Objective a New Play | New York Theatre Festival

DESCRIPTION

Casting all ages and all roles for "Objective a New Play".

Premiering at the New York Theater Festival this July. In this poetic and inventive episodic play, the everyday objects we overlook: wedding rings, traffic lights, kitchen spices, roller skates, and more reveal the secret lives they’ve been living beside us. Bearing witness to love, loss, identity, ambition, and change, these anthropomorphic voices challenge us to reconsider what it truly means to be seen.

Commitment: Meets for 7 total tbd rehearsals (three of which are virtual and require Zoom) between June 22nd and July 15th. Tech is July 16 from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM, and the show runs July 16 @ 6:15 PM - Thursday, July 18 @ 2:15 PM, Saturday, and July 19 @ 6:00 PM - Sunday. Playing at the Teatro LATEA 107 Suffolk St. New York, NY.

Must live in New York or have appropriate housing for in-person rehersals and run of the show.

$250.00 stipend plus 2% of ticket profit.

unlimited free tickets to all festival shows this season

multi-angle 4k proshot for reels

Now accepting self-tapes. Please submit a tape of one of the eight audition sides (below casting breakdown) and submit using this link:

https://forms.gle/bg8PinsktvewLicv9

Please feel free to email us with any questions! We look forward to seeing your submissions.
[email protected]

Casting Breakdown:

Seven Players that make up the following Objects:

Coffee Pot, Plastic Straw, Double-Sided Mirror, Red Leaf, Glasses, Red Light, Gold Leaf, RIght Sock, Green Light, Roller Skates, Hairbrush, Salt, Orange Leaf, Stuffed Animal, Paper Straw, Umbrella, Parkl Bench, Wedding Ring, Pen, Welcome Mat, Pepper, Yellow Light

Audition Sides:

COMEDIC Coffee Pot - Female Identifying (Any Race)

COMEDIC Umbrella - Female Identifying (Black)

DRAMATIC Roller Skates - Female Identifying (Any Race)

DRAMATIC Hairbrush - Female Identifying (White)

DRAMATIC Wedding Ring - Male Identifying (Any Race)

DRAMATIC Double Sided Mirror - Male Identifying (Black)

COMEDIC Pen - Male Identifying (Any Race)

COMEDIC Park Bench - Male Identifying (Any Race)

COFFEE POT AUDITION CUT

Everyone needs their coffee. And do I deliver? My hot liquid wake-me-up juice at 9 AM never misses a beat. My lukewarm liquid that’ll-do juice at 2 PM isn’t half bad either. In fact, that’s my real peak hour. The post-lunch haze brings in the troops, marching to me for reinforcements. And leading the charge every Tuesday at 2:00 PM is Carla from Cubicle 14B. Five-foot-nothing, cardigan in every color, the kind of smile that looks laminated. Always chirps “Another Tuesday, another to-do list” or worse: on Wednesdays she pulls out that laminated smile and in the deepest voice she can, hollers, “Yo yo yo, hump day!” Millennial bitch. I sometimes overheat her coffee just enough to scorch the roof of her mouth and shut her the fuck up. And despite the temperature between us, she fills her mug more than any of the almost two hundred workers here. I get a bad attitude every time I hear her low-toe clogs prance over. Like, why you gotta work so hard? I mean, Carla exhausts herself: hours and hours, file after file, email after email, flow chart after pie chart, color-coded, labeled, lavender-scented. From my corner in the breakroom, I know Carla’s cubicle like my own countertop: a photo of her husband John, her laptop with her seven-year-old daughter Rhonda as the screensaver, a stress ball shaped like a globe, and a “Got Insurance?” mug. Years went by and I figured Carla was just one of those people that loved her job, nothing more to it than that. My annoyance became respect. I figured her work ethic was consistent, my hazelnut roast was consistent—we good.

UMBRELLA AUDITION CUT

Now Rosalind—Lord, that woman. Grandmother, forty-nine going on four-hundred, stretched thin by everybody else’s needs. Kids so grown they got gray in their beards, still knockin’ on her door, beggin’ for twenty dollars, for babysitting, for “just a place to crash, Mama.” And she gave it—every damn time. Gave her time, gave her money, gave her back and her knees. A woman with a whole ocean inside her, but kept poured into Dixie cups. But every month, Auntie Pearl came to town. Younger sister with no kids, no husband, hair done, nails tastefully red as stoplights. Pearl would sweep Rosalind off to O’Malley’s for two gin-and-tonics and a basket of curly fries, and Rosalind would laugh again. This one night, Pearl leaned in across that sticky bar table and said, “Rosie, why you lettin’ them kids eat you alive? Girl, you've been raisin’ everybody else’s babies, when you gon’ raise yourself?” And Rosalind would laugh—half laugh, half sigh. “Don’t got time for me, Pearl. Somebody’s always needin’ somethin’.” Pearl shook her head, earrings swinging, and said, “Then you gotta make time. Pack it up, hit the road, start over. You ain’t dead yet.” I was sitting leaned up against the coat rack when I saw Rosalind start to stir her drink real slow like, looking at the lime floating like it knew somethin’. I saw it. The seed Pearl had planted that very night. The next morning, Rosalind snapped, left a note taped to the front door that read, “Mama gone to live her life now.” Backpack half-zipped. Me, tucked under her arm. She didn’t even lock the door. And wouldn’t you know it—the skies opened to a rain that did not let up for twenty-four hours. As that water crashed against my ferrule, I knew the whole world was gonna baptize her clean. I’m talking Texas pour, thick as bathwater, sky hanging low like a swollen belly ready to burst. Rosalind ran to catch the bus, ordered herself a ticket, and when I looked down at the receipt I said aww shit, we going to Illinios!

