AUDITIONS
ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART ONE — MILLENNIUM APPROACHES
by Tony Kushner
AUDITIONS: Monday, October 19 • 7:00–10:00 PM
CALLBACKS: Tuesday, October 20 • 7:00–10:00 PM
Please register for an audition time using the form at the bottom of this page.
Three Rivers Music Theatre is seeking a company of eight actors for Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Angels in America: Part One — Millennium Approaches.
ARTISTS MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR:
TECH REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE CONFLICTS CANNOT BE ACCOMMODATED.
ABOUT THE PLAY
New York City. 1985.
The AIDS crisis is devastating a generation. Ronald Reagan is in the White House. Fear, conservatism, religion, sexuality, politics, illness, and identity collide as a group of New Yorkers attempt to understand what it means to love another person, to abandon someone, to survive, to change, and to be changed.
At the center of the story is Prior Walter, a young gay man newly diagnosed with AIDS, and Louis Ironson, the partner who loves him but cannot bear the terror of what lies ahead. Their lives intersect with Joe and Harper Pitt, a young Mormon couple whose marriage is buckling beneath secrets neither has been willing to name; Belize, Prior’s fiercely intelligent friend and former lover; Hannah Pitt, Joe’s formidable mother; and Roy Cohn, the infamous attorney and political power broker whose own AIDS diagnosis threatens the identity he has spent a lifetime constructing.
And then, an Angel arrives.
Kushner’s play moves freely between brutal realism and theatrical fantasy, between hospital rooms and hallucinations, political arguments and intimate conversations, the sacred and the profane. It is deeply funny, deeply queer, deeply political, and profoundly human.
Millennium Approaches premiered in the early 1990s and won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1993 Tony Award for Best Play. It remains one of the defining American plays of the late twentieth century.
AUDITION PREPARATION
Please prepare and memorize one monologue from the Audition Materials PDF linked below.
The packet includes selections for Prior, Harper, Joe, Louis, Roy, Belize, Hannah/Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz, and the Angel.
If you are interested in being considered for multiple roles, please indicate all roles of interest on your audition form, but prepare only one monologue. Choose the selection that best demonstrates your strengths as an actor, your connection to the material, and the kind of work you want us to see in the room.
Callbacks will consist of scenes from the play. Additional materials and instructions will be provided to those invited to callbacks.
CASTING & DOUBLING
Angels in America is traditionally performed by eight actors, with intentional doubling written into the play. The doubling is not simply logistical. Kushner deliberately asks actors to cross age, gender, identity, and circumstance throughout the piece, and we intend to honor that theatrical convention.
PRIOR WALTER / MAN IN THE PARK
Prior is Louis’s boyfriend, a witty, stylish, unapologetically queer man living with AIDS. He comes from an old family and possesses a sharp intelligence, theatricality, humor, and enormous capacity for survival. His illness is real and increasingly serious, but Prior is never reducible to his diagnosis. He is funny, furious, frightened, romantic, imaginative, and stubbornly alive.
This actor traditionally also plays Man in the Park.
Intimacy/physical considerations: kissing; sexual dialogue and situations; a simulated sexual encounter; periods of partial dress/underwear; staged medical examination; physical portrayal of serious illness.
LOUIS IRONSON
Prior’s boyfriend. Louis is a Jewish intellectual who works as a word processor for the federal courts. Brilliant, argumentative, political, neurotic, funny, passionate, and frequently overwhelmed by the gulf between what he believes and what he is actually capable of doing. When Prior becomes seriously ill, Louis is forced to confront the limits of his own courage and devotion.
Intimacy/physical considerations: kissing and romantic intimacy with Prior and Joe; sexual dialogue; periods of partial dress/underwear.
JOSEPH "JOE" PITT / PRIOR 1 / THE ESKIMO
A young Mormon attorney working as chief clerk for a federal appellate judge. Joe believes profoundly in goodness, order, morality, faith, and personal discipline. He is also a closeted gay man whose carefully constructed life with his wife, Harper, is beginning to collapse under the weight of what he has refused to acknowledge.
This actor traditionally also plays Prior 1, one of Prior Walter’s ancestors, and The Eskimo, a figure appearing within Harper’s imagined world.
Intimacy/physical considerations: kissing and romantic intimacy with Louis; marital intimacy and emotionally volatile scenes with Harper; choreographed physical conflict with Roy.
HARPER AMATY PITT / MARTIN HELLER
Joe’s wife. Harper is intelligent, imaginative, lonely, funny, frightened, and profoundly perceptive. She lives with anxiety and agoraphobia and uses Valium heavily, resulting in hallucinations that become increasingly difficult to distinguish from reality. Beneath her fragility is a person desperately trying to understand why the life she was promised does not feel like a life she can survive.
This actor traditionally also plays Martin Heller, a male Reagan administration operative. The gender-crossing is intentional.
Intimacy/physical considerations: marital intimacy; discussion of sexuality, pregnancy, addiction, and emotional abuse; portrayal of substance use and altered mental states.
ROY M. COHN / PRIOR 2
Based on the real attorney and political power broker Roy Cohn. Brilliant, vicious, charismatic, vulgar, funny, manipulative, and enormously powerful, Roy understands the world through influence and leverage. When he is diagnosed with AIDS, he rejects both the diagnosis and the identity he associates with it. He is a man determined to control the meaning of his own life even as his body begins to betray him.
This actor traditionally also plays Prior 2, another of Prior Walter’s ancestors.
