Moonbox Productions Seeks Actors for

HITCH- a reading

A part of the Boston New Works Festival 2025

Performing: JUNE 26-29, 2025

First Rehearsal: Mid MAY, 2025/TBD

NON-UNION, Boston Local Actors Only

KEY PERSONNEL:

Playwright: James McLindon

Director: Donovan Holt
Producer: Sharman Altshuler

Casting Director: Davron Monroe

SYNOPSIS:

HITCH is play that addresses many big issues – #Me-too, race, sexual abuse, gender and racial privilege and so on – but embeds them in a very human and intimate story.

In HITCH, Lane, a 36-year-old white man, picks up a young biracial hitchhiker in

upstate New York. His casual fantasy of a hook-up with the young woman is blown up when he learns she is escaping from her mother’s abusive boyfriend, and her mother who believes whatever he tells her … and that she carries a rock for protection in close quarters (like his car). Dee’s assumptions about this nearly middle-aged white man who has picked her up are similarly altered over the course of the next 36 hours, as she learns that, far from being the geeky, wannabe ladies man that she presumed, Lane in fact is recovering from a devastating divorce as he drives to pick up his eight-year-old daughter in Terre Haute to take her home to Albany for the summer vacation.

The lies each has carefully told about him/herself to the other begin to unravel. Dee’s father didn’t die in a trucking accident; he abandoned her family. Lane’s philandering didn’t end his marriage; his wife’s did. Dee isn’t going to stay with relatives in Toledo; she’s planning to live on the streets as best she can there. Lane isn’t driving to pick up his daughter; he’s fleeing home having been unable to muster the nerve to face his ex-wife and pick the child up.

In the end, both need to face their demons: Dee, to return

home and rescue the little sister she has left behind who she has learned is now being groomed for abuse by her step-father just as Dee was; Lane, to return and pick up his daughter who Dee has taught him is likely heartbroken. In the final scene, Lane helps Dee reconnect with her mother in a diner to discuss what to do, although nothing is certain. As the curtain falls, Lane sits alone in his car trying to decide which way to turn

onto the interstate: west to home and defeat; or east to his daughter and growth.

SEEKING THE FOLLOWING:

LANE– white, male, thirties. He’s a bit dorky, a bit chubby, a lot unstylish. He is also deeply insecure, so much so that he has convinced himself that his daughter, who lives with his ex-wife, is probably better off without him. He has therefore turned his car around and is heading home, breaking off his trip to pick his daughter up and take her to spend the summer with him.

DEE– a biracial female, early-20s-looking, but actually only 17. She can be very snarky, although more than charming and amusing enough to get away with it. Indeed, she carefully calibrates her snark to keep someone off-balance without completely alienating him. The actor needs a big personality and a lot of energy as she will drive this show for a lot of the time. She is deeply hurt to have been abandoned by her father, a little traumatized by her mother’s boyfriend’s attempt to seduce her, and frightened to be running away from home.

VIDEO SUBMISSIONS

Please prepare and submit the sides that align with the role you are auditioning for in HITCH- Audition Sides provided. Share your video via a file-sharing link (Google link, YouTube, Vimeo, etc). Unfortunately we are unable to accept large video attachments via email.

If you have any questions about the auditions please reach out to BNWFCasting@gmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE

March 8, 2025

Please UPLOAD your Audition Submission to THIS LINK

Please make sure that your resume and headshot are attached as 1 file/ 1 pdf

All submissions must include:

COMPLETED FORM
HEADSHOT/RESUME uploaded as 1 PDF
VIDEO LINK

CALLBACKS:

TBD

COMPENSATION:

$15/hr for both rehearsals and performances

Rehearsal hours per week: 15 hrs/wk for up to 4 weeks

Paid in full at the end of the festival

W-2

TIME COMMITMENTS:

First Rehearsal: Mid to late MAY/TBD
Rehearsal Days: TBD
Total Rehearsal: 15 hrs per week for up to 4wks
Tech week up to 30 hrs for the week .
Tech Week Schedule: June 20th-26th. Exact schedule TBD
First Performance: Festival opens June 26th
Closing: Festival Closes June 29th

ACCESSIBILITY:

Moonbox is committed to working with actors of all abilities and backgrounds. If you need assistance in submitting your audition (i.e., ASL interpretation or English captioning for Deaf or HoH artists, OCR text documents of sides for visually-impaired artists, or other accessibility services) please contact kacrumrine@gmail.com, our Director of Community and Accessibility Initiatives, as soon as possible.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION:

At Moonbox, we believe that the stories we tell are important. They sustain and preserve our community, our history, and our values. Telling racially diverse stories allows us not only to reflect – but also to reflect on – the complexities of our past. When we join together in the act of storytelling, we are united in ways that transcend the everyday. Together, we can use the power of storytelling to honor our commonalities, celebrate our differences, and address historical discrimination and injustice. We pledge to take this power seriously, and to use our voices and the stories we tell to dismantle the systemic racism and white supremacy engulfing our culture, our country, and our industry .We believe in creating spaces that reflect the diversity of our shared community, both on and off the stage, where under-represented voices, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and people living with disabilities feel valued and important. We believe that accessibility is a human right. We are devoted to providing performances and work spaces that can be experienced and enjoyed universally, and to incorporating accessibility planning into our production, design, staffing, and budgeting processes from day one. More on our antiracism plan here https://moonboxproductions.org/about/#antiracism

#CreateCommunity