Monthly Archives: November 2015

Burien Actors Theatre is seeking an African-American actress for the role of Elizabeth in the comedy In the Next Room or the vibrator play, set in 1880s America and written by Sarah Ruhl. The show calls for a 7-person ensemble to play 7 characters.

Elizabeth is an African-American woman in her late 20s to late 30s. A mother grieving the loss of her baby. Smart, full of common sense, self-possessed. Has the enviable quality of presence and effortless exquisiteness. Agrees to be a wet-nurse to Dr. and Catherine Givings’ baby when Catherine can’t produce sufficient milk to feed her baby. Becomes Catherine’s confidante. Artist Leo Irving falls in love with Elizabeth. Actor doesn’t have to be in the age indicated above to play Elizabeth, but must be able to convincingly play a woman in that age range.

SYNOPSIS: In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. Set in 1880s America at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat ‘hysterical’ women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household. In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to 
tend to their newborn daughter—and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new “hysterical” patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor’s home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.