A Bard of Bonny Glen Mystery
Death by Demon
Good tidings, everyone. Thank you for your interest in joining the cast of Death by Demon: A Bard of Bonny Glen Mystery. Read through the information below. Get to know the characters, and submit your auditions. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Casting discussions are currently underway. We are delighted and surprised by the robust response to our project. We thank everyone who has auditioned for their enthusiasm and professionalism during the audition process. So far the quality of each self-taped reading has been stellar, and we intend to give every audition the proper consideration. Due to the number of characters and the volume of submissions, we may require a couple weeks to reach a decision about each role. Our team has decided to continue accepting submissions until the role has been filled. Below you will find the list of characters. If you see OPEN by the name of the character, you are free to send your audition. Thank you for your patience. Good luck to everyone.
- KESHIDA – CAST
- MERIEL – OPEN
- ALVARO – CAST
- RONAN – OPEN
- OCHYRON – OPEN
- HERMES – OPEN
- ELSIE – OPEN
COMPENSATION: All performers for main characters will earn a one-time flat $200 session fee. If the podcast recoups its expenses, then these performers will be compensated additional earnings equal to 2% of the profits. Minor characters will be compensated a flat $150 fee.
LOCATION: Performers should be prepared to record their roles remotely. Some performers (specifically actors from Georgia, South Carolina, or New York) MAY have a more formal recording session. This will be determined by casting and the performers’ availability.
SUBMIT TO: Email auditions to bardofbonnyglen@gmail.com. Include a few sentences about yourself, your background, what attracted you to the role, etc. Standard cover letter stuff.
Subject lines should be formatted as follows: AUDITION: CHARACTER NAME, YOUR NAME (i.e., AUDITION: HERMES, LEVAR BURTON; AUDITION: KESHIDA, CCH POUNDER).
Headshots are appreciated but not strictly necessary. If you have a Voiceover Demo, please include it as an attachment or provide a link so we can find it online.
Click each character name in their description to find a few paragraphs of dialogue. Please record yourself performing that monologue and attach the recording of your audition to the email as a WAV file or an MP3. And don’t forget your resume.
If you intend to audition for multiple roles, please send a separate email for each role you audition for.
Any questions? Don’t hesitate to ask.
ADDITIONAL INFO: Please do NOT feel limited by the character’s suggested age. If you’re an actor in your 30s but you have a mature sounding voice, feel free to audition for a character in their 50s. And vice versa. Actors in their 50s with youthful voices, give one of the younger characters a shot.
This podcast is being developed as a series. All actors auditioning for this season will receive first consideration for the next season and all other subsequent seasons.
This project has been signed with SAG-AFTRA, so members of the union are welcome to apply.
Synopsis
Griffin has only recently left his family farm in the quiet province of Bonny Glen to wander the realm as a bard. Up till now, he’s led a mostly sheltered life learning all he knows of the world from popular songs and epic poems. Early in his travels, he seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an isolated inn. There he meets a diverse collection of characters who behave nothing like he would have expected. Among them are Meriel, a religious acolyte who tells dirty jokes; Alvaro, a monster-slaying knight who refuses to discuss his exploits; Ochyron, an elf who barely speaks at all; Keshida, a witch with a unique philosophy on magic; Elsie, a maiden with a secret; Ronan, her paramour with a temper; and Hermes, a boastful innkeeper. Before Griffin can make sense of their odd behavior, he’s presented with a bigger mystery.
After a night of singing and swapping tales, someone slips off into darkness to summon a demon that rips through the inn and murders Hermes in the wake of its chaos. Immediately following the murder, the inn’s guests exchange intense accusations, but by morning they are resigned to the idea that they may never know who really killed Hermes. Everyone except Griffin, who refuses to allow his first adventure to end without a proper resolution. As Griffin takes up a lonely cause, the murderer starts leaving him hints that he could be next. To further complicate matters, the hell hound doesn’t return to the shadows and continues to wreak havoc in the area, and the only way to defeat it seems to be discovering who summoned it in the first place.
