Auditions:
Four Accidental Death of an Anarchist

by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, adapted by Tom Basden

directed by Joy Hellyer and Paul Kay

 

Dates: Auditions - 7.35 pm on Tuesday 5 May with call-backs at 7.35 pm on Wednesday 6 May

Venue (also for rehearsals and performances): Cochran Hall, 106 Cashmere Avenue, Khandallah

Rehearsals: Readthrough Sunday 10 May at 3 pm. Thereafter, Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons until Thursday 9 July.

Technical and dress rehearsals: Afternoon and evening of Sunday 12 July, and evenings of Monday 13 July and Wednesday 15 July - you must be available for these.

Season: 7 performances: evenings of 16, 17, 18 and 23, 24, 25 July, and a matinee on the afternoon of 19 July.

To register for an audition

  1. Check the audition, rehearsal and performance dates - are you available?

  2. Register your interest by emailing katmembership@gmail.com. Give your phone number. If you can’t audition on 1 or 3 February, let us know and we’ll see if we can arrange another date and time for you.

  3. When we receive your email, we’ll send you the links to the audition pieces and a form for you to fill in.

  4. Come along to the audition.

The plays and characters

This is a recent translation and adaptation of the famous farce written in 1970 by Italian writers Dario Fo (Nobel Prize in Literature 1997) and Franca Rame. Accidental Death of an Anarchist is based on a true story – the death of Guiseppe Pinelli, an Italian anarchist, during a police investigation in 1969. This adaptation updates the story to 2020s London.

The roles

  • Any age or gender.. The central mercurial figure who drives the action throughout the play, ‘The Maniac’ is a master of acting and disguise. ‘The Maniac’ impersonates various figures, including a judge and a psychiatrist. While The Maniac instigates the ridiculous, they are not themselves ridiculous (unless by design). The actor playing this role will need to convincingly carry off The Maniac’s ‘impersonations’ and get the audience onside from the outset.

  • Male. Plain clothes detective and bit of a pit bull.

  • Male. Bumbling, self-important authority figure who becomes increasingly frantic through The Maniac's manipulations.

  • Male. Old-school detective, nervous and excitable, desperate to avoid scandal and maintain the cover-up.

  • Female. Professional investigative journalist seeking the truth into the Anarchist’s death. Smart and sceptical.

  • Any gender. Low ranking officer, ‘just doing my job’. At the beck and call of the superintendent.

  • Female. Works for Inspector Burton. Quietly sensible but not far enough up the hierarchy to change behaviours.