About Graduate Repertory
TAPS’s Annual Grad Rep presents directorial works by TAPS’s second-year PhD students in the Nitery Theater over two weekends: JAN 29-31 + FEB 5-7, 2026.
Presented in rep, these roughly hour-long pieces are selected/created by the graduate students to explore their areas of interest in performance-making and provide undergraduate actors, designers, and crew members with student collaborations in the exploration of theory-led practice.
Stanford TAPS seeks to build a diverse cast for this production and encourages members of any race, gender identity, and ability to audition. If any accessibility accommodations are needed please email tapsinformation [at] stanford.edu for assistance.
In addition to its scheduled performances, this production may be live-streamed or recorded for public viewing.
About Auditions
Auditions will be held as 10-minute individual timeslots. If you are unable to attend auditions in person, please email tapsinformation@stanford.edu to explore alternatives.
What To Prepare
No preparation is required, but auditioners are welcome to consider any of the below options to help them feel more comfortable and confident in their audition. There is no pressure to bring anything in. Suggested preparation options include:
- Read a poem (your favorite, your least favorite, the last poem you had to read for
class, a nursery rhyme) through movement - Perform a short monologue of your choice (no memorization necessary)
The directors would love to get to know you and about your artistic practice, so even if you don’t bring or prepare, it’s perfectly fine. Time slots are 10 minutes.
Design Positions
In addition to performers, these pieces are also looking for designers, assistants and support crew, all of whom can be involved in multiple pieces in the same or various positions. See piece specific design details in each of the descriptions below.
Apply to Design by emailing the piece’s Director, or by filling out a generic design application here.
About the Productions
DIRECTED BY SHAILEE RAJAK
DESIGN SUPPORT
SEEKS TO CAST
- What we’re looking for: A strong vocal performer with clarity, range, and control. The AI begins precise, almost neutral, but grows by turns—sly, ironic, tragic, even tender. Think of it as playing a trickster and a machine at once.
- Commitment: 5–6 studio sessions to record the voice, plus select rehearsals (5-6 weeks) to sync with projections and staging. Great role for actors who love voice work, subtle shifts in tone, or playing with sound. Or just some experimental work to try their hand in for fun.
- What we’re looking for: Someone who can carry long passages of text with nuance and stamina. The Seeker is a curious, restless, burnt-out academic who veers from sarcasm to despair to wonder.
- Commitment: Attend select rehearsals to learn the role and staging—step-in if or when needed. This is a text-heavy part—excellent training for actors who want to deepen their craft with poetic/abstract writing.
REHEARSAL & TECH
QUESTIONS ABOUT ALGORITHM OF HAPPINESS?
BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK (AN ECO-ADAPTATION)
DIRECTED BY CAITLIN MAIN
In Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama Interior (1895), two figures stand silently in a moonlit garden, peering into the window of a serene household, unaware of the trouble outside. The figures carry devastating news, halted by their uncertainty about how best, or whether at all, to deliver it. Maeterlinck’s Interior dwells on death as an ever-present looming force and the tension between knowledge and ignorance. This eco-adaptation of Interior will consider this seminal work in light of our current climate and ecological crisis, exploring atmospheres of eco-anxiety and grief and the troubling division between inside and outside (culture and nature).
DESIGN SUPPORT
Interior is also seeking designers in the areas of sound, scenic, costume, and lighting. All design roles will be critical to the adaptation and creative process, particularly in the representation of nonhuman actors. Ideally, designers will be attendance at select rehearsals in the fall to work collaboratively with the performers.
SEEKS TO CAST
Interior is seeking to cast two performers who are interested in devising movement to support the symbolist text. The roles available include ‘the familiar’ and ‘the stranger’ based on the characters of the old man and the stranger in the original work.
REHEARSAL & TECH
In the fall quarter, this piece will rehearse 6-8 hours/week, starting in Week 6 (October 27). This period will focus on the development of eco-adaptation, shaped through collaborative input from performers, designers, and the director. We will begin devising movement, sound, and visuals to set alongside the pre-existing text that foregrounds nonhuman actors (e.g., the willow tree or the river) and consider the symbolist theme of death in light of current eco-catastrophes and biodiversity loss.
In the winter quarter, this piece will rehearse 16 hours/week, running until tech and performance week in Week 4 or 5. In this period, we will finalize the staging informed by our artistic discoveries from the fall.
QUESTIONS ABOUT INTERIOR?
Email Caitlin Main cmain [at] stanford.edu
DIRECTED BY KATHY FANG
How does the body learn to speak across languages? UNTITLED traces the movement of languages across borders, in and as dance. We begin with a simple scene: arriving in a foreign city, mapped in a foreign language. How do we move as we learn to navigate this foreign language? From these translingual practices (Lydia Liu) emerges a new choreography of becoming-in-language. This new work will explore that dance we perform in making the leap from one language to another.
SEEKS TO CAST
1-2 performers who are interested or open to movement exploration
REHEARSAL & TECH
Choreography will be devised from performers’ own expertise in and experiences with language learning, as well as from language exercises in the studio. The specificity of which language borders will be explored in the piece will ultimately depend on the performers’ own backgrounds, interests, and expertise. In light of this, there is no requirement for dance background in any particular style, all skill levels welcome. This piece will rehearse 10-15 hours per week, starting in Week 6 of fall quarter and running until tech and performance week in Week 4 or 5 of winter quarter. Rehearsals will be held in Roble Gym, and may be scheduled around performers’ availability and will be held in Roble Gym. Performers will be expected to commit to the entirety of the development process, including all tech rehearsals and all three performances.
QUESTIONS ABOUT UNTITLED?
Email Kathy Fang kxfang [at] stanford.edu
Where & When
TUE + WED SEPT 23-24
6-9PM | ROBLE GYM
Important Resources
Accessibility
If any accessibility accommodations with auditions or callbacks are needed please email tapsinformation [at] stanford.edu for assistance.
Sponsors
This Repertory was made possible in part by the Pigott Fund for Drama and the May Ellen Ritter Production Fund.