Auditions are being held for Mate’s Theatre Genesis next production The One Day of the Year.
Auditions will be held from 7pm to 9.30pm on January 15 and 17 at the Birkdale School of Arts Hall, 101 Birkdale Road.
The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour is centered on ANZAC Day in the 1960s and challenges Australian's to re-examine an event that has become a major historical icon. The One Day of the Year asks the audience to weigh the issues in the balance and to redefine a sense of nationhood through the pain of a family forced into a new reality.
Roles are required for Alf, the father (50s), a fiercely patriotic, working-class battler. He is a returned soldier, frustrated in his job, who clings to the ANZAC tradition and its belief system as almost a sacred right. Mum (50s) is the classic, conservative stay-at-home wife and mother of the era, committed to its patterns and attitudes but shrewdly observant. Hughie (20s) is caught between affection, embarrassment and pride for his very working-class family and the challenges of progressive ideas that he has come up against at university, a conflict that is encapsulated by a relationship with fellow student Jan.
Jan (20s) is from a well-to-do family, she is intelligent, progressive, and inadvertently insensitive and patronising to Hughie and his family. She is a catalyst. Wacka (60s) is Alf's ex-military friend of many years standing. Wacka says very little and rarely talks about either of the two World Wars he fought in and perhaps this is the key to his character.
Cast of The One Day of the Year will have the added advantage of working with professional stage and screen actor Penny Everingham on character development.
To book an audition spot, contact director Jan Nary on 0429 898 328 or email auditions@matestg.org.au
Performances of The One Day of the Year will run from late April to mid-May.
