Auditions · July 10–12
Casting is now under way. Open calls are Friday evening July 10 and Saturday afternoon July 11 at Scratch Studios, Santa Cruz — cold readings from sides, no monologue required.
Audition DetailsCalendar
Performance Dates
9 Performances
Veterans Memorial Building · 846 Front Street, Santa Cruz
Tickets
On sale later this summer
Ticketing details will be announced here once the cast is set.
Program
Production Team
| Play by | Moisés Kaufman |
| Producer / Director | Simon Hayward |
Cast and full production team will be announced following auditions.
Auditions
Join the Company
We are casting nine or more actors for Moisés Kaufman's gripping courtroom drama about the downfall of Oscar Wilde. All experience levels are welcome — auditions are cold readings from provided sides, and no prepared monologue is required.
Audition Dates
Scratch Studios, Studio 02B · 303 Potrero St, Santa Cruz
What to Prepare
Nothing in advance — you'll read from sides provided at the audition. Sides will be drawn from the trial scenes and narration.
What to Bring
A headshot and résumé if you have them. A list of any conflicts between late August and late October is also helpful.
Commitment
Rehearsals begin August 26, generally evenings and weekends. Performances run October 9–25, Friday–Sunday.
Casting
The Roles
The play calls for a company of nine or more. Apart from Wilde and Douglas, actors play multiple parts — barristers, witnesses, narrators, Queen Victoria's court, and the young men at the center of the scandal.
| Oscar Wilde | Lead · plays 35–45 |
| Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie") | Plays 20s |
| Supporting roles | Four men, plays 50–70 · Queensberry, the barristers Clarke and Carson, and others · may double |
| Ensemble | One role open to all genders, plus ensemble · narrators, witnesses, and more · may double |
Questions? Conflicts with the dates?
If you're interested but can't make the open calls, or want to know more about the production, get in touch — we'd love to hear from you.
Email the Director"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest
In the spring of 1895, Oscar Wilde was the most celebrated playwright in London — An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest were both playing in the West End. By the end of May he was in prison, sentenced to two years' hard labor for "gross indecency." Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde tells the story of that astonishing reversal: the libel suit Wilde brought against the Marquess of Queensberry — the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas — and the two criminal trials that followed when the suit collapsed.
Moisés Kaufman's play, first staged Off-Broadway in 1997, is built from the historical record: trial transcripts, letters, newspaper accounts, memoirs, and Wilde's own writings. The result is part courtroom drama, part collage — a company of actors stepping in and out of dozens of roles to examine not just what happened to Wilde, but what his trials reveal about art, morality, celebrity, and the law. The questions the play raises landed sharply in 1895, in 1997, and land just as sharply today.
Kaufman, founder of the Tectonic Theater Project, went on to write and direct The Laramie Project, one of the most performed plays in the American repertoire. Gross Indecency was his breakthrough — named one of the year's best plays by Time, the New York Times, and many others, and it remains his most theatrically daring work.
This production, directed by Simon Hayward, runs October 9–25, 2026 at the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz.