Performance Info
Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches
By Tony Kushner
Directed by Connor Lifson
Performs March 04-06 in Elam Theater
Audition
When & Where
THU OCT 29 + FRI OCT 30
ROBLE GYM
CALLBACKS:
SUN NOV 1 at 12-6PM
Important Resources
Must be logged in on an @stanford.edu account to view
Cowboy Mouth Theater Standards
Cowboy Mouth Production Schedule
Accessibility
If any accessibility accommodations with auditions or callbacks are needed please email tapsinformation [at] stanford.edu for assistance.
Sponsors
These productions were made possible in part by the Pigott Fund for Drama and the May Ellen Ritter Production Fund.
About Auditions
Auditions will be held as 10-min individual timeslots. If you are unable to attend auditions in person, a video submission can be sent in via Google Drive link to TAPScasting [at] stanford.edu by OCT 30 at 12PM PT. email tapscasting or tapsinformation with any questions. Remote submissions still require completion of the Audition Form.
Consideration for casting in Cowboy Mouth will not affect casting consideration for Angels in America or vice versa. You can note which productions your interested in via the Audition Form.
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.
What To Prepare
If possible, please prepare one of the provided sides, linked under “Resources”. You may be asked to also read from other sides in the audition room. All audition sides are from Angels in America.
About the Productions
Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches
WRITTEN BY TONY KUSHNER
DIRECTED BY CONNOR LIFSON
As the AIDS crisis intensifies in the mid-1980s, a group of New Yorkers find their lives colliding in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Just as intimate as it is epic, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches blends raw emotion, political history, queer identity, love, loss, fantasy, and, of course, angels. Relationships fracture and bloom as characters confront illness, abandonment, ambition, and the possibility of transformation. Fiercely funny and deeply moving, Tony Kushner’s monumental play explores what it means to survive in a shattering world.
About the Director
TAPS Graduate Student Connor Lifson is a director, designer, and deviser of theater. Drawn to abstraction, fantasy, and image-driven performance, he creates theater that blurs the boundaries between stage and screen, object and performer, reality and imagination. His work has been presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, Lookingglass Theatre Company, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and Witch Hunt Theatre. At Stanford, where he is currently a PhD Candidate in TAPS, he has directed Moonchild (2026) and Omelas (2024). He is a co-founder of Moon Dog. ConnorLifson.com
About the Rehearsal Process
Angels is one of the great plays of our time. Its existential questions and political provocations are just as vital today as they were when the play was written over thirty years ago. Cosmic in scale and poetic in style, Angels sets the stage for a grand reckoning about what it means to survive amidst a shattering world. For all its weight and gravity, the play is also remarkably funny—witty, irreverent, and full of absurdity, magic, and, of course, angels. Our challenge is to balance the intimate and the epic, the naturalistic and the fantastical, the poetic and the comic.
Our rehearsal process will be highly collaborative and rooted in detailed character work. As indicated in the text, almost everyone in the cast will play multiple roles. Fluidly shifting in and out of poetry, every character in this play is passionate, idiosyncratic, and deeply vulnerable in their own way. As we dive into the intricacies of the text and the historical context of the AIDS epidemic in New York City in the 1980s, our work will be focused on crafting performances that are emotionally grounded within Kushner’s heightened, fantastical world.
About the Course
Angels in America is a production of Winter’s TAPS 122P Undergraduate Performance Project — a unique offering of the TAPS department. It allows student actors the opportunity to participate in a major Main Stage work of lasting significance as performers, and receive academic units for the work. There is a required seminar component (see rehearsal schedule) of relevant study for the acting and artistic company.
Past Performances of the 122P include Romeo & Juliet, Three Sisters, Everybody, The Seagull, The Crucible, and Hamlet.
Actors report that the quality of the experience has made it one of the high points of their time at Stanford. Our goal is to deliver high-quality canonical theater work within containable and limited rehearsal hours. In order to do that, all actors must be able to fulfill the rehearsal schedule before they accept a role. Actors who are selected by auditions must enroll in the 122P Undergrad Theater Performance class on Axess at the end of the Winter quarter to finalize their participation in the play and seminar. Ability to enroll in 122P may affect casting.
