Newfoundland casting brief, Durban

Men and women 20 - 60 Years old, KwaZulu-Natal

Multi-award winning writer/director Neil Coppen (Tin Bucket Drum, Abnormal Loads, Animal Farm) is currently casting his latest theatre production NewFoundLand, which has been written in conjunction with the Royal Court International playwriting residency.

NewFoundLand will be produced by Kunste Onbeperk and will premiere at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK) in Outshoorn over the week of 8 to 15 April 2017 before embarking on a National tour (including major South African theatre festivals) throughout the rest of the year and into 2018.

The production will rehearse in Johannesburg over the month of February 2017, with pick up rehearsals from the 1 to 7th April 2017 (again in Johannesburg) before it moves to the KKnK festival for its premiere.

Producers are looking to cast the characters of Sizwe, Grace (Sizwe’s mother) and the Ancestor figure in Durban.

Auditions will take place on Saturday the 5th of November from 9:30 to 14:00 2016 in Durban.

To book an audition slot please log in and apply underneath this text.

About the characters:

1) SIZWE: Sizwe is a twenty something student majoring in dance and African Literature at a local KZN university. He is enigmatic, athletic, physical, sensual, sociable, confident, compassionate, traditional, tender and in possession of a terrific sense of humor. Actors should be fluent in both Zulu and English.

Actors auditioning for Sizwe should have stage/film experience as well as dance/choreographic/physical theatre background. The actor will be working extensively with a choreographer in rehearsals to bring the solo dance/ritual sequences to life. Actors auditioning for Sizwe should prepare a five-minute solo dance piece along with the selected Audition scenes. Actors should preferably have an accommodation option in JHB for the period of rehearsals.

2.) GRACE: Grace is Sizwe’s mother between the age of 40 to 60. Actresses must be fluent in both English and Zulu. Grace is a deeply religious woman, concerned over the more traditional path her son Sizwe is taking.

Actresses should preferably have accommodation options in Johannesburgh over the period of rehearsals.

3.) ANCESTOR FIGURE/MERCY THE NURSE: A 40 to 60 year old Zulu/English speaking woman with acting/dance experience as well as a deep knowledge of Zulu customs, practices and rituals. (must audition with Grace scenes)

About NewFoundLand:
Coppen’s NewFoundLand focuses on the intertwining lives and dreams of two South African men Jacques: an Afrikaans anesthetist based in a Pietermartizburg community hospital and Sizwe: a choreographer and student at UKZN who has received a calling (Ukuthwasa) from his ancestors to become a Sangoma.

Both men have been raised in conservative communities and are attempting to forge spaces for themselves separate from the cultural, historical and religious forces that seem to bind them to the past.

When Jacques and Sizwe meet for a hook-up, what is meant to be a brief exchange turns into a profound journey into shared consciousness, and an exploration into the seemingly invisible materials that exist between religion and science, medicine and faith and memory and forgetting.

Coppen’s play has been described as a hallucinatory and unusual exploration of sexuality, love and loneliness in contemporary South Africa, and asks the question is forgetting a way of healing or an ultimate form of denial?

NewFoundLand has been developed in conjunction with Britain’s premiere playwriting Institute: The Royal Court and Coppen was invited to London for a staged reading of the play at the theatre as part of the New Plays from South Africa: after 20 Years of Democracy program.

Actors wishing to audition need to send the form below this post for monologues as well as to book their audition slot.

• Casting had ended