Albany, NY 12210-1707
United States
Harbinger’s second production of 2024 is the non-Equity Capital Region Premiere of “The Squirrels” by Robert Askins (“Hand to God”).
Email white.patrick1963@gmail.com for scheduled auditions Monday, 2/19 and Tuesday, 2/20 from 6:30-9:30pm.
The Squirrels by Robert Askins
Directed by Patrick White
Harbinger @ Sand Lake Center for the Arts
2880 Rte 43, Averill Park, 12018
6/21-6/30, FREE Preview 6/20
Scurius, the patriarch of a family of gray squirrels, has collected enough nuts to last ten winters. When a group of starving fox squirrels begs him to share his hoard of food, animosity erupts into a ferocious war. The Squirrels is a boundary-pushing, darkly satirical look at wealth inequality in which no creature comes out unscathed.
“The fast-paced 90-minute play…is a witty black comedy about a mixed-race squirrel family decimated by prejudice and greed. Writ large, it’s an apocalyptic tale of America’s cultural divide…[Askins] drops a thought bomb…about our responsibility for the destruction of the environment and for the care of one’s fellow squirrel (and otherwise).” —San Diego Union-Tribune
“The Squirrels is [an] allegory that launches salvos at current events, framed by a potential apocalypse…Beneath the satire, the play raises serious questions, in particular, why does inequality reign?”
—San Diego Reader
ALL ETHNICITIES AND AGES CONSIDERED…we’re casting squirrels.
Scurius The affable, good-hearted patriarchal grey squirrel with memory issues. He’s all about the existing social order, which in squirrel terms, is storing up as many nuts as possible for the winter and taking care of family first.
MAMMALIA HAS BEEN PRECAST
Mammalia Scurius’s wife who puts up with his idiosyncrasies and tries to keep him from doing anything stupid.
Chordata Squirrel sexy, squirrel smart. Their daughter is in love with a red squirrel. Naive teenager who leads with her heart.
Carolinensis Idealistic red squirrel torn between love for Chordata and the hunger of his comrades, being starved by Sciurus’ overly zealous nut hoarding. It is the dead of winter and mating season is coming.
Rodentia Red squirrel adopted daughter of Scurius. She swims with the tide that raises her boat.
Sciuridae/Scientist (M 30s-50s) A manipulative opportunist, out to make the tree great again — for gray squirrels. He plays on Sciurus’s pride and insecurity to create a rift between gray and red that spins out of control. The scientist is not a real scientist. He’s a cartoon scientist. Make of that what you will.
Squirrel Ensemble-2 or 3 actors to bring the squirrel world to life with movement and nut changes.
Contact Patrick White for sides. white.patrick1963@gmail.com
20 rehearsals will be Sunday through Wednesday 6:30-9:30.
“We’re going to bite and claw and scratch until today looks like yesterday.”
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