UPCOMING AUDITIONS FOR OCTOPUS’S GARDEN
OPEN CALL ALERT!
Monday, November 3rd 12PM-4:30 PM, 5:30-8PM
You do not need to be a part of AEA to audition nor will AEA actors be given priority. It is first come-first served. Please come to Boston Court to sign up in the lobby to audition. You are also welcome to come to the lobby in the morning to sign up for a later time and come back. Doors to the lobby and the sign-up sheet open at 11:00AM.
Please bring a physical headshot and resume and prepare a one-minute contemporary monologue. If auditioning primarily as a puppeteer, please prepare a one-minute movement sequence.
People at the Open Call will include: Jessica Kubzansky (Director, BCP Artistic Director), Victoria Hoffman (Casting Director), Jen Kays (Artistic Director, Circle X Theatre Co.), Jessica Hanna (Artistic Director, Outside In Theatre), Kat Haan (Literary Manager, Circle X Theatre Co.), Melissa Coleman-Reed (Assistant Director), and Alisha Grewal (BCP Artistic Associate).
OPEN CALL LOCATION:
Boston Court Pasadena
70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106
Parking is located behind the building. The parking lot will open at 10:00am. There is also 1 and 2 hour street parking surrounding Boston Court. Please enter through the front of the building into the lobby.
No email or online submissions will be accepted. No phone calls. Please email questions to: audition@bostoncourt.com.
Co-producers Circle X Theatre Co., Outside In Theatre, and
Boston Court Pasadena produce the world premiere of
Octopus’s Garden
by Weston Gaylord
Directed by Jessica Kubzansky
Casting Director: Victoria Hoffman
Production Location: All rehearsals and performances at Boston Court Pasadena, Pasadena, CA.
Dates:
First Rehearsal: 01/27/2026
Tech Begins: 2/19 – 2/25
Previews: 2/26, 2/27, 2/28, 3/1, 3/5, 3/6
Opening: 3/07/2026
Closing: 3/29/2026
Possible Two-Week Extension through 04/12/26
Contract: AEA Los Angeles 99-seat Theatre Agreement.
Rate of Pay: Actors are paid $19.00 per hour. There is no pension and health under this agreement. 36 hours of rehearsal maximum / one, and occasionally two days off per week.
Rehearsal Schedule: All at Boston Court Pasadena, rehearsals are generally nights and weekends, but could be some daytimes depending on cast availability, 36 hours per week possible. Generally, Mondays are off.
Performance Schedule: All at Boston Court Pasadena, schedule spans Thursdays through Mondays, with some Thursday and Friday morning student matinees at 10:30 am, then generally Fridays, Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2 pm, (occasional Mondays at 7:30 pm).
About the Play:
When two marine biologists and a struggling composer discover that an octopus in a cephalopod lab has written the most transcendent piece of music ever heard, their worlds begin to unravel. Ambitions clash, egos fray, and their brush with something divine breeds obsession. Innovative puppetry brings soulful theatricality to this fable about art, science, and the moral quandaries that erupt when another being surpasses humankind.
CHARACTER BREAKDOWN:
SEEKING:
[LUCAS] - Character portrayed is Male, mid-20s-early 30s, BIPOC. A passionate primarily classical composer in love with music. Obsessive, a sensitive artist deeply committed to his creative life, appealing, charming and open when he’s not stressed, insecure and susceptible to neurotic thought spirals when he’s really knocked off balance.
[TARA] - Character portrayed is Female, late 20s - mid 30s, BIPOC. A PhD in neurobiology, a thesis in cephalopod intelligence, ambitious, passionate, inherently an out-of-the-box thinker, inventive, stubborn, with a dry sense of humor. Her creative thinking makes her a good contrast to Lars’s commitment to the letter-of-the-law science. Tara’s more comfortable in the lab than in the world. Her controlled demeanor covers a terror of the unknowable and a deep vulnerability which drives her scientific seeking.
[LARS] - Character portrayed is Male, 40s to 50s, Any Ethnicity. A cephalopod scientist in the Marine Research Wing, comfortable with his modest scientific ambitions. He believes very deeply in methodology, rigor, and repeatable documentation, making him good ballast for Tara’s more innovative and unruly thinking. A passionate scuba diver empathetic to the animals in his care. Wry, dry, and usually has a good sense of humor, a man who cares about excellence in all his equipment, even to his headphones and speakers. Even-keeled, focused, rule-based, a man of integrity who fears the grey areas.
[SYLVIA] – The Titular Adult Female Giant Pacific Octopus. She is enormous. She has expansive, extensive arm-spans and her tentacles can move in a complex, searching manner. SYLVIA will be a puppet, or a series of puppets, played by three puppeteers.
FOR SYLVIA: THREE DEDICATED PUPPETEERS, ANY GENDER/ETHNICITY. These puppeteers will be actors, in the ideal world with some puppeteer experience, and/or expressive movement experience, as they will puppet Sylvia, or occasionally possibly embody her. Able to work both separately and as a part of a harmonious ensemble.