TAPS 122P this Winter will meet MONs from 1:30-4:20PM. The full rehearsal schedule is available on this page under “Resources”. For any questions about 122P or the rehearsal process, please feel free to email either tapsinformation [at] stanford [dot] edu or tapsstudentservices [at] stanford.edu.
Notes on Intimacy/Fighting
At the core of this play are its relationships, and, as such, intimacy is central to this play and its world. Major moments of intimacy will be staged with the professional intimacy coordinator, and moments of fight will be staged with the professional fight choreographer. We will take the utmost care to make sure all actors are safe throughout rehearsals and performances following the productions theater standards (available under “Resources”). We encourage you to read the full play for context before auditions.
Please consider these moments thoughtfully and encourage you to be up-front about your physical and emotional boundaries during the audition and callback process. You can feel free to note any particular boundaries on your audition form, in an email to the Director or TAPScasting@, or in-person during your audition. The Director is happy to discuss any of this with you in detail during your audition or at another time. Please do not hesitate to reach out with questions.
All performers must be comfortable with foul and sexual language. There is plenty of it in this play.
Below is a list of moments of intimacy and fight that are specified in the text, although additional moments may be discovered in rehearsal:
- Prior has a medical examination by Emily and needs to be unclothed to some degree. To be discussed by the participant actors, director, costume designer, and intimacy coordinator.
- Roy, during a medical exam, may be in the process of dressing onstage. To be discussed by the actors, director, costume designer, and intimacy coordinator.
- Prior, Louis, Harper, Joe, and Belize all engage in cuddling or embraces onstage throughout the play. The two couples (Prior and Louis, Harper and Joe) kiss on occasion throughout the play.
- Louis and Prior (playing “Man in the Park”) have a simulated sex scene. This does not need to be physically graphic, but the characters speak as though it is. This will be choreographed with the intimacy coordinator. In this scene, the actor playing Prior slaps Louis.
- Roy and Joe have a physical altercation in Act 3.
- When Prior is visited/possessed by the Angel, he becomes sexually aroused.
- Louis pecks Joe on the cheek in Act 1, and the two kiss in Act III
Casting Breakdown
The directing team may consider you for all roles, regardless of which monologue you choose at auditions. You can indicate any roles you would not be willing to play on your audition form.
- ROY M. COHN: a successful New York lawyer and unofficial power broker. Based on the historical figure. Bold, unafraid, manipulative. Denies his queerness and his AIDS diagnosis. [This Role may include Nudity; See Intimacy Section for more details]. Also plays Ghost of Prior 2.
- JOE PITT: Chief clerk for a judge of the Federal Court of Appeals. Mormon, republican, closeted homosexual who is struggling with his sexuality and morality. Married to Harper. Also plays Ghost of Prior 1.
- HARPER PITT: an agoraphobic with a Valium addiction. Joe’s wife. Feels unloved and alone. Paranoid. Also a cosmic visionary. Also plays Martin Heller, corrupt administrator of Reagan’s Department of Justice.
- LOUIS IRONSON: a word processor for the Federal Court of Appeals. Prior’s boyfriend. Intellectual, talkative, wracked with guilt for leaving Prior. Falling apart at the seams.
- PRIOR WALTER: Occasionally works as a club designer or caterer, otherwise lives very modestly but with great style off a small trust fund. Louis’s boyfriend. Diagnosed with AIDS, and visited by the Angel. Fierce, witty, a fountainhead of pop culture references, and unapologetically, fabulously queer. [This Role may include Nudity; See Intimacy Section for more details]. Also plays Man in the Park.
- HANNAH PORTER PITT: Joe’s mother, currently residing in Salt Lake City, living off her deceased husband’s army pension. Brusque, matter-of-fact. A bow that will not break. Also plays the Rabbi, Henry (Roy’s Doctor), and the Ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.
- BELIZE: a registered nurse and former drag queen whose name was originally Norman Arriaga; Belize is a drag name that stuck. Prior’s best friend. A believer in truth-telling and tough love. Identifies as Black. Also plays Mr. Lies, Harper’s imaginary friend and travel agent.
