All My Sons

by Arthur Miller

 

Directed by Eric Butler

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Audition Dates:

Thursday, June 8, starting at 7:00 PM

Sunday, June 11, starting at 1:00 PM

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Performance Dates:

October 13-22

 

Rehearsals:

• 1-3 rehearsals for table time work will occur in late June.

• Scripts will be distributed to cast in June for actors to begin getting off book during the summer..

• Regularly scheduled rehearsals will begin in August, three-days a week based on the availability of the ideal cast. Potentially targeting Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays if possible. 

 

Audition Requirements:

1. Sign Up for an audition time slot

2. Review the audition packet. Familiarize yourself with scenes and monologues. Memorization is not required for the audition.

3. Prepare one monologue (if auditioning for Joe Keller, Kate Keller, Chris Keller, Ann Deever, or George Deever) and one scene (required for all auditioning). 

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About the Play:

In 1947, Arthur Miller exploded onto Broadway with his first major work, All My Sons, winning both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play and the Tony for Best Author. The play introduced themes that would preoccupy Miller throughout his career: the relationships between fathers and sons and the conflict between business and personal ethics. 

 

Joe Keller and Steve Deever, partners in a machine shop during World War II, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went back to business, making himself very wealthy in the ensuing years. A love affair between Keller’s son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Steve’s daughter; the bitterness of George Deever, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father’s partner free; and the reaction of Chris Keller to his father’s guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity in this classic American tragedy.
 

Character Descriptions:

 

Joe Keller — Joe (60s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) was exonerated after being charged with knowingly shipping from his factory defective aircraft engine cylinder heads (for Curtiss P-40 fighters) during World War II, becoming (in his own words) “the guy who made 21 P-40s crash in Australia”. For over three years he has placed the blame on his partner and former neighbor, Steve Deever, although he himself committed the crime. When the truth comes out, Joe justifies his actions by claiming that he did it for his family. “A heavy man of stolid mind and build, a business man these many years, but with the imprint of the machine-shop worker and boss still upon him. When he reads, when he speaks, when he listens, it is with the terrible concentration of the uneducated man for whom there is still wonder in many commonly known things, a man whose judgements must be dredged out of experience and a peasant-like common sense. A man among men.”

 

Kate Keller (Mother) — Kate (50s, female identifying, any race/ethnicity) knows that Joe is guilty but lives in denial while mourning for her younger son Larry, who has been “missing in action” for three years. “A woman of uncontrolled inspirations, and an overwhelming capacity for love.”

 

Chris Keller — Chris (20s/30s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is son to Joe and Kate. WWII veteran who now works alongside his father managing the new factory. He is uncomfortable with the success his father’s business found during the

war, when so many of his comrades died pointlessly. He redirects his discomfort into an idealism and an attitude of social awareness that is foreign to his family environment. Wants to marry Ann. Loyal and loving to his family and Ann.

 

Ann Deever — Ann (20s/30s, female identifying, any race/ethnicity) dated Larry, the Keller’s other son who disappeared during the war. She knows he isn’t coming back. She has waited for his brother Chris to step forward and take Larry's place

in her heart. She has shunned her father for his crimes during the war. She is an honest, down-to-earth girl, and she is emboldened by the strength of her convictions.

 

George Deever — George (30s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is Ann’s older brother, a lawyer and WWII veteran. He lives with Ann and their mother in New York. His disdain is for his father’s crime, not for his father. Now that he has been newly convinced of his father’s innocence, he is here to rescue his sister from entering the family of the man he believes is actually guilty. George is direct, intense and yet “quiet, as though afraid to find himself screaming.”

 

Dr. Jim Bayliss — Jim (30s/40s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is Joe’s neighbor, married to Sue. Served in WWII alongside Chris. The neighborhood doctor. Jim is a good man who believes in the duty of one man to help another, but he at the same time acknowledges a man’s responsibility to his family. Jim is wry and an easy talker who clings to self-effacing humor.

 

Sue Bayliss — Sue, (30s/40s, female identifying, any race/ethnicity) is a nurse and mother who is the wife of Jim. Headstrong and protective, she wants the best for her family. She put her husband through medical school, and she expects more than gratitude in return. She blames Chris’s infectious, insinuating idealism for her husband’s interest in the fiscally unrewarding field of medical research.

 

Frank Lubey — Frank (30s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is pleasant, opinionated man. The ever-loving neighbor; he’s a harmless man with no understanding of the world beyond his backyard. Frank avoided the draft in World War II, married Lydia, and had three kids. Has an interest in astrology.

 

Lydia Lubey — Lydia (20s/30s, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is married to Frank. Dated George at one time. She represents a certain suburban contingent that doesn’t know much about the world, but doesn’t do much harm, either.

 

Bert — Bert (8-10 year child, male identifying, any race/ethnicity) is a curious boy who lives on the block.