Down a Post-Modern Rabbit Hole With Eurydice, UMass Boston Theatre’s Fall Mainstage Production
Auditions for Eurydice and New Voice, New Stories, Sep. 15, 16
It’s a derelict dance club with a demonic industrial DJ in the underworld, a romanticized fairy tale overworld that just might be even more dangerous. Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice comes to UMass Boston's University Hall Theatre, opening November 12, and director Carrie Ann Quinn is getting ready to go down the rabbit hole in a world where you “dance forever, with no memories to bother you.”
Eurydice is a retelling of the myth of Orpheus but takes place in present times, says Quinn. The play premiered in 2003, and an Off-Broadway production at Second Stage Theater landed a slew of Drama League and Drama Desk Awards.
“It’s a remarkable and exciting piece to stage,” said Quinn. “The real world and Hades, the underworld, appear on stage simultaneously. In our production, the underworld is a warehouse dance club, music from the 1970’s through 2020’s, an endless pulsing afterparty,” she said.
“The overworld is a heavenly wedding venue and penthouse, full of predators,” she said. “In a way, it’s a modern ‘Alice in Wonderland’, going down a rabbit hole where the dead dance forever, no longer saddled with memories.”
The University Hall Theatre will transform again to a thrust stage, audience on three sides, with “a river of forgetfulness running through it.”
Auditions for all roles will take place Tuesday, September 15, 6-9 p.m., and Wednesday, September 16, 2-5 p.m., and are open to all UMass Boston students, regardless of major. Auditioners are asked to prepare a 1–2-minute monologue. One audition can result in casting for Eurydice or New Voices, New Stories, A Celebration of UMass Boston Playwrights.
The sign up form is available on UMBEinvolved at umb.campusgroups.com.
“We’re always looking for new faces, and I encourage everyone to audition,” Quinn said. “With a play like this, I’m looking for actors to show strength in their monologue. But also, be brave, silly, and show your own unique personality.”
“One audition, two shows,” Quinn said. “New Voices in particular is a fantastic opportunity for those with less, or no, theatre experience to try it out, as it’s seven short plays in stage reading format with a shorter rehearsal process.”
New Voices, New Stories: A Celebration of Student Playwrights will run on October 8 and 9, 7:30 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on October 10. That event is free, no reservation required. It features plays by Donovan Ambroise, Deleyah Creese, Michelle Dang, Lucy Rogers, Hannah Lee Rolston, Valentina Valderrama Pérez, and Jalyse I. Ware. Dramaturgy by Ginger Lazarus, Directed by Michael Fennimore, and student directors Natalia Molina and Rolston.
Eurydice will run November 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20 at 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on November 14 and 21. Tickets are $13 for students, faculty and staff, $18 for the general public, and will go on sale on The Performing Arts page at UMBeinvolved in mid-September.
Follow UMass Boston Performing Arts on UMBeinvolved for all performance and audition information for Music, Theatre Arts, and Dance.