Characters
Hermes is proprietor of the Dizzy Ogre, a lonely little inn halfway between a vast forest and a sleepy village. He’s a braggart prone to exaggeration, but nobody minds because he’s so affable. He only has one arm, and he loves telling the story of how he lost it during the Sunset Wars. But his fighting days are far behind him. These days, he’s such a peace-loving person that he confiscates all weapons from the inn’s guests. He is widely beloved, and everyone who knows him seems to owe some debt to his generosity. He dies in an attack by a hellhound, but the most confounding part of his murder seems to be why anyone would want him dead.
Ochyron is an elf. He’s taciturn and stoic. When he does speak, he does so with calm and courtesy, but his reserve masks an intense self-doubt. To the human eye he looks to be between 20 and 30 years of age, but he is actually much older. According to rumor, his clan was responsible for introducing magic to the Sunset Wars, but Ochyron himself has no talent for magic at all and he’s very ashamed of it. He personally fought in the Sunset Wars, the great conflict between humankind and elves, but he did not return to his clan afterwards. He has lived in human communities for several decades now, and he has become accustomed to their mistrust.
Keshida is a witch. She’s friendly and even a little motherly. She has a funny habit of asking rhetorical questions and then answering them herself. She and Hermes are in a romantic relationship, which she describes as comfortable rather than passionate. All the same, she is devastated when he dies. Keshida takes great pride in her magical abilities and her reputation, but she’s been keeping a secret that could be a threat to her good name.
Alvaro is a roving knight and a renowned monster-slayer. He comes from the distant kingdom of Montehano, but his legend has spread far and wide. He’s embarrassed by his fame, however, and he takes no joy in discussing his adventures. But don’t be fooled by his humility. He’s a very skilled fighter. He is instinctively protective and puts a lot of stock in ideals like honor and duty. Underneath it all, he’s very tender-hearted, but he doesn’t want anyone to know because in the past his compassionate nature has been mistaken for weakness.
Some proficiency in speaking Spanish will be useful but not necessary.
Ronan is Hermes’ apprentice and the only other staff at the inn. Although when he is first introduced, he is more interested in romancing Elsie than performing his duties. But after Hermes’ death, he steps into the role of innkeeper with commitment. Ronan has a temper. He can usually focus it on the injustice the poor classes of the kingdom suffer at the hands of their “betters.” When he was still a child, his father lost his life because of a rich man’s incompetence, and that put him on the road to becoming the revolutionary he is today. He belongs to a loosely organized group of like-minded peasants who conspire to discredit the monarchy and bring about a more equitable society. But they haven’t managed to make much of a difference because they seldom agree on a course of action.
Elsie is not exactly what she seems. She’s hardly ever what she seems. Her full name is Elisaria, and her mother is Queen Delphina, otherwise known as the Sorceress Queen. Queen Delphina raised her daughter with a lot of latitude, and Elisaria has turned out to be quite the free spirit as a result. Elisaria will one day take the throne, but until then she is determined to enjoy every second of freedom she can. She enjoys the company of men, but she’s in no rush to marry. She enjoys time away from court, where there are less restrictions on her manners. And the thing she enjoys most of all is disguising herself as other people. She considered Hermes one of her closest confidantes, and she is just as determined as Griffin to root out his murderer. So using her gift for disguise, she spies on the other suspects and tries to learn their secrets.
Meriel is a Herald. She worships the goddess Umra, but she’s a recent convert to the Heraldry, having only joined a few years ago. Meriel still enjoys the occasional dirty joke and spending time in the tavern. Heralds prize honesty above all other virtues. Some Heralds are so extreme in their devotion to the truth that they consider stories and all works of fiction despicably sinful. But Meriel is not so fanatical. She believes a made-up story can lead to the truth if told appropriately. Griffin reminds Meriel of her younger brother, so she takes a sisterly role with him, meaning she fusses and worries over him a lot.