Other Desert Cities
AUDITIONS!
Other Desert Cities
Written by Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Jon Patrick Selover
Other Desert Cities is a sharp and emotionally charged family drama set during a holiday gathering in Palm Springs. When a daughter returns home with a memoir that reveals long-buried family secrets, political differences and painful memories erupt, forcing the family to confront truth, loyalty, and the past. Both witty and deeply moving, the play explores how the stories we tell shape the people we love.
Rating: PG-13
Auditions Date:
Sunday, August 9th, 2026
Callbacks (by invitation only):
Monday, August 10th, 2026
First Rehearsal Date:
Sunday, August 16th, 2026
Show dates:
October 9-24, 2026
Please arrive at least 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork.
CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS & AUDITION SIDES
Brooke Wyeth
Age Range: Mid 30s to 40s
- Brooke is an intelligent, liberal-leaning professional writer and journalist who has returned home from living in New York after a long estrangement and a severe clinical breakdown. She has written a memoir about her brother Henry’s tragic past, which threatens to expose the family’s carefully buried secrets. Her tortured relationship with her family has centered on her opposing Liberal political views.
Polly Wyeth
Age Range: 60s to early 70s
- Brooke’s mother. Graceful and acerbic matriarch. She has been active for decades in the Republican Party. She is deeply devoted to the preservation of her social standing, her family and the health of her husband. She is an elegant, whip-smart, and acerbic matriarch with strong conservative, Reagan-era political views. A former Hollywood screenwriter alongside her sister, Polly is calculating, controlling, and fiercely protective of her family’s image.
Lyman Wyeth
Age Range: Late 50s to early 70s
- Brooke’s father. He is a former B-movie Hollywood actor with some celebrity and charm, turned Republican ambassador. . He is conservative but with a sense of humor about himself. Sturdy, kind, and gentle patriarch, Lyman loves his family deeply but ultimately stands alongside his wife to prevent Brooke from publishing her manuscript.
Trip Wyeth
Age Range: Mid 20s to mid 30s
- Brooke’s younger brother. He is an easygoing, witty, and self-effacing reality TV producer. Though he uses humor to deflect family tension, he is highly perceptive and emotionally grounded.– in a family obsessed with his older sister’s mental health. He assumes the role of second banana with grace
Silda Grauman
Age Range: Late 50s to early 70s
- Polly’s sister and Brooke’s aunt. Creative, fragile, and funny. A former B movie writer, and the Bohemian, polar opposite of her sister. She is fresh out of rehab and repays the support of the conservative Wyeths by joining Brooke in some liberal needling of her parents. A sharp-tongued, quick-witted, and recovering alcoholic, she acts as a wise-cracking but fragile confidante to Brooke. She previously wrote screenplays with Polly before a bitter split.