Carmel Community Players is excited to announce auditions for “Other Desert Cities”, written by John Robin Baitz, directed by Jim LaMonte, produced by Risa Krauter. Production dates are three weekends, January 26-February 11, 2018, Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 pm, Sundays, 2:30 pm.
Auditions will be October 15 & 16 at 7 pm at CCP located at 14299 Clay Terrace Blvd., Carmel, IN 46032.
Auditioners will read from the script. Prepared monologues are encouraged but not required.
In this searing comedy-drama, young writer Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs to celebrate Christmas with her famous and politically-connected parents, brother and aunt. When she announces her plans to publish a tell-it-all memoir of crucial events in the family’s past, she brings to light old wounds, family secrets, scandal and intrigue. “The script crackles with wit, humor and life”. This riveting and humorous play was nominated for a 2012 Tony Award for Best Play and was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.
Characters
Lyman Wyeth: (Late 50’s to late 70’s): Kind and gentle patriarch. A Hollywood B actor with some celebrity and charm who turned that into political influence. He is conservative but with a sense of humor about himself and a deep love for his family. “He is sturdy in the way of old Californians of a particular type.” (Baitz)
Polly Wyeth: (Late 50’s to late 70’s) Lyman’s wife. Graceful and acerbic matriarch. She has been active for decades in the Republican Party. She is deeply devoted to the preservation of her social standing, her family and the health of her husband. “Elegant and forthright and whip-smart.” (Baitz)
Brooke Wyeth: (Mid 30’s to 40’s) Lyman and Polly’s adult daughter. She is a professional writer who has been living in New York after a mental breakdown. Her tortured relationship with her family has centered on her opposing Liberal political views. “An attractive and dry woman.” (Baitz)
Trip Wyeth: (Late 20’s to mid 30’s) Brooke’s brother. Witty and self-effacing. He is a TV producer for reality TV – in a family obsessed with his intellectual, older sister’s mental health. He assumes the role of second banana with grace. “A bright, funny man.” (Baitz
Silda Grauman: (late 50’s to early 70’s) Polly’s sister. Creative, fragile, and funny. A former B movie writer, and the Bohemian, polar opposite of her sister. She is fresh out of rehab and repays the support of the conservative Wyeths by joining Brooke in some liberal needling of her parents. “A mess. No makeup, hair disheveled. She wears a muumuu and carries a pill case marked with the days of the week.” (Baitz)
Other Desert Cities Plot Summary:
It’s December 2004 and Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs after a six year absence to celebrate Christmas with her parents, her brother and her aunt. Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history – a wound they don't want reopened. In effect, she draws a line in the sand and dares them all to cross it.
Every character is smart, quick-witted and deeply flawed. The parents are wealthy, well-connected Republican activists and friends of the Reagans. Lyman Wyeth, an actor known for his death scenes, has been state GOP chair. Polly, his wife and ferocious protector, is a forceful practitioner of tough love – with her children as well as her liberal, alcoholic sister and former screenwriting partner, Silda, now recovering from her latest round of rehab. Lefty daughter Brooke is a novelist who's been going through a rough patch of writer's block and a breakdown that involved a long hospital stint. She's home for the holidays, as is her younger brother, apolitical TV producer Trip. And she's brought her manuscript, snapped up by Knopf, which tells the story of her beloved, older brother's involvement in the fatal Vietnam War-era bombing of a military recruitment center, his suicide and their parents' responsibility for his actions.
