Falling Birds | original audio drama

Falling Birds | original audio drama

Project Overview

Falling Birds is originally a stage play of mine, adapted now to be a 3-part audio drama. Thematically, it looks heavily into magical realism, regret, art and emotion. Its overall message is to live in the moment, appreciate the everyday. If I had to give it a genre, I'd say it's a blend of romance, drama, comedy and tragedy.


It follows the story of the hopeless romantic, Kit, as a love poem of his gets read by the wrong person - the Moon. The Moon, until now devoid of human emotion, unwittingly falls in love with him. And she'll stop at nothing to make him hers. Even killing him.


Set in the modern day, the story is told primarily through flashbacks, tracking core memories from Kit's life as he tells them to the Moon. Throughout it, he stands on a rooftop, this story the only thing left to keep him from jumping. When it ends, who knows what choice he'll make...


Please be aware that this production contains strong language, and mild references to and/or themes of self-harm, mental health, death, suicide and alcohol abuse. Please only audition if you are comfortable confronting and working through these topics.


RULES FOR AUDITIONING

1. Show all the emotion you can. 

(This is a piece that literally explores what it means to have emotion and what to do with them, so really do give it your all!)

2. Try and make the character truly your own/unique.

3. Feel free to ad-lib if you think it's fitting.

4. Please do AT LEAST 3 varied takes of each line. 

I will be much less inclined to cast you if you don't do this, as variety and nuance is very important to me as a director.

5. Be willing to commit to deadlines and re-direction.

6. Decent microphone quality is a MUST

Even if you're a brilliant performer, if your mic quality isn't high enough (even after noise removal) I sadly won't be able to cast you.



If you'd like to check out the original stage production for context and/or inspiration, feel free to find it here: https://youtu.be/PgMvdVShoaU?t=278


Any and all accents and levels of experience are welcome!

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Latest Updates

  • Call Over!

    HELLO EVERYONE! It's been a brilliant few months for me, hearing all this incredible talent pouring in over this project, and I wanted to say a truly heartfelt thank you to everyone who has put so much time, effort, and soul into these auditions. Really, really thank you! Casting is pretty much finalised, just waiting for responses from the cast to accept and get the ball rolling, which I'm super excited about. For those who didn't get cast, I seriously appreciate your interest in my stories and I'm sure to have another call coming round before too long. In the meantime, if you'd like to keep up to date with the process and release of this bad boy, please feel free to find and follow all my Socials on my profile <3 Cheers, m'dears! Liz x

  • Feedback and thank you

    Hey hey, Wanted to thank everyone who's submitted an audition so far, we're nearly at 100 which feels wonderful! I've been real busy lately with other projects and work, but I'm hoping once I get them out the way I can get to properly leaving feedback for everyone who's asked for it :) Really looking forward to where this project is going, because you guys are really bringing the talent already x
Project Roles: Kit Delilah The Moon Miranda Young Kit Avery
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Kit
closed
Unpaid
Role assigned to: RambunctiousVA

Kit Holloway is our protagonist - young, naive, a wide-eyed wannabe artist. He's the type old ladies would describe as a charming young man, but he's really just too anxious to take a wrong step. He's grown up only ever wanting to see the magic in the world, but he's just been hit by a horrible wake-up call to how things can actually be. He's stupidly in love with his childhood friend, Delilah, but they're both too stubborn to admit it.

Kit acts as a narrator to many of the story's events, and so needs to have a subtle distinction between his (internal) monologue/narration and (external) dialogue. For moments of narration, I'd love if the voice could become more hushed, intimate, like a storyteller. 

We see Kit between ages 18-22, so his voice will require a youthfulness that can also handle a lot of emotion and nuance.

Voice type:

Medium pitch, smooth, youthful

  • (wistful, amused, soft) Never really been all that different, have we? All I do is write stories that never go anywhere - only talking about stupid, far-off, romantic things - and you inhabit them. You’re what makes them real.

  • (furious, explosive, devastated, screaming then fading away) I ALREADY HAD IT! I held her! Kissed her…! She was going to America, and I - I…

  • (narration, internal) There’s something strange about being on a precipice, isn’t there? A man on the edge with this oddly visceral desire to hurl himself over it. As if the mind’s only reasonable solution to the altitude is to think, ‘well, fuck this’. And – rather than accept defeat to the cliff, or balcony – the body concludes it must simply end itself.

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 72 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Delilah
closed
Unpaid
cast offsite

Delilah is spunky, fun, sarcastic, abrasive, loud, a massive drama queen, and filled with a rage and sadness she pushes down deep inside. As Kit's best friend and love interest, she tries her best to see the good in things like he does, but has never been able to keep her cynicism and regrets get the better of her. She dreams of being an artist like him, going with the flow, but is being pressured into a corporate future by unsupportive parents. She's never happier than when she's with Kit, making fun of him and his poetry in as many ways as possible.

We see Delilah through ages 18-22. Her actress should be able to deliver convincing exaggerated comedy beats, softness and vulnerability, as well as serious anger and spite.

Voice type:

Any pitch

Youthful, fun, sparky, energetic

  • (teasing, sarcastic, COMPLETELY over-dramatic) ‘Siphoning all the times that we have known, I spiral your outline in the sunlight.’ Alright, Shakespeare, calm down! Blah blah blah, ‘ship’… blah bLAAAAHHH WHAT IS THIS?! ‘Come to port in my sheets’ – ooh, so saucy! ‘I tug on the threads of you, and I am the one made naked’ - oh, this better not be about Sarah—

  • (quiet, wistful, daydreaming) Believe me, Kitty… I’d get on a plane tomorrow, if I could afford a ticket, and I’d go as far away as I could, and just hope. Walk through mountains, only owning myself, and raise an empty to all the memories I could make. I could stay so high with nothing but heaven in my headlights, and they’d lead me on to the next world and the next...

