Lauren Gunderson is America’s most produced playwright! Local productions include I and You and Silent Sky. Natural Shocks, a one-woman show, will be a great challenge for one of Indy’s talented actors. Will it be you?

Please submit a video audition on the form below, starting now! Deadline for video auditions is Friday, September 30.

What to include in the video:

1. Name: Make sure to introduce yourself
2. Read/act the first 14 lines of Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” speech from Hamlet. (End with “That makes calamity of so long life.”)  Click here for access to the speech.
3. Read/act the first half-page of Natural Shocks (in the script it’s labeled page 7, but is page 2 of the PDF), and stop at the stage direction “wind outside.” Click here to download the sample script.

   Please don’t stress about the video quality — it doesn’t have to be high tech. Just do your best! 

Rehearsal schedule: Rehearsals will be scheduled with actor availability in mind, but typically include at least one weekend rehearsal.

Pay: Because this is a one-woman show, and carries a more significant line memorization burden, the actor will be paid more than our usual stipend. Pay will be $250 and two comp tickets.

Show Dates: Thursday – Sunday, November 10-20, at Fonseca Theatre.

Synopsis: Based on Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” Natural Shocks is a 60-minute, one-woman tour-de-force play that bursts to life when we meet a woman waiting out an imminent tornado in her basement. Angela, our fast-talking heroine, overflows with quirks, stories, and a final secret that puts the reality of guns in America in your very lap. The play is part confessional, part stand up, and part reckoning.

Setting: an unfinished basement

Role: Actors who are cis, trans, or non-binary willing to present as female for this role. Ethnicity, age, and shape are open. The script describes the role as Angela: a woman, probably 40 years old, maybe younger, maybe older. She’s funny, smart, she thinks fast, she rambles, she is self deprecating. She is feeling everything as it happens. She is trying not to lie, but she always does. She is trying to survive. Resilient, hopeful, optimistic, not sorry for herself. She can be any race, from any region, with any accent.