THE CHAIN
Project Overview
THIS IS A ROLE FOR ONE MALE VOICE THAT CAN ALSO DO FEMALE VOICE PERFORMANCES. PLEASE READ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW BEFORE SUBMITTING. ALL THREE LINES ARE REQUIRED FOR AUDITION.
Welcome to Maplewood-Sparta, where suburban streets are lined with shadows. Some say the 90s are dead and gone. But here ... they linger.
This is the fourth in the Spartans! anthology—think Are You Afraid of the Dark? meets haunted mixtapes and 90s nostalgia.
Episode 4: THE CHAIN—a story of the Winter Solstice 1994, a Chanel double-chain belt, and a mean girl's Krampus curse.
SYNOPSIS
Set in Maplewood-Sparta during a blizzard on the Winter Solstice of 1994, THE CHAIN is a bottle episode: a single night that shatters a high-school hierarchy.
Alison hosts a lavish Christmas party at her family’s old house, where the most popular girls in school gather—led by Jenny, their magnetic but cruel queen bee. Dressed in black velvet and a gold Chanel chain, Jenny rules the room with sharp smiles and quieter resentments, especially toward her friend Gabriella, whose effortless confidence has begun to eclipse hers.
Jenny’s boyfriend, Mike—the school’s golden-boy quarterback and baseball star—is drifting away, leaving Jenny desperate for attention. Among the guests is Patrick, a quieter member of their circle, who serves as the story’s narrator. Jealous and uneasy himself, Patrick entertains the group by telling a legend about Krampus—the Christmas demon who punishes "those who deserve it" with chains and whips. Jenny, half-mocking and half-tempting fate, rings a sleigh bell and calls him out: “Hey, Krampus. Bring me Chanel or go to hell.”
From that moment, the party unravels. Jenny’s casual cruelties begin manifesting as supernatural punishments: a girl who bites her nails starts tearing her fingers bloody; another, mocked for dieting, begins to gorge herself; Gabriella—who has been keeping secrets—literally splits between two warring selves.
As the fire roars, garlands wither, and chains echo through the walls, the house itself seems whipped by Jenny.
The others flee and Jenny’s boyfriend abandons her too, unnerved by what she’s become. Alone in the snow, she straightens her glittering chain and walks into the storm, her platform footprints twisting into cloven shapes behind her.
The narrator helps Gabriella home — and glimpses a darker secret waiting in her room, hinting at the story yet to come in the next episode of SPARTANS!
A blend of 90s teen drama, Christmas horror, and moral fable, THE CHAIN is a story about envy, image, and the price of cruelty.
You can listen to past episodes of the SPARTANS! anthology here.
EPISODE RATING
🔥 Campfire (Mature Teen / 16+)
Advisory: Body horror (self-harm/bleeding, compulsive eating, supernatural possession); teen bullying and psychological cruelty; alcohol use; mild profanity; demonic/hell themes.
Run-time: Approx. 25 minutes.
TIMELINE
Audition deadline: November 16, 2025
Casting decisions: November 17, 2025
Recording deadline: December 8
Release: December 15 and 17, 2025 at Camp Cosmographia Radio (free and paid) then December 19 on Spotify/Apple/Amazon Music/YouTube.
🎧 FILE REQUIREMENTS
Format: MP3 for auditions; WAV required for final recording
Sample rate: 44.1 kHz or higher
Final files (when ready for production) should be clean, broadcast-ready voice tracks: no background noise, no music/effects, minimal breaths, consistent levels.
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NARRATOR WILL VOICE ALL 7 CHARACTERS
This is a narrator-driven audio story told as if around a campfire (part of the SPARTANS! audio-fiction podcast).
We’re seeking a single actor to voice the first-person narrator (Patrick), but also Jenny, Gabriella, Laura, Courtney, and Alison, as well as Mike.
So, in other words: we need an adult or young adult male voice for the narrator but the actor will also need to voice 5 teen/young adult women (Jenny, Gabriella, Laura, Courtney, and Alison) all with distinct voices and personalities.
It's important that you can do these female voices without going too broad, cartoonish, falsetto, or stereotyping. Up for the challenge?! :)
Some notes:
These are teens, but I find it's best to use young adult voices for these characters, not make them sound too young. They don't feel young to themselves!
Less is more. Warmer is better than colder. Nuance and naturalness are king and queen.
Setting: Maplewood-Sparta (somewhere in suburban America with seasons. Loosely based on Upstate NY but no regional accents of any kind required).
Date: December 21, 1994
Tone: 90s teen gothic / suburban horror fable / moral allegory
PATRICK (The Narrator)
Age: Older, young adult or adult looking back at high school.
Type:
Adult self: warm, campfire voice tinged with the darkness and wonder of the tale he is telling.
