Auditions for Gruesome Playground Injuries
Director: Akeem Davis, amdavis@brynmawr.edu
All interested students are invited to Theater Games on Wednesday, Sept. 1, from 5-6:30 p.m. where they can meet guest director Akeem Davis and ask questions about the auditions and the production. Students will also have a chance to hear about and ask questions about other theater program offerings at that time and to meet the rest of the theater program faculty and staff. Theater Games, and all theater program offerings, are open to all students, regardless of their level of experience.
Admission to ARTT B253 002 Theater Ensembles and ARTT B353 002 Advanced Theater Ensembles courses is by audition. Sign-up for auditions at Theater Games or on the day of the audition. The course can be taken for academic credit, PE credit, or just for fun.
Auditions at Bryn Mawr
- Thursday, Sept. 2 | 6-9 p.m. | Common Room, Goodhart Hall (enter through glass atrium doors at side of building)
Auditions at Haverford
- Saturday, Sept. 4 | 1-3 p.m. | Stokes 104
Callbacks at Bryn Mawr
- Tuesday, Sept. 7 | 5-7 p.m., times to be assigned | Common Room, Goodhart Hall
Performances
- Friday-Sunday, November 12-14 and Thursday-Saturday, November 18-20 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Hall
Director's Notes
Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph is the fast-paced, intense story of Kayleen and Doug, two characters whose intertwined histories and romantic tension play out over scenes that span different ages in their lives. Bouncing between grade school interactions and adult clashes, the play races toward a desperately consequential final reckoning in their lives.
The play is Realism. The characters and setting are both portrayed in the present-day, modern world. Our playwright reconfigures time and space to give us a completely deconstructed, non-sequential order of events. In this way, our handle on "who's telling the story" shifts aggressively and often and makes for a wild, turbulent journey.
An ensemble of eight to 10 actors will bring this poignantly turbulent story to life by not only inhabiting the two characters at their varied ages but shifting the stage to create the different settings of their lives. Cast across race, age and gender identity, the ensemble will literally have a hand in "setting the scene" for what will be a dynamic presentation of a relationship under constant strain. The play is an exciting opportunity to set actors loose in a dialectic about the intermingled qualities of love, codependency, self-image and—ultimately—our tolerance for pain.
For more details, contact director Akeem Davis at amdavis@brynmawr.edu.
About the Writer and Director
Akeem Davis, of Miami, Fla., is a Philadelphia-based actor and educator. He is a six‐time Barrymore Award nominee, recipient of the 2015 F. Otto Haas Award for Emerging Artist, and a nominee for Theatre Washington's Helen Hayes Award. His roles at Philadelphia's Arden Theater include Tiny Beautiful Things (a stage version of Cheryl Strayed's bestselling book), Ibsen's A Doll’s House (Barrymore Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor), and August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. When a scheduled Arden role in A Streetcar Named Desire was postponed due to the pandemic, Davis pivoted to appear in Lantern Theater’s virtual play reading of Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona. He has also performed at People’s Light and Theater, Theatre Horizon, InterAct Theatre, Theatre Exile, and the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival. Akeem, who is from Miami, is a graduate of Florida State University and a man of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Rajiv Joseph's play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. Rajiv’s New York productions include Animals Out of Paper (Second Stage Theatre, summer 2008), The Leopard and the Fox (Alter Ego, fall 2007), Huck and Holden (Cherry Lane Theatre, 2006), and All This Intimacy (Second Stage Theatre, 2006). In Los Angeles Huck and Holden was produced by The Black Dahlia Theatre in 2006. Through the Lark Play Development Center, Rajiv has traveled to Mexico and Romania, where Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was translated into Spanish and Romanian, respectively, and performed in staged readings. Rajiv has been awarded the Paula Vogel Award by the Vineyard Theatre and the 2009 Kesselring Fellowship. Rajiv is a Founding Member of the new New York based theater company The Fire Department and was a contributing writer on their first two theatrical events, Speakeasy and At War: American Playwrights Respond to the War in Iraq. He is a former Lark Playwriting Fellow and Dramatists Guild Fellow. His plays have been published by Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service, and Smith & Kraus. He received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Miami University and his M.F.A. in Playwriting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and he is currently a Language Lecturer at NYU with the School of Art and Public Policy and the Expository Writing Program. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa.
“Rajiv Joseph is an artist of original talent.” —NY Times.
About the Theater Program
The Theater Program of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges strives to foster creative collaboration between students and faculty, and its productions have won accolades from area critics. Visit the Theater Program page for more information. For news and exclusive content, please like "Bi-College Theater Program at Bryn Mawr College" on Facebook, and follow @bicotheater on Instagram and @BrynMawrArts on Twitter.
Theater Program Contacts
Mark Lord, mlord@brynmawr.edu
Catharine Slusar, cslusar@brynmawr.edu