Intimacy/physical considerations: aggressive and explicit sexual language; homophobic language; depiction of serious illness; choreographed physical conflict.
BELIZE / MR. LIES
Belize is a registered nurse, Prior’s former lover, and one of his closest friends. A former drag queen whose given name is Norman Arriaga, Belize is intelligent, compassionate, funny, fierce, politically incisive, and almost constitutionally incapable of tolerating nonsense. He brings warmth and clarity into a world where nearly everyone else is lying to themselves.
Belize is a Black character and will be cast accordingly.
This actor traditionally also plays Mr. Lies, Harper’s imaginary travel agent and companion through her hallucinations.
HANNAH PORTER PITT / RABBI ISIDOR CHEMELWITZ / HENRY / ETHEL ROSENBERG
Hannah is Joe’s mother, a Mormon widow from Salt Lake City who abruptly sells her home and moves to New York after Joe calls her in crisis. Practical, unsentimental, disciplined, and initially uncomfortable with the world she encounters, Hannah proves far more capable of adaptation than almost anyone expects.
This actor traditionally also plays:
Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz, an elderly Jewish rabbi;
Henry, Roy Cohn’s physician; and
Ethel Rosenberg, the historical figure whose prosecution and execution Roy Cohn helped engineer.
The cross-gender and cross-cultural doubling is intentional and central to Kushner’s theatrical language.
THE ANGEL / EMILY / SISTER ELLA CHAPTER / WOMAN IN THE SOUTH BRONX
An actor requiring extraordinary range.
The Angel is mysterious, sensual, terrifying, beautiful, commanding, and otherworldly. She arrives as both revelation and disruption.
This actor traditionally also plays:
Emily, a nurse caring for Prior;
Sister Ella Chapter, a Mormon real estate agent; and
Woman in the South Bronx, encountered by Hannah after her arrival in New York.
These roles move from intimate naturalism to heightened theatricality and require an actor comfortable making bold physical and vocal choices.
INTIMACY, CONSENT & PHYSICAL STORYTELLING
This production contains significant adult material, including romantic and sexual intimacy.
Depending on role, actors may be asked to participate in kissing, staged romantic intimacy, simulated sexual activity, partial dress/underwear, medical examination staging, physical contact, and choreographed conflict. The script also includes a simulated sexual encounter involving Prior and the Man in the Park, a kiss between Joe and Louis, and moments involving Prior’s medical care and physical vulnerability.
All intimacy and physical storytelling will be specifically choreographed, rehearsed, repeatable, and consent-based.
Actors will never be expected to improvise intimate contact, surprise a scene partner with physical choices, or agree to physical storytelling simply because they have accepted a role. Boundaries will be discussed during the process and may be revisited as needed.
We ask auditionees to communicate their boundaries honestly. A boundary will never be treated as a lack of commitment, professionalism, or bravery.
At callbacks, auditionees should not initiate kissing, sexual contact, or other intimate physical choices with another actor unless specifically directed and boundaries have first been established.
CONTENT & POTENTIAL TRIGGERS
Angels in America is written for adult audiences and engages directly with difficult subject matter. Auditionees should familiarize themselves with the nature of the material before committing to the production.
The play includes or discusses:
HIV/AIDS and serious illness; death and dying; hospitalization and medical treatment; grief; abandonment; infidelity; explicit sexual language; simulated sexual situations; partial nudity/underwear; homosexuality and coming out; homophobia and internalized homophobia; racism; antisemitism; religious conflict; Mormonism and Judaism; addiction and prescription drug misuse; anxiety and agoraphobia; hallucinations and altered states; pregnancy and pregnancy loss; emotionally abusive relationships; political extremism; the Reagan administration; McCarthyism; Roy Cohn; Ethel Rosenberg and execution; profanity; slurs and discriminatory language; staged physical aggression and conflict.
The material is sometimes deliberately abrasive. Kushner places prejudice, cruelty, contradiction, desire, faith, fear, and politics directly into the mouths of his characters. Our work will approach that language with historical and dramaturgical context while preserving the integrity of the text.
OUR APPROACH TO CASTING
We are interested in specific, fearless, intelligent actors who are excited by language, contradiction, theatricality, and ensemble storytelling. Do not worry about giving us a fully formed interpretation of one of the most famous characters in contemporary American theatre. We are far more interested in seeing you: how you think, how you listen, how language lives in you, and what happens when you allow yourself to engage truthfully with this extraordinary text.
The play itself challenges conventional ideas about who is permitted to embody whom. Several roles are intentionally doubled across gender, age, religion, and identity. We will honor the identities that are textually essential to these characters while approaching the broader company with openness and imagination.
We strongly encourage performers of all races, ethnicities, gender identities and expressions, body types, abilities, and backgrounds to audition.
A NOTE ABOUT THE MATERIAL
This is a demanding play. It asks its actors to move quickly from comedy to devastation, naturalism to hallucination, political argument to intimate confession. Its characters are messy, contradictory, sometimes infuriating human beings. None of them can be played effectively as a thesis statement. We are looking for actors willing to investigate them with generosity. Come prepared. Come curious. Make a choice. Tell the truth. And please do not feel obligated to show us how much pain you can manufacture in an audition room. Choose the monologue that lets us see what you do best.
AUDITIONS
Monday, October 19
7:00–10:00 PM
CALLBACKS
Tuesday, October 20
7:00–10:00 PM
Please prepare and memorize one selection from the Audition Materials PDF linked above.