ROLLER SKATES AUDITION CUT

It happened to be one of the rare Saturdays I’d see Cynthia and on that night, he showed up. I’d never seen him before, tall, a little shy, handsome as hell and standing by the arcade. Turns out he was here through the new international program at the university. They had started inviting students from all over Asia: Japan, South Korea, India, Thailand. Cynthia spotted him almost right away. I believe the song was You Should Be Dancing… no no, it was Statin’ Alive. She skated over, smiling, and said something like, “Hey, you dance?” He blinked, hesitated… and then it happened, they both realized there was a clear language barrier. She laughed. He grinned. And without any more talking, she gestured toward the floor. Now as much as I love romantic hyperbole, I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that those first laps were clumsy. She’d glide left, he’d wobble right, they’d nearly collide at the corners. But the music worked its magic. Step, glide, step-glide-turn. She found his rhythm. He matched her speed. Her laugh became the bridge, his smile the chorus. I felt her pulse through my laces, the weight of her leaning in, I trusted my spins and the momentum. But when the lights faded deep blue and How Deep is Your Love played—they skated this much closer, fingertips brushing, faces reflecting the aquatic welling of the blue LEDs, their movements falling into sync without a single word. Every lean, every push, every spin said, I’m with you in this moment. I’m here. I’m not letting go. I was working so hard down there trying to guide them around the rink, I couldn’t even see if they kissed… to this day I wonder. No one knew it then, but that night was the rink’s last night. The owner sold the place, the doors shut, and the Starlite Groove froze in time. But when I close my eyes, I’m still there…

HAIRBRUSH AUDITION CUT

Susan picks me up every morning, and I become her hand. Layla sits on the stool in front of the mirror, six years old, eyes wide and wary. She knows this is going to hurt. She flinches before I even touch her scalp. Susan’s pale hand brushes past her daughter’s darker honey-brown skin with the first aimless tug — sharp. Daughter’s shoulders shoot up. Susan whispers out, “sorry, sweet pea, sorry. Almost done.” Although we both know it’s never almost done. Her dad, Derrell, loves her fiercely. Coaches basketball out back, shows up to every recital with flowers. But hair? Kept his kinky coils at a buzz cut for as long as they’ve owned me, so he would kiss her curls and tap out. “This one’s yours, Suze.” One Saturday morning, Derrell got up early with his daughter and gave it a shot. As he held me in his hands with no products on the sink, I said to myself, “well this one is up to God.” Layla went to church with one puff sliding down the side of her head like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He laughed, she cried, and Susan fixed it. I remember sitting on the bed late into the night with Susan pantomiming brush strokes in preparation for the school week, trying new creams, oils, YouTube tutorials. And yet, morning would come and half the time the knots won. The other half, Layla stomps away, cheeks wet, scalp sore. And Susan stays there, holding me, wondering if she’ll ever get it right, pondering what it really means to have a Black daughter and the added responsibility. The two of us felt like failures, but we both knew that whatever it was we were feeling, was worse for Layla. One morning, Layla stares into the mirror and unfiltered curiosity blurts out, “why can’t I have hair like yours, Mom? Why does mine always hurt? Everybody says it’s messy.” Susan freezes. She crouches down, me still in her hand, swallows and replies, “because people don’t understand what they don’t have. My hair just falls. Yours grows up high to the sky. It remembers where it came from. It’s strong. And it’s beautiful.” Layla frowns, “but it hurts,” and her mom simply said, “because I’m still learning. We’ll learn together. I promise.”

