OPEN AUDITIONS: King Kirby

King Kirby

By by Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente

Directed by Britt Urey

Open Auditions: January 19 & 20

Rehearsal Timeframe: January-February

Evening Performances (7:00pm): February 28

Matinee Performances (3:00pm): March 1

Content Label: Strong adult language, including historic antisemitic and anti-Irish slurs   

This theatre is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion and to creating a welcoming place for actors of all backgrounds to explore their craft. We are eager to work with artists of color and other artists from marginalized communities. All auditions are free and open to the public. This audition is for an amateur, volunteer production. Theatre staff and volunteers do not discriminate on the basis of age, national origin, race, gender, ethnic background, ability, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or any protected class.

Auditions will be held in person. These auditions are for a Readers’ Theatre show, performed with scripts in hand. No memorization is necessary. This is an amateur, unpaid performance opportunity.

SHOW SYNOPSIS

Marvelites unite! Peel back the comic strip and discover the true origin story of your favorite superheroes. This is the epic tale of Jack Kirby, the most famous cartoonist you never heard of.

Join Kirby as he survives the Lower East Side slums, lands in Normandy in WWII, creates CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE AVENGERS, and THE X-MEN, and then must fight for the rightful recognition he was denied. This masterful story crackles with wit and effervescent dialogue, and then sneaks in that emotional gut punch when you're least expecting.  POW! BAM! KABOOM!

FROM THE DIRECTOR Britt Urey

PREPARATION NOTES

The audition will consist of cold readings from the script.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

All characters do not have a specific race or ethnic background; we're excited to see a diverse pool of actors audition for all roles. Ages listed are the approximate ages of the characters themselves. We invite actors of any age to audition for any role.

JACK “THE KING” KIRBY

Character Age: 20-76

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: On stage the entire play

Character: A rough and tumble kid from the Lower East Side who went on to create some of the most iconic characters in American popular culture. Jack dreams big, works hard, and has little tolerance for fools, which frequently puts him at odds with his more commercially minded peers.

ROSALIND “ROZ” GOLDSTEIN

Character Age: 19-60

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Female

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: The love of Jack’s life. Throughout the stresses of serving in World War II and fighting for the rights to his own creations, she kept him grounded. She was also a talented creative herself, serving as Jack’s inker from 1947 on.

JOE SIMON

Character Age: 27-56 

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: Jack’s longtime collaborator and the first editor of Timely (now Marvel) Comics. A shrewd businessman capable of identifying cultural trends quickly enough to create whole new genres. However, he doesn’t share the same love for the act of creation as his partner.

STANLEY LIEBER, AKA STAN “THE MAN” LEE

Character Age: 19-60

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: Marvel’s main man with the gift of gab and acclaimed alliteration aficionado. Lee climbed the ranks from assistant to editor-in-chief to publisher with breakneck speed and streamlined the process of creating comics with his “Marvel Method.” Lee was also a savvy self-promoter who recognized the value of a good story, and wasn’t one to let something like the truth get in the way of that.

VICTOR FOX

Character Age: 48

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: A former accountant at National (now DC) Comics who went on to found his own comics imprint, Fox Feature Syndicate, after seeing the potential for profit. Fox is a brash and overbearing businessman who loudly declares himself ‘The King of Comics” to his subordinates.

MARTIN GOODMAN

Character Age: 33-61

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: The founder and publisher of Timely (now Marvel) Comics, and cousin-in-law of Stanley Lieber. Where Joe Simon predicts trends, Goodman chases them. Or rather, he has Stan chase them while he’s off playing golf. Goodman is interested solely in the bottom line, and woe betide anyone who might jeopardize that.

JACK LIEBOWITZ

Character Age: 41

Character Race: Any

Character Ethnicity: Any

Character Gender: Male

Desired Actor Gender: Any

Ability/movement/intimacy: Any

Character: Co-owner of National (now DC) Comics. Liebowitz recognizes talent when he sees it, leading him to poach Kirby and Simon from Timely Comics.