She is allowing plenty of time for rehearsals, with the play set to open late in March next year.
“I am looking for a cast of nine young women, playing 16 and 17-year-olds and one football mum.”
Scripts are available at the i-SITE on Grey Street for those wanting to audition this weekend.
“Given the play has no specification for race in the character descriptions, I will be able to cast “blind” and am very keen for the play to look like the sports field of a Gisborne high school with a diverse cast reflective of that.”
The play will be set in the United States, but she will not be asking the cast to attempt American accents as she doesn't feel that will be necessary.
They will, however, need to have a reasonable level of fitness as the play is quite physical and some ball skills will be required, so if they don't have some skills already they will have to learn how to handle a football.
About the director
Iscah was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland and studied drama at The Poor School in London, graduating in 2012.
She did one movie after graduating but her real love is theatre.
“I love a live audience and the way that each performance is slightly different.
“It can be terrifying but I never feel quite as alive as I do when I'm on stage.
“So that is what I'm hoping my young cast will enjoy experiencing. I want them to feel the fear and embrace it.”
This will be her directorial debut.
“It's very likely that some of the cast will be new to acting as well, so hopefully we can bring all of that nervous, first-time energy together and put on a fabulous show.”
“I was asked to direct a play after acting at Unity a couple of years ago and I was very keen to do something that was female driven.
“I also wanted to work with a younger cast, as they are often more flexible and dynamic and I think that will work better with me being a first-time director.
“In my own experience as an actor I was constantly frustrated by the lack of rounded parts for women and bored of playing characters that were merely plot devices with no backstory and no meat. I was tired of being the wife or the girlfriend.
She said the team at Unity had been very accommodating and given her “complete free rein”.
“They basically said I could do whatever I wanted and they would facilitate my vision. So I went home and started researching and reading. When I found this play, I knew immediately that it was perfect.”
“When you first read it, it is quite difficult because the characters are all talking at the same time, so the pages have several columns of speech.”
They had a read through at Unity a couple of months ago and everyone loved it.
“It sounds like human speech. We talk over each other all the time and so few plays manage to achieve that.”
There will also be a lot of carefully choreographed scenes, hence the long rehearsal time.
Auditions for a part in The Wolves, which is set in an indoor football facility, depicting nine teenage girls from a high school football team and one mum. Unity Theatre, Sunday, 2pm and Sunday, December 4. Scripts are available from the i-SITE.
