The Garfield Center for the Arts and Director JW Ruth have announced audition dates for Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s 1969 dark satire “Happy Birthday, Wanda June.”
Auditions will occur at the Garfield Center on Saturday, June 22nd, at 2:00 PM, and Monday and Tuesday, June 24th and 25th, both at 6:30 PM. Anyone who auditions will be asked to do cold readings from the script.
In this postmodern retelling of the Odyssey, famous war hero and big game hunter Harold Ryan returns from an ill-fated 8-year quest in the Amazon to a country and a family that seem to have moved on without him. Penelope, his presumed widow, has begun dating, much to the disapproval of her spoiled son Paul, and is currently between two suitors, vacuum cleaner salesman Herb Shuttle and hippie physician Norbert Woodley. With the turn of a key, Harold is back in the picture, and the household is filled with more tension than the Trojan war, now the Ryan family must make sense of this change as Vonnegut steadily questions if the world still has a place for heroes.
Character breakdowns provided by the Director:
HAROLD RYAN – 50+ – The Midcentury Odysseus. A rich and widely respected hero of WWII, big game hunter, and adventurer extraordinaire. Equally as charismatic as he is bullheaded.
PENELOPE RYAN – 30s – The levelheaded and well-articulated wife of Harold Ryan whose life is completely upended with the return of her husband.
PAUL RYAN – 12 – The growing son of Harold. A pampered mama’s boy who idolizes the father he never met.
DR. NORBERT WOODLEY – 30s – Neighbor to the Ryans, family physician, and suitor of Penelope. A man of science and peace who is deeply engrossed into the hippie counterculture.
HERB SHUTTLE – 30s – Door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, boy scout leader, and suitor of Penelope. He equally reveres and fears the legend of Harold Ryan.
COLONEL LOOSELEAF HARPER – 50+ – The dim-witted and talkative best friend of Harold Ryan who accompanied the hero in his Amazonian quest for diamonds. An ex-army pilot who ended his military carrier by dropping the nuclear bomb over Nagasaki.
WANDA JUNE – 10 – an overwhelmingly adorable, Shirley Temple-type who recently celebrated her birthday by getting run over by an ice cream truck. She is now a ghost, in heaven, and is loving every second of it.
MAJOR SIEGFRIED VON KONISGWALD – 50+ – Ex-SS officer known as “The Beast of Yugoslavia.” After famously being slayed by Harold during WWII, he is now a ghost in heaven spending his eternity playing shuffleboard with Wanda June.
MILDRED RYAN – 30s – The ex-wife of Harold, whose marriage later inspired her alcohol-induced death, is now a ghost in heaven who spends most of her time in paradise stuck in AA meetings.
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