Casting for 2025 Season at Bluff City Theater

Bluff City Theater is casting for our 2025 summer season. BCT is a professional theatre company located in Hannibal, Missouri since 2014. Our season for 2025 is themed Hollywood Comes to Hannibal.  We are now accepting applications for all roles. Dates and descriptions for the four shows are below.

Please submit a resume, headshot, and reel as well as which role(s) you are interested in by September 15th. We’ll reach out to schedule individual Zoom auditions with those we feel may be right for our production.

 

Butterflies Are Free by Leonard Gershe (play)– Directed by Lauren Shields

Rehearsal Dates: April 21- May 7, 2025

Performance Dates: May 8-17, 2025

Synopsis: Don Baker, hero of his mother’s Donny Dark books for children, has been blind since birth, his overprotective mother following his every move. Don finally decides to take his own apartment in Manhattan and pursue his songwriting ambitions. When she meets his kooky neighbor, sexy actress Jill, Mrs. Baker’s controlling instincts go into overdrive, with hilariously touching results.

Roles:

• DON BAKER- A blind man in his 20s. He is excited to be living on his own for the first time in his life. He is appreciative of his protective mother but is ready to experience a less sheltered life. He quickly falls for his exciting and independent neighbor, but he is naive in his expectations for their relationship.
• JILL TANNER- A 19-year-old woman. She tends to be reckless in her decisions and relationships. She is fascinated by and attracted to Don. There is real chemistry between them, but her flighty nature rebels against the idea that Don could tie her down to a life she is ill-equipped to lead.
• MRS. BAKER- A woman in her mid-40s to late 50s. Don’s overbearing but well-meaning mother. She does not approve of him moving away from home to New York. It is as big a step for her to let her son live independently as it is for Don to be living on his own. She is abrupt and controlling, but ultimately this is because she has her son’s best interests at heart.

 

Boulevard of Bold Dreams by LaDarrion Williams (play)– Directed by Blondean Young

Rehearsal Dates: May 19- June 4, 2025

Performance Dates: June 5-14, 2025

Synopsis: It is February 29, 1940, the night of the Academy Awards in Hollywood, California. Bartender Arthur Brooks, an ambitions Black man from rural Alabama, dreams of becoming a movie director. His best friend, Dottie Hudson, is a maid at the Ambassador Hotel who finds herself to be a cynic of all dreams. When the actress Hattie McDaniels stops in at the bar and decides not to attend the biggest event in show business, Arthur and Dottie do everything in their power to convince her to go and claim her historic win- while confronting their dark past and making their own dreams come to life.

Roles:

• ARTHUR BROOKS – Black man, a dreamer/bartender who moved from Alabama in hopes of becoming a movie director.
• DOTTIE CUNNINGHAM – Black woman, a bit of a cynic who seems to be running from something. She and Arthur are best of friends.
• HATTIE MCDANIEL – Black woman, an infamous actress currently nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards.

 

Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown (musical)– Directed by Clark Cruikshank

Rehearsals: June 23- July 9, 2025

Performance Dates: July 10-19, 2025

Synopsis: An emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years, the show’s unconventional structure consists of Cathy, the woman, telling her story backwards while Jamie, the man, tells his story chronologically; the two characters only meet once, at their wedding in the middle of the show.

Roles:

• CATHERINE HIATT- Character arcs from an ambitious, fresh-faced girl in a new relationship to a woman stunned by a betrayal and a divorce that she is only beginning to understand.
  • Gender: female
  • Age: 25 to 35
  • Vocal range top: D#5
  • Vocal range bottom: F3
• JAMIE WELLERSTEIN- Character arcs from an ambitious guy on a promising first date with a dazzling career to someone who is blinded by success and ego. He is very lovable, yet makes unintentional choices that sabotages his own happiness.
  • Gender: male
  • Age: 25 to 35
  • Vocal range top: Bb4
  • Vocal range bottom: A2

 

The Woman in Black by Stephen Mallatratt (play)– Directed by Dean Marino

Rehearsals: July 28- Aug. 13, 2025

Performance Dates: Aug. 14-23, 2025

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Susan Hill. The framework of this spine tingler is unusual: a lawyer hires an actor to tutor him in recounting to family and friends a story that has long troubled him concerning events that transpired when he attended the funeral of an elderly recluse. There he caught sight of the woman in black, the mere mention of whom terrifies the locals, for she is a specter who haunts the neighborhood where her illegitimate child was accidentally killed. Anyone who sees her dies! The lawyer has invited some friends to watch as he and the actor recreate the events of that dark and stormy night. A classic of the genre.

Roles:

• THE ACTOR- A man in his late 20s or older. He is a lawyer who hires Kipps to help him figure out how to tell his frightening story to his family. This role is required to play multiple characters.
• KIPPS- A man in his late 20s or older. The man hired to coach THE ACTOR. This role is required to play multiple characters.