by Wonderlust Productions is producing Season 3 of our Hidden Herald audio play series about the hidden stories of people and places in St. Paul, building out from St. Paul’s Downtown Cultural District to anywhere in St. Paul where the future was made. This year, we’ll be focusing on four significant time periods (approximately statehood, the jazz age, the George Latimer era, and the future), and an additional project on the University of St. Thomas’s campus.
WE NEED WRITERS AND ACTORS!
To be considered:
Writers: Submit two different 10 page writing samples, a resume, and a one paragraph description of why this project interests you.
Actors: Submit your resume and a pre-made voice acting reel or three short, recorded monologues with distinctive contrasting voices. Each monologue should be 30 seconds or less. Because we are producing audio drama, please demonstrate your ability to alter your voice effectively; you are welcome to read rather than memorize the monologues. Your submission can be video or audio-only. Also, in one paragraph, please describe something about St. Paul where you think there’s a story to tell.
This is an audio drama that will be recorded for podcasting (under a SAG-AFTRA contract). Both union and non-union actors are encouraged to apply.
Several in-person activities and visits to downtown St. Paul will be expected for this project. Specific dates and date ranges are listed below.
Submissions are due by Sunday, February 15.
Writers follow this link to submit.
Actors follow this link to submit.
Compensation: Actors will be paid $20/hour plus a one-time fee of $250 for permission to make the play available via QR codes on posters and sidewalk stickers in St. Paul as well as online for one year after the project is launched (with an option to renew the fee each year the project continues). Actors can expect to be in 3-5 plays for between 16-25 total rehearsal/meeting/recording hours.
Writers will receive $500 for writing 8-12 minutes of text–which will be between 2 and 4 episodes of recorded drama. Writers will also be compensated at $20/hour to attend 2 group meetings and some rehearsals.
Unique Information About this Project:
Writers will be asked to include specific elements in their texts like references to visual markers in St. Paul, clues for where to find more stories, and/or techniques that make short length audio drama work. They will also be asked to pick their subject and locations based on a list provided by Wonderlust.
For Hidden Heralds Season 3, we are seeking writers who are excited to work from history. Our focus is on the moments when people in the past thought they were inventing the future. We will offer you a collection of research materials as possible inspiration. This might be records newspaper articles about past community controversies or first person accounts of the city as it changes. The time periods we’ve selected saw a lot of change happen rapidly, from the beginning of the railroad and statehood to post-WWI cultural transformations and beyond. Our ethos is to imagine fictional, emotional, high quality plays inspired by the real experiences of living in this community.
Actors will be asked to participate in choosing the subjects that make that list at an initial kick-off meeting. Actors and writers will be assigned to each other before the plays are written so that the plays can be written with specific actors in mind. Actors will portray more than a few characters each, and ideally are excited to be connected to the creative process.
This is collaborative art: writers will be asked to write specifically for and collaborate with the actors they are assigned, actors will be asked to support workshop development of the new scripts.
We think this all sounds fun. Please only apply if this sounds fun to you too.
Diversity, in all its forms, is essential to the success of this project. Wonderlust is actively seeking representation across aesthetic, geographic, ethnic, racial, age, gender, and economic backgrounds.
Timeline:
There are some required dates for each project, and then some rehearsals which will be coordinated with the teams that emerge.
Actors and writers will be notified before February 28, if they are selected. Rehearsals and recording will occur between April 19-May 8. Please let us know your availability from April 19-May 8. The project will launch for the public in mid-July/August.
For Hidden Herald we will have a kick-off event where actors and writers meet and trade ideas on Sunday evening, March 1 and a reading of the first draft of all scripts together on Sunday afternoon, April 19. Reserve those dates.
For UST there will be a similar kick off and first reading, TBA. Workshops and rehearsals will occur between March 20-May 8.
More about Wonderlust and this project:
Wonderlust Productions mission is to activate imagination and illuminate community stories to create a more inclusive world. We believe that community-centered, high-quality artistic experiences can transform how people interact with their world and what they imagine for the future of it. For all our work, we start by selecting a community of people we think have stories fascinating and essential to who we are, but often unknown, misunderstood, or left out.
For this project we seek stories of people who built and shaped our city. The result will be a series of short, high-quality, professionally produced audio dramas that employ and highlight local artists while providing audiences with an experience that augments their conventional view of reality. An artist-designed map, a virtual map and in-person QR codes on posters and stickers will make the experience equally appealing as a planned activity or an accidental discovery, to locals and visitors, individuals and groups. Available online, it can also be a virtual experience that invites people to discover downtown from home (and get enticed to visit later).
Our goal is to create a compelling, high quality art experience that delights and provokes audiences with a new view on the world and the people around them.
Visit wlproductions.org for more information about past productions and art that is online now.
Questions? Contact Alan Berks at alan@wlproductions.org or (651)-212-5075.