WEDDING RING AUDITION CUT

Fred found her there, literally. Slipped me from his pocket and said, “Daisy, your world doesn't end today. It begins tomorrow and ten years from now. Picture this: it’s the summer of 1999. You’re standing under a Cortland apple tree. It’s tall, gives shade. You’re holding a basket heavy with the same type of apples you picked in 1998 for Thanksgiving when the whole house smelt like turkey and cinnamon. 1997, ‘96, ‘95. You lean against the doorway of the house we built together in 1994. A summer night on the porch steps. Fireflies blinking on the fields in 1993, ‘92, ‘91. Further still—we’re at the stove stirrin’ soup, singin’ Garth Brooks unbearably off-key. Because Daisy, one day you will look back at 1990, carryin’ boxes into a farmhouse that still smells like fresh paint and there will be a skinny stick of a tree that I planted for you and when I promised you apples. Every laugh, every bared fruit, every note sung out of tune can and will happen because your world will not end in 1989.” Fred took her finger and on the curb, with the city spinning too fast, Daisy said yes. Not because she believed every detail, but because Fred believed enough for the both of them. They moved to that farm, started hammering boards, digging soil. Daisy planted her books on the shelves, Fred planted her the Cortland in the backyard. That tree grew quick, by their second anniversary it was taller than the kitchen window, by their third it was blossoming, and by their fourth Daisy pulled the first bright apple into her hands. Sweet and tart, juice running down her hand, getting me all sticky but I didn’t mind. But five years in, Fred got sick. Cancer can be cruel and quiet. And in the fall of that same fifth year, the Cortland bore its heaviest harvest and Fred slipped away. I’ve sat on Daisy’s hand ever since, a circle of gold heavy with memory. I believe that you never die if you are alive in the souls and minds of the people you touch in your time on earth; it's called impact. If you need proof, every spring when the blossoms open, Fred is still around to keep his promise. He told Daisy that her world wouldn’t end the day she lost her home. And it didn’t end the day she lost him, either. Because that tree is still there. The house is still there. The love is still there. And with those apples swinging on that Cortland, I’ve re-learned that beginnings are tucked inside even the hardest endings.

DOUBLE SIDED MIRROR AUDITION CUT

Daniel would sit by me on the bathroom sink swiping through dating apps and see the same vitriol disguised as “preferences.” Whole sentences or often, no replies, that told him he was unworthy before they even knew his name. Sometimes, I wanted to crack, just so he’d see both sides from my shards at once. So he’d know he wasn’t broken — just whole in a way the world isn’t built to recognize. I laughed when he used me to pop a zit, or line up his brows, or practice faces before a date… and there were some questionable faces. But I would cry — yes, mirrors cry, it looks like condensation — I cried when an eyelash would fall out of his eye and he’d wish upon that eyelash to be beautiful. Because I had no answer. All I could do was show him his reflection. See, I know what it feels like to be one thing and another, and never both in peace. To be forced into halves when your beauty is in your wholeness. Daniel was never unworthy. He was everything, reflected twice. He was beautiful. He was resilient and in the face of shut doors, he knocked those fucking doors down. And someday — someday — I hope this world learns to look at us without flipping, without choosing. To see both sides at once. Because that’s the only way any of us will ever see the whole.

PEN AUDITION CUT

I live in a drawer. Not a glamorous drawer — no felt lining, no little compartments, no festive knob. Just… the kitchen drawer. They say it takes a village, and boy is there a village in here. A gum package that’s been stuck to the same receipt for six years — swears she’s above us because she’s sugar free, but she’s still here, so. The receipt can’t stand her, which makes for some pretty entertaining midnight knock-down-drag-outs. A calculator that calls himself “vintage” — that’s the PC way of saying “replaced by Siri.” And a notepad that only dreams in grocery lists. Nice enough folks, but… I’m different. I’m meant for more. I can feel it in my ink. They’re all content with lint poker, four corners, and listening to the radio from the top shelf. Not me. Sunday is the only day that matters. Grocery day. My jailbreak. The notepad comes too — front page crisp, ready to be sacrificed. The calculator? Retired. The gum? No one’s that desperate. On Sundays, I see the world. Or at least aisle six. Mr. Thompson always writes his list in the parking lot. Eggs. Milk. Cereal. Viagra. Never anything exciting, like “sauvignon blanc” or “filet mignon.” Still, I think, this could be it. This could be the day I write something big — a poem, a resignation letter, “to be or not to be,” or “good luck, and don’t fuck it up,” or even “in the criminal justice system…” blah blah blah “…these are their stories.” But no. Just “FROZEN PEAS” in all caps.

PARK BENCH AUDITION CUT

Brothers, sisters, and miscellaneous non-binary wood — I hereby call this emergency session of Local 342: United Benches & Allied Fixtures to order. Let the minutes reflect that attendance is mandatory, though, as usual, the picnic tables are late, due to a luncheon… bougie motherfuckers. First grievance on the docket: gum. Chewing gum. Industrial strength, mint-flavored cement. Forty years of jaw DNA fossilized under us, and has the Parks Department paid us a red cent in hazard pay? No. We are basically petri dishes with wood screws. Second grievance: vandalism. Let me say this out loud for the record — if I had a dollar for every dick someone carved into my backrest, I could retire myself, buy the Parks Department, and still have enough left over for an all out orgy. We are no longer valued pieces of city infrastructure and more a pornographic sketchbook for the bored and unsupervised. Third grievance: public indecency. Folks, we are not Motel 6! Yet every Friday night, some pair of exhibitionists decide that we’re a memory foam mattress with moonroofs, and it’s a game of Russian roulette as to which of us are gonna be struck. If you’re wondering whether I’m sanitized — I’m not. You’re sitting in history.

DURATION

Jun 22, 2026 - Jul 19, 2026

• NON-UNION

Salary : $250