  • (sincere, soft, slightly sad) It’s very sweet. Very you. Pretty obscure dream, but if anybody can touch the sun, it would be you. (beat, then teasing) Oh my god, are you blushing?

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 83 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
The Moon
closed
Unpaid
cast offsite

The Moon (usually referred to only as She) acts a bit like the Grim Reaper in this story - She has a book of names that she follows, taking them to the other side without question. Nobody has ever touched her in living memory, physically or emotionally. One day, Kit accidentally does just that, and she immediately takes this as a sign and falls madly in love with him. When he doesn't reciprocate, she takes matters into her own hands.

The Moon appears as a beautiful young woman and often speaks in a strange, olde world dialect - a little Shakespearean - and is very surreal, soft-spoken, eloquent, oddly suave. She seems highly refined and put together, but has moments where she goes absolutely batshit crazy, to the point of being genuinely scary. She's a bit Lovecraftian, and impossible to really wrap your head around.

Voice type:

Medium or low pitch

Smooth, elegant, refined

British RP accent is preferred but NOT compulsory. 

  • (sad, desperate, pleading) I am lonely, Kit. I don’t like feeling this at all, but I somehow think I have to feel it. (Beat) Is this truly what it is to be like you?

  • (psychotic, confused, distraught) No! No, it’s not the same! Come back! Come back! Touch me again, touch— What is this? This feeling? This - pain – a pain – in my – no – my chest - this is feeling – this is what they are! – Only mortals give in to grief, and he has made me like him – he has made me - he has… made me…

  • (quiet, subdued, breathless) A moving requiem, to be sure. But all this time reflecting, Kit. Holding me captive to your very core… (beat) Am I allowed to love you now?

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 48 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Miranda
closed
Unpaid
Role assigned to: MLJones_VO

Miranda is Kit's single mother. She is what inspired Kit to grow up seeing things with a bit of wonder, telling him stories of magic moon pirates and talking sunflowers when he was younger. She is fiercely protective and disguises a lot of her grief and suffering to make sure her son's happiness comes first, still deeply wounded by the leaving of her husband, Frank.

We see Miranda only in flashbacks to Kit's childhood, where she is in her late 20s/early 30s.

Voice type:

Any pitch, though preferably medium or medium-low

  • (sincere, soft, slow - explaining something for a child) Let me tell you something, Kit. Never look for something impossibly wonderful in places or people that are impossibly far away. The best things are the smallest, and closest to your heart, like kindness, or an extra smiley server in a coffee shop.

  • (spiteful, angry) Yes, he takes my name! And he is proud of it. Unlike the father he never could be. I bet you don’t even know how old he is this year. He turns eight, just so you know.

  • (terrified, frustrated - your child is climbing a tree and has gone far too high up) Christopher, what have I told you about jumping from there?! You’re gonna get yourself killed!

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 30 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Young Kit
closed
Unpaid
Role assigned to: Amos Rand

This is Kit as we see him at 7 years old, through flashbacks. He's the ultimate troublemaker, curious about everything and more than happy to get on his mum's last nerve. He has a love of space and the Moon, inspired by a story Miranda tells him about pirates who live on it and visit their garden at night. At times, he seems intelligent beyond his years, understanding Miranda's emotions before she's even processed them - even though he causes her a lot of trouble, he always knows when to stop and take care of her when it's too much. 

His main goal in life is to touch the sun. He thinks it would be soft.

Voice type:

Must be able to convincingly pull off a child voice.

  • (soft, sincere) One day, mum, I really am going to touch the sun. And it’ll be warm, and soft, and purr like a golden cat...

  • (getting tickled, laughing hysterically) No! No! NO! Mum, get off!

  • (slow, thoughtful, curious) I’ve seen you sometimes. When you think I’ve gone to bed, and you do your painting. I don’t mean to stay up past my bedtime, I just like to watch the paint, and everything. You always use blue. It’s a sad colour. And yellow, which I think is happy. But you don’t smile. You don’t smile unless someone else is there.

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 16 Submissions Apply / Audition
Voice Actor
Voice Actor
Avery
closed
Unpaid
Role assigned to: Same Old Satellite

Avery is an elderly family friend of Kit and Miranda's, roughly in their 70s/80s. We meet them only once, as they lie in hospital, when the Moon comes along to fulfil her duties of ferrying souls to the other side. Avery notices something off about them however, and gives them a good old fashioned lesson in facing your fears and allowing yourself to feel both good and bad things. They're a kind old soul at heart, but prone to being short-tempered and sassy. They're accepting of their time being up, more than happy to finally see their spouse again.

Avery is written in the script as female, but I am opening this role to actors of all gender identities as I think it would be nice to open this character up a bit more for interpretation :)

Voice type:

Any pitch

Any gender

Any accent - preferably Scottish, as this is how they're written, but more than open to interpretation!

  • (irritable, impatient) Been wondering what time you’d bother showing up. You have any idea what chicken-shit hospital food is, eh? Worse than whatever you’ve got in store for me, I’ll tell you that much.

  • (incredulous, annoyed, encouraging) Oh, fuck the book! You don’t know who writes it, so why should you take orders from them? Learn to live a little!

  • (nostalgic, sincere) Nurses have tried to take my sunflowers away for weeks, but I won’t have it. I’ve only ever been given sunflowers, my whole life, because my husband knew they were my favourite. He was a useless git who couldn’t change a lightbulb to save his life, but he was the light of mine. These were the last ones he gave me, and I’m not letting some poor underpaid sister take them out unless it’s me with them.

Favorite role Save Role for Later Total Submissions Toggle 14 Submissions Apply / Audition
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