Casting call location: Dallas / Ft. Worth
Submission instructions: TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THE SHOW PLEASE EMAIL THE FOLLOWING: Your resume as an attachment (not pasted into the body of the email or a google link), and your headshot as an attachment (not pasted into the body of the email or a google link). Ensure your attachment names include your NAME and the word ‘RESUME’ or ‘HEADSHOT’. The subject line of your email should say ‘YOUR NAME – ART HEIST in (Dallas, TX)’. Incomplete submissions will not be considered. Actors able to provide their own housing in Dallas, TX will be given preference.
Submit by date: 3/17/21
Project title: Art Heist Experience
Category: Theatre
Paid: Yes
Audition / Casting info:
Art Heist Experience is a socially distanced, outdoor, immersive, interactive true crime show in which audience members meet and interact with various characters associated with the still unsolved heist at Boston’s Gardner Museum in 1990. Thirteen works of art were stolen, valued at half a billion dollars. Not one of them has ever been recovered. Not one arrest has ever been made.
The show will comply with all federal and local guidelines regarding COVID-19 health and safety.
Audience groups (maximum 35 patrons) will walk on a set route and meet various suspects one at a time, questioning them for ten minutes. Each suspect has an angle, most of which are variations on “I could have done it, but I didn’t.”
We’re looking for diverse casting. All of the characters are real people, and they’re all white guys. But there are plenty of good actors out there who aren’t white guys, and we’re casting this show to be as diverse as possible. We want performers who can embody the energy of the characters. We don’t care about whether someone physically resembles the actual people they’re portraying in the slightest. Anyone of any age, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. is eligible for any role.
We’ve created extensive character files, as well as a foundation script. Actors will use these documents to create their own version of the material. Certain points of information will need to come out, and the delivery will depend on their interaction with a given audience group.
Experience with theatre, hosting, and guided tours are assets.
The show can include humor, but it isn’t a comedy (no exaggerated Baaaston accents, please). The experience we want the audience to have is one of excitement and suspense, the thrill that comes with solving a high stakes puzzle. At the end of the show, each audience group will be asked to submit a single guess as to who they think is most likely to have been involved with the crime.
THE ROLES
The Experts
Anthony Amore is the current Head of Security at the Gardner Museum. He knows everything there is to know about the heist, investigates every new lead that pops up (no matter how ridiculous), and is still in daily communication with the Boston office of the FBI about the robbery. He is conservative, thorough, and patient.
Bob Wittman was the FBI’s first agent dedicated to recovering stolen art, a position he held for twenty-five years, usually working undercover. His efforts brought back more than three hundred million dollars’ worth of stolen items. He worked on the Gardner case, he’s low-key and friendly, and even maintained friendships with some of the criminals he sent to prison.
Harold Smith was a career insurance investigator specializing in stolen art. He studied the Gardner heist on his own for decades. He suffered from skin cancer, resulting in an eye patch and prosthetic nose that sometimes fell off. He loved telling dad jokes.
The Suspects
Rick Abath was one of two guards on duty the night of the heist. He was a gigging musician who only took the job for the money. He played in a jam band and hosted parties at the Gardner Museum after hours. Could he have accidentally let slip some secrets about the museum’s security procedures to the wrong people? Or was he an inside man?
David Turner is a career criminal, who has recently been released after serving twenty years in prison. He’s handsome and cool, and was able to deflect the charges for one violent crime after another until he was finally busted for his part in an attempted armored truck heist. He claims he had nothing to do with the Gardner, but did he give information that led to the reduction of his sentence?
Brian McDevitt was a con man who spent two years in prison for a failed attempt to rob a small museum in upstate New York. He eventually moved to Hollywood and faked his way into the Writers’ Guild, before moving to South America where he kept to countries with no extradition treaty with the US. He died in 2004. Or did he fake his death? His failed heist bore striking similarities to the Gardner, raising the possibility that he learned from his mistakes and got away with enough money to live in luxury south of the border.
Myles Connor Jr is a career art thief, now in his seventies. He turned down a Harvard scholarship and the possibility of a career in medicine or herpetology in order to pursue a life of crime. He loves telling tales of his entertaining criminal escapades, as well as his years fronting a rock band. He couldn’t have pulled the Gardner heist, as he was in prison when it happened. But he’s planned and executed crimes from prison before. Was he the mastermind behind this heist?
If you’re interested in doing more research, there are two books on the Gardner heist, many YouTube videos, an episode of a true crime series on Amazon Prime, and a ten part podcast series called Last Seen.
DURATION
March 16, 2021 – April 18, 2021
Company name: Right Angle Entertainment
Submit to: hello@rightangleent.com