- THE ANGEL: four divine emanations, Fluor, Phosphor, Lumen, and Candle; manifest in One: the Continental Principality of America. Alien, severe, enchanting. She has magnificent wings. Also plays Emily (Prior’s Nurse), the Homeless Woman, and Sister Ella Chapter.
Assistant Positions
TAPS is also seeking design and rehearsal assistants for this production. Applications are due via email to the TAPS Production Manager: tapsproductionmgmt [at] stanford.edu. General crew and behind-the-scenes inquiries are welcome as well.
ASSISTANT APPLICATIONS
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Cowboy Mouth
WRITTEN BY SAM SHEPARD AND PATTI SMITH
DIRECTED BY FIONA SELMI
READ THE PLAY | A woman who looks like a crow kidnaps a man who looks like a cat dressed like a coyote and holds him hostage in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. Her demand? Become a rockstar. Written by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith during their own brief and chaotic love affair, Cowboy Mouth is a one-act collision of sex, violence, rock and roll, and two people desperately trying to make themselves into something bigger than they are. Part love story, part hostage situation, part rockstar origin myth, the play asks what it takes to become an icon—and what gets destroyed in the process.
The piece includes foul language, depictions of intimacy, and violence. Actors will be asked to sing, and experience playing musical instruments is a plus.
COWBOY MOUTH is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc.
About the Cowboy Mouth Process
In the fall quarter, there will be workshops for both actors and designers, focused on collaboratively creating the world of the play, consisting of about 10 hours of total commitment during the fall quarter and scheduled based on creative team availability. Rehearsals in the winter quarter will be approximately 15 hours a week, with performances in Week 4 or 5.
My practice as a director is rooted in experimental, DIY, and spectacle-forward theater, and much of my directing work has been with the theater company Live Animals Onstage! I’m excited to bring the collaborative spirit of that work to Cowboy Mouth, particularly in creating the world of the play alongside the actors and designers in the room. Rehearsals will involve close text work alongside physical experimentation, with particular attention to the play’s relationship to live music, rock and roll, and performance.
Seeks to Cast
- SLIM: (looking for male-identified performers) [This Role may include Nudity; See Intimacy Section for more details]
- LOBSTER MAN: (despite the name, I’m open to a Lobster Man of any gender identity!)
Notes on Intimacy
The piece includes foul language, depictions of intimacy, and violence.
The Role of Slim may be costumed/styled to appear in scenes in their underwear. To be discussed by the actors, director, costume designer, and intimacy coordinator.
About the Director
Fiona Selmi is a dramaturg, writer, director and theater practitioner originally from Washington DC. Before arriving at Stanford to pursue her PhD in Theater and Performance Studies, she was the assistant to the head of Theater at United Talent Agency. Previously, she was the Artistic Fellow at Playwrights Horizons and the Manager of the Emerging Playwrights Fund at Audible Theater. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of a devised, backyard theater company called Live Animals Onstage! which embraces a rock and roll ethos to subvert classic texts in an attempt to create theater that is joyous, experimental and ritualistic.
Fiona graduated from Williams College in 2021 with a BA in Theatre and Political Science, with a concentration in Political Theory. Her thesis, “Teenage Girls and Femme Futurities: An Investigation into Coalition Building through Contemporary Feminist Theater” explored the growing trend of “teenage girl plays” in conjunction with utopian performance theory and political theories of coalition and community building, earning her honors in the theatre department. Most recently, her essay on the re-emergence of realism in the contemporary American theater, “The Playwright as Bad Glazier,” was published in volume 34.3 of the Contemporary Theatre Review.
Her current research interests revolve around contemporary theater and playwriting with a specific emphasis on DIY aesthetics, self-production, alternative theater scenes and the re-emergence of the contemporary theater company and collective. Using her background in Marxist and Critical Theory, she hopes to use her research, intermixed with practice, to investigate collective-based producing models, with the intention of de-centering capital and bringing theater into direct conversation with the community.