling is not possible within these 6 roles, additional performers could be added to the Apparitions cast. In brief, these roles consist of LOVER 1, LOVER 2, JANITOR, MUSICIAN, RUNAWAY, and STRONGPERSON.

The performers in the Apparitions roles will find them a particularly interesting challenge, embodying traditional circus figures from history as they appear to tell their story and impart a ‘moral’ of sorts to Billy. Performers in the Apparitions roles will have the opportunity to work with the director and technical team to devise their own scene according to their own creative ideas and skills. The story beats and moral that each Apparition teaches Billy will be set by the director according to the storyline of the play, but how those are conveyed could be through conversation, dance, music, mime, visual art or any other performance discipline. In brief, the archetypes of characters we’ll be looking to portray are: CLOWN, CHARIOT RACER, GENDER IMPERSONATOR, ROPEWALKER, FREAK/ODDITY and RINGMASTER.