Audition Call for A New Script Workshop by Francesca Ekwuyasi

Ekwuyasi (author of the lauded and celebrated novel Butter Honey Pig Bread) has collaborated with HEIST on our recent projects Frequencies and The Creative Nova Scotia Awards 2021. A Nice Ordinary Wedding  centres around the love and life of an unabashedly queer couple. The question of how one balances their queerness and chosen family with their desire for connection to their blood family and acceptance is at the heart of this journey. The couple want to meld their existence in their new home with their upbringing and make space for their way of being. But is that possible? A Nice Ordinary Wedding follows the treacherous minefield of a path the couple walks leading up to their wedding.

Script Workshop Dates: 

March 10 - 15, 2022 (digital) 

& April 23 - 30, 2022 (potential in-person) 

Submission Deadline: 

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Agreement: 

Equity DOT Agreement (please note it is not necessarily to be an Equity member to submit)

Casting statement: 

HEIST is a live art company with a clear and strong commitment to diversity within culture, abilities and gender.​​ HEIST’s leadership identities include queer white cis male and hetero biracial cis female, and we bring our experiences to the creative table. We are grateful for the gifts that a diversity of voices can offer and seek collaborators of any sexual, gender, cultural, social, and ableness backgrounds who feel the same. As the cultural identity and integrity of this show is rooted in Black Queer culture, outside of the roles of Sara and Donor, we are only looking for actors who identify as being part of the Black/African Diaspora to submit.

Additional information:

As this workshop opportunity includes a possible in-person phase, HEIST requires all artists offered this gig to be fully vaccinated.

If there are any potential barriers (language, disability or any other considerations) preventing you from applying to audition, please let us know and we will work with you to overcome them. 

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:

To be considered for an audition, please identify what role you would like to audition for and submit your headshot and resume, to liveheist@gmail.com by February 9th, 2022, 11:59pm AST. Please use the subject line ”A  Nice Ordinary Wedding” for your email submission.

Character List

Afolabi is a thirty-four-year-old cis queer woman. She is Yoruba and an immigrant to Canada. She is in a committed non-monogamous relationship with Zo. Afolabi came out in her late twenties. She is bold, playful, gentle, talkative.

Zo is a thirty-seven-year-old queer trans non-binary person whose parents never married. They are of African Canadian and Nigerian descent. They own and run a small café and bookstore. They are in a committed non-monogamous relationship with Afolabi. They are laid back, serious, quiet but assertive, affectionate, and very in love with Afolabi. 

Damilola is a sixty-six-year-old Yoruba Christian woman. She is married to Kunle and mother to three adult children including Afolabi. She lives in Nigeria with her husband. She is religious, serious, and at times stern.

Tabitha, Zo’s mother, is a fifty-seven-year-old African Canadian mixed race woman. She is a tenured professor and teaches poetry at a local university. She is a well-known political activist and local legend who is notably anti-establishment. She encourages Zo to reach out to and build a relationship with their estranged father. She is reserved, playful, and thoughtful.

Kunle is Afolabi’s sixty-five-year-old father. He is Yoruba and lives in Nigeria with his wife Damilola. He is reserved and serious yet extra gentle with Afolabi. 

Elias is Zo’s estranged father. He is in his mid-fifties Igbo and lives in Nigeria with his family. He is interested in cultivating a relationship Zo and follows their lead as to what that looks like. He is gregarious.

Sharifa is Afolabi’s close friend and confidant, she is a queer African Muslim and also an immigrant to Canada. She is in a marriage of convenience with a close friend who is a queer Muslim man. She is funny – a jester and reliable. 

Sara is one of Zo’s lovers, she is in her late thirties/early forties. she is high femme and dominant in personality. Soft spoken and assertive. Her and Zo have a longstanding sexual relationship and friendship.

Donor is a thirty-five to forty-five year old cis man. He is pragmatic and kind. In friendship with Zo and Afolabi.