SUDS CAST CALLOUT: Troy's House
Written by Tommy Murphy
Directed by Bella Wellstead
Produced by Luna Ng
Show Dates: 23rd of October - 4th of November
The Cellar Theatre
Contact email: troyshousesuds@gmail.com
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Acknowledgement of Country:
SUDS acknowledges that the University of Sydney and the Cellar Theatre reside on stolen land;
the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. As a society that exists to tell stories, it is
important to acknowledge that stories were being told on this land for thousands of years before
British colonisation.
SUDS pays respect to elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded – Always Was,
Always Will Be Aboriginal Land.
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About the Play:
Troy’s House is a play set in suburban Canberra, that explores the drudgery and uncertainty of youth. It’s about skiving off and taking drugs and falling in love and fucking around. It’s about hanging out at Troy’s place while his mum sits on her La-Z-Boy watching daytime telly; and hearing him and his girlfriend have loud, but short sex in the other room. It’s about those feral urges that accompany young adulthood and the little voices in the back of your mind that reckon that maybe you don’t fit in the way everyone else does. Maybe you’re a bit of a shit person. Maybe your future’s not as bright as the midday sun as it gleams off Lake Burley-Griffin. What are you supposed to do when your adolescence, and the places and people that defined it, start to slip away?
Content warnings:
Sexual references
Depictions of sex
Classism
Homophobia
Depictions of physical assault
Allusions to sexual assault
Characters
Felicity Hungerford
An eighteen-year old from Canberra. Felicity has been friends with Troy since childhood, spending so much time at the Tate house that she has become a member of the family (or a spot of mold growing on their living room wall). Most of the stains on pillows at Troy’s house are from Felicity’s bloody noses. She was the innocent-looking mastermind behind much of the mischief she and Troy got up to as kids. Now she’s grown up a bit and left high school, she plans to go to TAFE. She wants to be the nice girlfriend of a nice boy but can’t stop herself from sitting in cafes and having loud conversations about wanking. She’s a bit of a ratbag, balanced out with a tender naïvete.
Ben Death
An eighteen-year old from Sydney. Ben has just moved to his aunt’s house in Canberra ready to start uni next year. He’s quiet, polite, and a bit of a wet blanket - that is, until he meets Felicity on the top of parliament house. She’s pretty enough. Maybe he wants to kiss her. Maybe she’ll want to fuck him. Maybe he’ll decide that that’s what he wants… Far removed from the idyllic Canberran childhoods of his chums, Ben feels uneasy in the cultish city. Is this truly the place where, and are these truly the people with whom, he wants to embark on his young adult life?
Fanny Thought Fairy
Fanny Thought Fairy has a kind of ensemble role, standing in for cops and cafe waitresses. However, they primarily voice the thoughts of Felicity - down to the raunchiest, most unfiltered details. Unafraid to curse or scream, and delightfully horny, Fanny Thought Fairy is the feral subconscious inside many a respectable adolescent girl.
Willy Thought Fairy
Willy Thought Fairy has a kind of ensemble role, standing in for bus drivers and security guards. However, they primarily voice the thoughts of Ben - in all of their timid humour and well-mannered guardedness. Cheeky and scattered and full of uncertainty, Willy typifies the many ways in which Ben’s ‘nice boy’ persona contrasts with Troy’s cocky carelessness.
Troy Tate
An eighteen-year old from Canberra, Troy enjoys playing nintendo, ‘ferreting’ around suburban Canberra, and ferreting around in his girlfriend Tania’s trousers. If you don’t count the constant house guests, Troy lives alone with his mum Diane in a grubby little government house. He gives her hell, planting marijuana in her backyard and knocking around the house at all hours of the night, but ultimately, he respects his mum. He’s not got much to do with the mates that sleep on his musty couch - doesn’t really even have much to say to Tania besides “let’s go and have a lie down.” He has some abstract plans to study hospitality at TAFE, but seems much more interested in mysteriously disappearing from time to time and cussing at public servants.
Diane Tate
Diane is Troy’s mum, and has lived in Canberra her entire life. When Troy was an infant, Diane’s husband packed his bags and buggered off. Since then she’s raised Troy alone, doing her best with the pay she gets from manning the helpline for the taxation office. She loves her son more than anything in the world. Sure, she’ll bag him out for fucking off or fucking loudly or attracting the cops with the five foot ‘tomato plant’ that is taking over their backyard. But she only wants the best for him, and hopes to push him carefully into some sort of stable adult life. She’s also the resident neighbourhood cat killer.
Tania Fooks
An eighteen-year old from Canberra. Troy’s girlfriend, who’s not so sure she even likes Troy but sticks around out of habit and convenience. Tania’s a bit of a bogan but also a bit of a snob. She reckons that Troy and Felicity and that crowd don’t really fit in with her nor with the person she wants to become. But she’s frightened about the uncertainty that beckons from her future. A TAFE-hopeful with no concrete plans for what she’d actually like to study, Tania just knows that she can’t stay here all her bloody life.
Audition Slots:
Wednesday 23rd August 3-5pm
Friday 25th August 3-5pm
Tuesday 29th August 11-1pm
Wednesday 30th August 10-12pm
*We accept audition tape submissions but the deadline will be by the 1st of September*
Callbacks:
Monday 4th September 12-3pm
Tuesday 5th September 12-3pm
What to prepare:
Each of our audition slots will last around 15-20 minutes, please prepare one monologue (you could pick one provided in the audition pack according to the character you would like to be
considered for/ you could prepare any monologue of your choice for the audition!).
Memorisation is encouraged but not compulsory
Audition pack: https://docs.google.com/.../1-cmX1HlrUXhn9TjpyQtf.../edit...
Interested auditionees should fill in this google form to sign up:
https://forms.gle/X9LhQd7F8CkD4zY58
If you have any other questions, please email troyshousesuds@gmail.com to contact Bella (Director) or Luna (Producer). As this will be the last slot of the year, we strongly encourage people who have never acted in SUDS before to audition for the show! We simply cannot wait to see you at the auditions! Good luck!
Photography by Ted Thilman and Mike Dumlao, original poster designed by Brendan ‘bloody
Hell’.