NON-EQUITY ACTORS FOR A QUIET END Staged Reading
Auditions for A QUIET END by Robin Swados
Directed by Gerardo Sanchez
Produced by Open Space Arts

Open Space Arts is seeking actors for a staged reading of Robin Swados' A QUIET END, a deeply human play about friendship, love, mortality, and the AIDS crisis.

Written in 1986 at the height of the AIDS epidemic, A QUIET END is being presented by Open Space Arts in recognition of the play's 40th anniversary.

The reading is part of BEFORE WE ARE HISTORY, Open Space Arts' October-November 2026 project of productions, readings, and conversations examining how theatre gave voice to the AIDS crisis and preserved the stories, relationships, and experiences of the people who lived through it.

About the Play
Set in New York City during the height of the AIDS crisis, A QUIET END follows three gay men living together while confronting illness, mortality, friendship, faith, and the uncertainty of a disease the world is still struggling to understand.

Max, Tony, and Billy have been brought together by circumstance, but their shared apartment gradually becomes a place where humor, fear, anger, love, and care coexist. Max must also reckon with Jason, a former partner whose love for him remains complicated, painful, and very much alive.

A QUIET END centers not only the devastation of the AIDS crisis, but the people living inside it - men who joke, fight, fall in love, care for one another, question faith, grieve, and refuse to disappear quietly.

Seeking
MAX - early 30s, male

Intelligent, articulate, sardonic, and often armed with humor as a defense. Max is funny, fiercely independent, and deeply afraid of allowing himself to need other people. His complicated relationship with Jason forms an important emotional thread of the play.

TONY - late 30s, male
An actor and former athlete with a directness and vulnerability that contrast with Max's intellectual defenses. Tony is funny, emotional, stubborn, and unashamed of expressing what he needs. As his health deteriorates, his openness about fear, pain, faith, and human connection becomes one of the emotional centers of the play.

BILLY - late 20s, male
A Midwesterner whose warmth and earnestness initially contrast with Max's cynicism. Billy is thoughtful, caring, funny, and spiritually searching. He carries complicated feelings about family, faith, vulnerability, and returning home.

JASON - early 30s, male
Max's former partner. Loving, wounded, frustrated, and still deeply connected to him. Jason carries the history of a complicated relationship while struggling with the reality that his feelings for Max have never disappeared. The role requires an actor comfortable navigating anger, tenderness, grief, intimacy, and unresolved love.

The role includes physical affection between male characters, including an embrace and kiss in the published text.
DOCTOR - mid-50s, voice only
A psychiatrist heard during Billy's sessions. Calm and probing, the Doctor helps uncover Billy's complicated relationship with grief, family, vulnerability, and his past.

Content Notice
A QUIET END was written during and directly engages with the AIDS crisis. The play contains discussions and depictions of HIV/AIDS, serious illness, death and dying, grief, sex and sexual history, religion and faith, family rejection and estrangement, medical treatment, and strong language.

The material includes physical and emotional intimacy between male characters. Because this presentation is a staged reading, the physical staging of intimate moments may differ from what is written in the full script. Any intimacy expectations for the reading will be communicated clearly and approached collaboratively with the actors.

Open Space Arts is a proud member of the League of Chicago Theatres and is committed to equality, fairness, respect, and the principles outlined in the Chicago Theatre Standards.

Fee: $50

Callbacks
In Person Call Back with script sides: TBD evening week of 9/21-9/25 at Open Space

Callbacks will consist primarily of readings from A QUIET END. Selected actors will receive sides and additional information in advance.

Cast Posting: 9/28-10/2 with next steps and script party.

Inclusion Statement
Performers of all races, ethnicities, colors, national origins, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, abilities, body types, and backgrounds are strongly encouraged to submit. Open Space Arts is committed to inclusive, equitable casting.