2025-2026 SEASON AUDITIONS

SEAT OF THE PANTS announces auditions for our 2025-26 season. Please read the below information thoroughly and feel free to reach out to craig@seatofthepants.org with any questions.

GENERAL AUDITIONS
This season, our general auditions will be conducted entirely by video submission.

  • If you’ve auditioned for Seat of the Pants before, you do not have to do a general audition, though you may opt to if you have new material you’d like to share. If you opt not to, proceed directly to the SHOW-SPECIFIC AUDITIONS section below.

  • If you’ve not auditioned for us before, please submit your headshot, resumé, and a video of two contrasting monologues to submissions@seatofthepants.org by end-of-day on Wednesday, May 7th. We’ll follow up to either set up a show-specific audition or let you know that we won’t be requiring your talents this season.

SHOW-SPECIFIC AUDITIONS
Our show-specific auditions will take place in person, so that we have the opportunity to watch you play with others in the space and experience aspects of our rehearsal process.

If you’ve auditioned for Seat of the Pants before, we invite you to send us your headshot, resumé, and Equity status to submissions@seatofthepants.org, also letting us know for which show(s) you’d like to be considered and if you have any accessibility needs that we can help accommodate in person. We’ll follow up to either set up a show-specific audition time or let you know that we won’t be requiring your talents this season.

During these sessions, you:

  • do NOT need to bring another headshot and resumé,

  • should bring along your calendar,

  • should arrive 10-15 minutes early to fill out an audition form,

  • can expect to hang out with us for 1-2 hours, depending on what you’re being considered for, and

  • will, we hope, feel relaxed and comfortable to just play with some other actors in a room around a given text.

Audition sessions will be as follows:
THE CHILDREN: Thursday, May 8th from 6-10 PM
THE BOOK CLUB PLAY: Saturday, May 10th from 10AM-2PM
ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD: Saturday, May 17th from 10AM-2PM
All three sessions will be held at Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ, 2592 West 14th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113.

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW:

*We’re an itinerant theatre company, rehearsing and performing around Northeast Ohio. Be thinking about how far you’re willing to drive for both rehearsals and performances - and we’ll give you a chance to answer that question on your audition form.

*Our rehearsal processes vary in length, but are longer than the typical 4 weeks and as long as 3 months; we do this because we relish the chance to build an ensemble and really live with a play for a season before mounting it for an audience. What does this look like? For the first portion of time, we rehearse just once or twice a week to play and experiment together. During this time, we’re learning technique, experimenting with tools that may or may not make their way into the final process, and building a common vocabulary together as an ensemble. The final 5 weeks are a more traditional rehearsal schedule of five or six times a week. While monetary compensation begins in this last leg of the rehearsal process, our actors receive other forms of compensation through getting to work with guest artists who teach technique during the earlier process weeks and gaining an arsenal of new tools to enhance their craft. Will we ask you to work differently? Yes. Will it be a rewarding experience? Also yes.

*All roles are paid. We hire both Equity and non-Equity actors. We anticipate utilizing 3-5 Tier One Guest Artist Equity contracts for the season. Non-Equity compensation will be $700.

*The auditions will be observed by Seat of the Pants directors, assistant directors, and producers: Chris Bohan, Scott Esposito, Jeannine Gaskin, Craig Joseph, Zyrece Montgomery, and Kadijah Wingo.

*Unless you elect not to be, everyone who auditions will also be considered for our Salon Series of new play readings we’ll be doing over the course of the year.

*Seat of the Pants is committed to fostering creative spaces that are accessible, inclusive, and equitable. There are some roles in this season that necessitate a specific cultural or racial life experience; those are noted in the breakdown. Beyond those specific roles, we want to acknowledge that, while all the characters in these shows present on a cis-gendered binary, this is not at all a mandate for the actors we hire. Please submit for any and all roles you are comfortable with and interested in portraying.  

Read this far? Congrats! Here are the plays:

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

THE CHILDREN, by Lucy Kirkwood
Rehearsals: 5-6 times a week, beginning September 14, 2025
Performances: October 24 - November 9, 2025

Synopsis: Two aging nuclear scientists reside in an isolated cottage by the sea, as the world crumbles around them. Then, an old friend arrives with a frightening request. “The Children raises profound questions about whether having children sharpens, or diminishes, one’s sense of social responsibility…a genuinely disturbing play: one not simply about nuclear power but about the heavy price we may pay in the future for the profligacy of the present.”

