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✧ Why This Story?
Dorothy has a home and people who love her. She also wants to fly. That feels familiar to us: loving the life around you while wondering what else you might be capable of. Her friends have their own reasons to hesitate. One has learned to apologize for being right. One keeps everyone laughing while waiting for news she’s afraid to ask about. One would rather move a piano than have the room look at him.
Over one very strange night, they begin to see one another more clearly. We’re drawn to that part of Oz. The friendships, the courage that arrives a little late, and the possibility that someone else might recognize something in you before you can recognize it yourself. At PaperMap, we get to watch a little of that happen whenever a new company comes together. It’s a good reason to tell this story here.
About This Production
We want you to fall a little in love with these people before you start wondering which of them you should trust. Come downstairs to the Emerald Tap. Rosie’s singing along, the factory crowd is settling in, and Henry has a story about his bowling trophy that you may have heard before. Dorothy and her friends have earned a quiet evening. Sadly, they’re going to have to earn that quiet evening some other time.
There’s a storm outside, confidential papers have landed in the wrong hands, and those silver shoes are becoming everybody’s business. This adaptation is written this for a company of actors who want something wonderful to get tangled up in, and an audience close enough to catch the exchanged glance, the hidden envelope, and the moment a friend decides to be brave. Come for the caper. We hope you leave feeling like you know the people who made it through the night together!
Auditions
Saturday, November 14, 2026 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Drop in any time during the audition window.
PaperMap Theater & Co.
2 N Summerlin Ave., Orlando, FL 32801Ages 18 and older • All genders welcome • No experience required
A note from Richie
One of the pleasures of adapting these stories myself is getting to write for the community coming through our doors. I see so many women and female-presenting actors eager to participate, and I want to create substantial roles for them. This story has room for a company of adults across generations, with plenty for everyone to do.
If you’ve never auditioned, or you haven’t been onstage in years, I’d love to meet you. Please don’t decide you aren’t right for something before we’ve had a chance to read together.
I can’t cast everyone. But I know showing up takes courage, and I appreciate the time and trust you’re giving me by walking through the door.
Come read a little. Ask questions. We’ll get to know one another.
What to expect
You’ll read from the script with Richie and possibly other auditioners. You may explore more than one character or try a scene a different way.
Nothing needs to be prepared or memorized. Reading material will be provided. Wear comfortable clothes and bring your known rehearsal and performance conflicts.
Rosie is the featured live singer, and Gus has featured dance work. There is also company singing and movement. No prepared song or dance is required for this drop-in reading; we’ll talk about the needs of the roles together.
There is no participation fee for community performers.
Meet the characters
There are eleven speaking roles, with optional nonspeaking factory workers. Ages below describe the characters as written. All performers must be 18 or older.
Dorothy Gale
24 • Our Dorothy
Dorothy can handle an airplane, a factory shift, and most of her friends’ business. Mailing her own application for flight training has proved more difficult. Quick, affectionate, and occasionally very sure she’s right, she becomes the driving force in an adventure that makes her question what she can see and whom she can trust.
A leading role with lively banter, real peril, and the vulnerability of wanting more without losing what you love.
Margie “Straw” Strohm
20s–30s • Our Scarecrow
Margie knows the machine is going to break. She said so on Tuesday. And Wednesday. In writing.
A gifted quality inspector who left school at fourteen, she has become accustomed to being useful without being heard. Her careful habits and reflexive apologies offer wonderful comic detail, while the mystery gives her intelligence somewhere urgent to go.
A part for an actor who enjoys making a small change in confidence feel like a victory.
Lou Tinsley
20s–30s • Our Tin Woman
Lou can mend a broken mechanism and rescue an awkward conversation, usually before anyone asks. Her jokes land on the bosses and herself; her friends get her loyalty.
But her fiancé hasn’t written from overseas since March, and keeping busy is becoming harder work. There’s wit, warmth, practical stage business, and a personal uncertainty underneath it all.
Lou offers an actor the chance to make everyone laugh.
Gus Brandt
30s–40s • Our Lion • Written as a man
Gus moves pianos, works the door, and apologizes to chairs when he bumps into them. Get him onto a dance floor and an entirely different confidence appears.
Away from it, being classified unfit for military service and hearing his German surname treated with suspicion have made him painfully aware of how others see him.
A generous physical-comedy role with featured dancing and a moment of courage that belongs to the person who has spent the evening trying not to take up so much space.
Aunt Em
Adult • Dorothy’s aunt and keeper of the Emerald Tap
Em knows who needs feeding, who is hiding something, and exactly how long Mrs. Phelps has had her plate. She manages with affection, brisk instructions, and worry expressed plainly enough for everyone to hear.
When the evening turns frightening, the people she loves remain her first concern.
A substantial ensemble role for an actor who can make practical care compelling, find comedy in familiarity, and hold the emotional life of a busy room.
Uncle Henry
Adult • Dorothy’s uncle • Written as a man
Henry has a leaking ceiling, a bowling trophy, and seven weeks as a wartime medical orderly that the neighborhood has generously mistaken for a medical education.
His dry observations arrive while he pours coffee and checks the telephone. Beneath the running jokes is someone who understands when to stay calm and when to admit he needs help.
A rewarding role built from comic timing and unshowy affection.
Rosie North
Any adult age • Our Good Witch of the North • Featured live singer
Rosie can make a tired basement feel like the place everyone meant to end up. She sings along with records, persuades people onto the dance floor, and notices what the others miss.
She also has a particular interest in those silver shoes.
A role with musical presence, playful exchanges, and an intriguing amount left unsaid. Rosie’s warmth should feel effortless even when she’s quietly helping an entire room move where it needs to go.
Vera Westcott
Adult • Our Wicked Witch counterpart
At the factory and on the block, Vera is accustomed to being obeyed. She is composed, respectable, and very good at making a question sound like an impertinence. Tonight, the questions keep coming.
An actor gets to build convincing authority, manage what slips through it, and let us feel the danger as Vera’s control begins to fail. A commanding part with sharp exchanges, comic obstruction, and genuine menace.
Nell East
Adult • Our Witch of the East counterpart
Nell arrives with a handbag full of stockings of uncertain origin and silver shoes she can hardly stand to wear. She has an eye for an opportunity, a ready explanation, and very little patience for being uncomfortable.
There’s delicious comic business here, but Nell also has a stake in whom she believes and what she’s chosen not to ask.
A vivid character role with bluster, appetite, and an unexpectedly tender place to land.
Oswald / Olive Diggs
Adult • Our Wizard
Diggs can address thousands over the radio and struggle to speak honestly to one person standing nearby. The factory owner and former balloon performer is accustomed to applause, impressive claims, and a microphone between them and everyone else.
A rich comic role that gradually makes room for awkwardness, accountability, and genuine connection.
The script supports Oswald or Olive Diggs; either version offers an actor the pleasure of letting a carefully maintained public image come apart.
Kip Monahan
Young adult • Our Winged Monkey counterpart
Kip has been entrusted with sealed envelopes and instructions from someone higher up. Naturally, he has followed them.
Cheerful, hungry, and unfailingly polite, this young courier steps into a room where courtesy and obedience are becoming very different things. The comedy grows from sincere trust, and the emotional turn comes as Kip begins making independent choices.
Written as an aviation cadet (or could be a woman serving as a WAAC motor-pool driver.)
Casting note: Gus and Henry are written as men. Kip and Oswald/Olive have specific alternative versions. Performers of all genders are welcome to audition; casting will consider the company as a whole!