Teenage self: popular kid (baseball player) but grounded. A good guy. Steady observer. A part of things but slightly on the edges, with quiet depth.
Voice: Warm, reflective, confident. Performative in moments but earnest in others — someone telling a story from experience, not fantasy. WAS there, but also DOES like to lean into the urban-legend storytelling quality of all this too.
Arc:
He is friends with Mike and loosely part of the popular crowd, but somewhat at its edge. A little jealous, a little self-deprecating, and quietly in love with Gabriella, he becomes both witness and accomplice to the night’s events.
JENNY
Age: 16
Type: Queen bee / social predator / beauty with a fatal edge
Voice: Sharp, confident, and calculated. She's a little smaller than the others but her mean streak is legendary. She sees everyone's flaws and is always somewhat performing for an invisible audience. Remember, this was the 90s, so mocking and sarcasm were basically currency.
Overview:
The alpha of her group. Dazzling, manipulative, and magnetic, Jenny craves adoration, fears irrelevance, and hates vulnerability and visible "effort" in others (Laura's obsessive with grades, Courtney's failed dieting) and is threatened by Gabriella's new effortless-seeming dark glow.
Arc:
When she mocks the Krampus legend, her cruel “truth-telling” becomes literal — each insult turns supernatural. By the end, she’s left at the party with only her own anger, isolation, and the demon in the mirror.
GABRIELLA
Age: 16
Type: Beautiful/ kind/ calm-appearing, poised, but hiding a traumatic secret that is ripping her in half.
Voice: Low, calm, steady — with hints of sadness or mystery.
Overview:
Once Jenny’s closest friend and mirror, Gabriella is evolving beyond the clique — experimenting with identity, spirituality, and self-expression, though none of her friends know about it. She wears red velvet and a simple black choker instead of the status symbols that define the others.
Arc:
Becomes the moral and emotional counterweight to Jenny. When Jenny calls her “two-faced,” Gabriella literally splits — her inner conflict made visible. (Her trauma and transformation will carry into the following episode of SPARTANS!: THE CHOKER.)
COURTNEY
Age: 16
Type: Sycophantic, self-conscious, wanting to be liked, especially by Jenny
Voice: Hopeful, agreeable, a little breathy
Overview:
Jenny’s follower. She’s been dieting for months, terrified of losing her place in the group. When Jenny mocks her body, her self-loathing becomes literal, spiraling into supernatural gluttony.
LAURA
Age: 16
Type: High achiever / girl next door. Calm at surface but obsessed with grades and the cracks are showing. Think of the girl who is in all AP classes and also a starter on the soccer team. That's her.
Voice: Steady, frank. Middle register.
Overview:
Valedictorian track, straight-A student, but barely keeping it together lately. Jenny sees her diligence as weakness and targets her, triggering the first supernatural punishment — uncontrollable self-destruction through anxiety.
ALISON
Age: 16
Type: The party girl / the host/ a bit boy-crazy
Voice: Loud, performative, feminine, fun, slightly slurred.
Overview:
Alison hosts the party at her father’s sprawling, half-haunted Victorian home while he’s away. She’s the one who tries to keep the peace, torn between idolizing Jenny and resenting her. Her panic when the house turns on them makes her the story’s “normal” emotional barometer.
MIKE
Age: 17-18
Type: Golden boy / athlete but a senior and high school glory beginning to fade. Think of the only guy in high school who can handle—and then even get bored of—the hottest, meanest girl. That's him.
Voice: Relaxed, masculine, slightly cocky — but a bit withdrawn lately.
Overview:
Star quarterback and baseball pitcher, known for impossible luck — the kind that makes him untouchable. He’s Jenny’s boyfriend, though his affection is cooling. His “luck” becomes a thread that will carry into THE STARTER, the sixth episode in the series.
- male adult
- male young adult
- narration
- female young adult
NARRATOR (casual observational that turns dark): Gabriella lingered at the edge of the crowd, red velvet clinging, black choker at her throat. It was so simple, so unlike Jenny’s Chanel—just a single strip of darkness, no brands, no gold. But it made Gabriella’s confidence look effortless. Jenny saw it. And she hated it.
JENNY (sharp and mocking, making fun of her friend in front of everyone) At this rate, Laura, you’ll be handing in exams with stumps instead of hands. (pause — then, almost a laugh) What? Someone had to say it.
GABRIELLA (two sides warring: one poised, the other in grief, they argue back and forth): I’m fine! I’m not fine. Leave me alone! Don’t leave me, Ethan.
![sonic: chaosbound - arc 1 [casting call]](https://images.castingcall.club/project_images/image-1265394-33ab54d7-1390-4639-9f25-72c9bf53a930.jpg)
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