ROSE: 60s, female-presenting, any race. The guest.
HAZEL: 60s, female-presenting, any race. Married to Robin.
ROBIN: 60s, male-presenting, any race. Married to Hazel.


ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD, by George Brant
Process: 1-2 times a week, beginning November 16, 2025
Rehearsals: 5-6 times a week, beginning January 4, 2026
Performances: February 6-22, 2026

Synopsis: The true tale of the tragic 1916 collision of a struggling circus and a tiny town in Tennessee, Elephant's Graveyard combines historical fact and legend, exploring the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge.

THE CIRCUS
THE RINGMASTER: Any race, obsessed with the bottom line
TRAINER: Male-presenting, any race, loves his work
BALLET GIRL: Female-presenting, any race, a showgirl in control
TOUR MANAGER: Any race, bit of a bully
STRONGMAN: Male-presenting, any race, a proud muscleman
from Europe’s far off shores
CLOWN: Any race, a comedian with an inferiority complex
DRUMMER: Any race, keeps the beat - This role will be played by a hired musician and will not be auditioned.
THE TOWN
HUNGRY TOWNSPERSON: Black, a steel trap memory
MARSHAL: Any race, keeps the peace
MUDDY TOWNSPERSON: Female-presenting, any race, a haunted widow
PREACHER: Any race, doggedly hopeful
STEAM SHOVEL OPERATOR: Any race, looking for escape
YOUNG TOWNSPERSON: Any race, excitable dreamer
GUITARIST: Any race, sets the rhythm - This role will be played by our music director, Zach Palumbo, and will not be auditioned.
THE RAILROAD
ENGINEER: Male-presenting, any race, confident Time is on his side

Casting Note: Roles may be played by any race or gender except when specified above.


THE BOOK CLUB PLAY, by Karen Zacarías
Process: 1-2 times a week, beginning March 1, 2026
Rehearsals: 5-6 times a week, beginning April 12, 2026
Performances: May 15-31, 2026

Synopsis: Loads of laughter and literature collide in this smart hit comedy about books and the people who love them. Ana is a Type A personality who lives in a letter-perfect world with an adoring husband, the perfect job, and her greatest passion: Book Club. But when her cherished group becomes the focus of a documentary film, their intimate discussions about life and literature take a turn for the hilarious in front of the inescapable camera lens. The Book Club Play is a delightful play about life, love, literature and the side-splitting results when friends start reading between the lines.

ANA SMITH: 30s, female-presenting. Pronounced “Ah-nuh.” Beautiful. Charming. Smart. Accomplished. Organized. A columnist for a daily paper. The “Mother Bee.” Her grace masks a need to control.
ROBERT NOVUM SMITH: 30s, male-presenting. Ana’s golden-boy, handsome, charismatic, underachiever husband who is starting to search for meaning. Met in college. Upper-crust background. Also plays SAM, a Wal-Mart guy.
WILLIAM LEE NOTHNAGEL: 30s, male-presenting. Rob’s conservative, well-read, well-dressed, disciplined college roommate. Ana’s former boyfriend. History buff. Unmarried. Also plays FRANK, a Secret Service agent.
JENNIFER MCCLINTOCK: 30s, female-presenting. Ana’s friend. Pretty. Shy. Smart. Tends to burst out with awkward truthful comments. Despite some lack of self-confidence, she is the grounding center of the group. Unorganized and oblivious to her own attractiveness. Unmarried. Also plays ELSA, a jaded literary agent.
LILY LOUISE JACKSON: 20s, Black, female-presenting. A go-getter. Former debate captain who is on the cusp of all current trends and yet can still put her foot in her mouth in social occasions. Laughs at appropriate and inappropriate times. A great lover of books and Ana’s protégé at the paper. Also plays MRS. SIMPSON, a sky diver.
ALEX: 30s, male-presenting. The new guy. A very smart, well-read academic who has lost his moorings and is searching for real connection. Professor of comparative literature. Also plays CARL, an inmate book dealer.


Read The Children HERE.
Read Elephant’s Graveyard HERE.
Read The Book Club Play HERE.