Auditions
AUDITION NOTICE: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING by Will Arbery
Springs Ensemble Theatre is seeking actors for its upcoming production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning, a searching and volatile drama set over one late-summer night in a small town in western Wyoming. Four former students reunite to celebrate the inauguration of their mentor as president of a conservative Catholic college. As the night unfolds, conversations about faith, politics, pain, responsibility, and belonging become increasingly personal.
Audition Dates: July 27 & 28 with callbacks on July 29.
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Studio West, Pikes Peak State College Downotwn Campus, 22 N Sierra Madre St, Colorado Springs, CO 80903
Production Dates
First Read & Rehearsals Begin: Monday September 21. 2026.
Tech: October 31 and November 1, 8am-5pm.
Performances: November 5–22, 2026, including Monday, November 16 at 7:30 pm.
Venue: The Fifty-Niner Speakeasy, 2409 W. Colorado Ave. #110, Colorado Springs, CO 80904
Roles Seeking
JUSTIN
Male, 38. A former student and current employee of Transfiguration College of Wyoming. Justin is grounded in the Wyoming landscape, devoted to his faith, disciplined, and quietly burdened by responsibility. He hosts the gathering and works to maintain steadiness as the evening grows more charged.
Justin is not a professional musician, but will perform a song while self-accompanying on an appropriate instrument.
EMILY
Female, 25. Gina’s daughter and a former student of the college. Emily is thoughtful, compassionate, observant, and living with chronic pain. Her convictions are still taking shape, but she possesses a formidable capacity for empathy, moral clarity, and honesty.
KEVIN
Male, 28. A former student who arrives restless, funny, lonely, and increasingly volatile. Kevin searches for intimacy, meaning, and reassurance while struggling against alienation and self-doubt.
TERESA
Female, 29. A former student and political writer based in New York. Teresa is articulate, passionate, fiercely ideological, and unafraid of conflict. Her beliefs are sincerely held, but the evening reveals the vulnerability beneath her certainty.
GINA
Female, 64. A longtime professor and the newly inaugurated president of Transfiguration College of Wyoming. Gina is Emily’s mother, a respected conservative intellectual, and a commanding presence whose worldview has been forged over decades. She is formidable, unsentimental, and deeply invested in the moral and institutional world she has helped build.
What to Prepare
Please prepare the provided sides, but you do not need to memorize them. Auditions will be monologues from the show. Callbacks will be scenes between characters.
Actors auditioning for Justin should be prepared to sing a brief song while self-accompanying on an appropriate instrument, such as guitar, harmonica, mandolin, etc. The song does not need to be performed at a professional level.
Please bring a headshot and resume if available.
Content Advisory
Heroes of the Fourth Turning contains sustained discussion of religion, politics, ideological extremism, racism, chronic pain, alcoholism, grief, trauma, firearms, and violence. The play is set on August 19, 2017, one week after the Charlottesville riot and two days before the solar eclipse.
Author’s Note on Casting
Will Arbery writes that the play is, in part, about whiteness and the way it operates in America. Each character is implicated in that environment and speaks to the others from within that context. The playwright notes that Justin and Kevin may be cast in ways that evoke passing or assimilation, but that the setting remains a white environment.
If cast, all roles are on a volunteer basis and unpaid. Springs Ensemble Theatre is unable to hire members of Actor’s Equity Association at this time.
Contact: For more information, please email neovoltaire@gmail.com.