Celebrating our 67^th Season

CALL FOR DIRECTORS

2025-2026 SEASON

Scarborough Players invites applications from Directors for the following production:

September 2025 – Lunenberg by Norm Foster September 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 2025

December 2025 – A Christmas Story adapted by Philip Grecian December 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 2025

March 2026 – Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire March 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 2026

June 2026 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard June 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 2026

Deadline to apply: March 8, 2025

PLEASE REVIEW THE ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENT FOR PRESENTATION/INTERVIEW* CRITERIA

For March 8, 2025 application, the committee only requires notice of your intention along with your resume and references. The proposals are not required until before interviews in April.

Application Information

To apply, please prepare and submit the following items:

• A current resume highlighting relevant experience
• A cover letter stating your interest
• Names and contact information of two arts-related references, for example, theatre groups for which you have worked previously

*By email: sp_director_hiring@theatrescarborough.com

*Submit your application by mail to:

Scarborough Players Hiring Committee

c/o 780 Birchmount Road, Unit #5

Scarborough, ON

M1K 5H4

Email is the most efficient way to apply.

Deadline to apply: March 8, 2025

Interviews dates and times will be determined by the Hiring Committee likely during weeks of April 14 and April 21, 2025

For further information, email: sp_director_hiring@theatrescarborough.com

Additional notes:

• While we strive to interview as many candidates as possible, we cannot guarantee that all applicants will be interviewed.
• Scarborough Players is a community theatre organization – non-union/non-paying
• Scarborough Players is a volunteer organization, and we do not provide honorariums

Celebrating our 67th Season

2025-2026

DIRECTOR PROPOSAL CRITERIA

For your interview, please prepare a proposal describing your understanding of the play and how it will be realized in the production. The interviews may take place in person or on ZOOM. The Hiring Committee asks that you please email a written copy of your proposal, at least 3 days prior to your interview. Interview dates and times – TBD.   This will provide the committee an opportunity to review and prepare appropriate questions. The copy also proves to be most helpful during the committee’s deliberations. The committee asks that you please be brief and concise – 3 to 4 pages should suffice. Please be sure to cover the following topics in your proposal:

1. Story Telling i.e. What is the style of the production? What’s the primary action? How does this story engage the audience?
2. Casting Requirements with brief character summaries - we’d like to know your perception of the characters
3. Audition Process
4. Rehearsal Process
5. Set and Props Concepts and Challenges, if applicable (please consider our stage is a thrust stage and how you will take advantage of that)
6. Lighting and Sound Concepts (and Challenges, if applicable)
7. Hair and Makeup Concepts (and Challenges, if applicable)
8. Costume Concepts (and Challenges, if applicable)
9. Each production has a budget of $4,000, which will be strictly enforced – we are managing costs as we recover from the pandemic shut down.
   1. How do you see this budget being distributed? Ex. 15% costumes, 5% hair and make up, 35% set, 20% props, 5% sound, 20% lighting
   2. Is there anything in your concept for the production that may require special arrangements or costs? Ex., fight coordinator, hydraulic beauty shop chair that raises and lowers, revolving gobos, etc.
10.  Preferred Production Staff, if applicable
11.  Any commitments that would conflict with rehearsal or show dates

A copy of the director job description and audition policy are available by request. Play Descriptions are on page 2.

The interview is 20 minutes total which includes a 10-minute presentation and 10 minutes for questions from the hiring committee.

Scarborough Players’ Hiring Process

• All directors hired by Scarborough Players have applied, sent a proposal, and been interviewed.
• Our hiring committee, dedicated theatre practitioners, work together to create a supportive and equitable interview environment.
• After the interviews are completed, the committee deliberates, questions, and comes to a consensus as to the most appropriate director for each play.
• The committee submits a report to the Scarborough Players Board noting all applicants, including their recommendations.
• The Board then reviews the recommendations and questions the committee to clarify information.
• Any member of the Board who has applied, must leave the meeting when their submission is reviewed, and decisions made.
• Scarborough Players, through this process, endeavours to make the best decision to serve the play, the production, the company, and the applicants.

Scarborough Players Play Descriptions

2025-2026

September 2025 – Lunenberg by Norm Foster – a small cast play easy to rehearse over the summer

Lunenburg by Norm Foster 2w 1m

When Iris Oulette inherits a house that she didn't even know existed, she and her close friend Natalie Whitaker travel to the town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, to have a look at her new property. What follows is a series of world-changing surprises, heart-warming personal transformations, and a fall down funny romantic adventure. 

First professional production at The Norm Foster Festival, St. Catharines 2017, ON Cast: 3 actors 1m 2f  

(Playwrights Guild of Canada)

December 2025 – A Christmas Story adapted by Philip Grecian

A Christmas Story – it has come full circle 12 years since we last did it.  7m 4w and children

Humorist Jean Shepherd's memoir of growing up in the Midwest in the 1940s follows 9-year-old Ralphie Parker in his quest to get a genuine Red Ryder BB gun under the tree for Christmas. Ralphie pleads his case before his mother, his teacher and even Santa Claus himself at Higbee's Department Store. The consistent response: "You'll shoot your eye out!" All the elements from the beloved motion picture are here, including the family's temperamental exploding furnace; Scut Farkas, the school bully; the boys' experiment with a wet tongue on a cold lamppost; the Little Orphan Annie decoder pin; Ralphie's father winning a lamp shaped like a woman's leg in a net stocking; Ralphie's fantasy scenarios and more. A Christmas Story is destined to become a theatrical holiday perennial.

March 2026- Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire

Good People by David Lindsey-Abaire 2m 4w

From Dramatists:

Welcome to Southie, a Boston neighborhood where a night on the town means a few rounds of bingo, where this month’s paycheck covers last month’s bills, and where Margie Walsh has just been let go from yet another job. Facing eviction and scrambling to catch a break, Margie thinks an old fling who’s made it out of Southie might be her ticket to a fresh new start. But is this apparently self-made man secure enough to face his humble beginnings? Margie is about to risk what little she has left to find out. With his signature humorous glow, Lindsay-Abaire explores the struggles, shifting loyalties and unshakeable hopes that come with having next to nothing in America.  

Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play of the 2010-2011 Season. Nominated for the 2011 Tony as Best New Play., 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play.  Frances McDormand won the 2011 Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

June 2026 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard 4w 8m

From Concord Theatricals: Arcadia moves back and forth between 1809 and the present at the elegant estate owned by the Coverly family. The 1809 scenes reveal a household in transition. As the Arcadian landscape is being transformed into picturesque Gothic gardens, complete with a hermitage, thirteen year-old Lady Thomasina and her tutor delve into intellectual and romantic issues. Present day scenes depict the Coverly descendants and two competing scholars who are researching a possible scandal at the estate in 1809 involving Lord Byron. This brilliant play moves smoothly between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between classical and romantic temperaments, and the disruptive influence of sex on our life orbits- the attraction Newton left out.

Winner of the 1993 Olivier Award for Best New Play and 1995 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Play