by Polly Stenham. Directed by Liam Stewart.
Performance date and time :
Wednesday 10 – Saturday 13 February and Tuesday 16 – Saturday 20 February ay 7.30pm
Matinées on Saturdays 13 and 20 February at 3pm
To be performed at the Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington
To be considered for this production, you will need to be available for ALL of the above dates.
Auditions Dates & Times
Auditions will take place on Sunday 8 November 2pm-6pm and Tuesday 10 November from 6pm at the Tower Theatre.
Recalls will take place on Friday 13 November from 6pm.
Auditions are for Tower Theatre Company Members only.
Please note that you cannot audition for any show if you have not passed a company audition. If you would like to join the Company, please contact our membership/auditions secretary Stephen Brasher here for more information.
You will be sent sides prior to the audition and asked to perform with other auditionees on the night. There is no need to learn lines but the sides will give you a sense of the play.
To sign up to an audition, please complete our online sign-up form.
If you have any questions about the play or process, please email the production team at [email protected].
About The Show
When a boarding school initiation ritual goes disastrously wrong, 15 year old Mia is expelled and sent back to her London home. Her mother, Martha, isn’t interested as she prefers drinking and discussing art with her 18-year-old son, Henry. Mia’s return forces her estranged, wealthy father to fly in from Hong Kong, threatening to sort things out. But what needs sorting out? It’s family.
Polly Stenham’s multi-award-winning 2007 debut play is a gripping, darkly comic drama offering a visceral exploration of an affluent family in freefall. That Face won the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award, the TMA Best New Play Award, and the Critics’ Circle Award.
Character Breakdowns
N.B. The ages listed below are suggested playing ages, however these are just a rough guide. We are happy for actors of all backgrounds to apply for all roles and encourage actors to use their own accents. All parts will be played by actors aged eighteen and over.
Martha (Female, Playing age: 40s–50s): A fading, glamorous, and heavily medicated alcoholic who has failed to grow up. She is deeply manipulative and vulnerable, shifting rapidly from dark humour to childlike desperation as she maintains a dangerously co-dependent hold on her son.
Henry (Male, Playing age: 18–20): Martha’s son, who has sacrificed his own future and education to act as her primary carer. Sensitive, artistic, and deeply protective, he is ultimately exhausted, angry, and trapped in an agonizing emotional warzone of his mother’s making.
Mia (Female, Playing age: 15–16): Henry’s younger sister. Sharp, sarcastic, and dangerously provocative, she uses her rebellious, cynical exterior to mask profound fear, guilt, and a desperate need for parental love and stability.
Hugh (Male, Playing age: 40s–50s): Martha’s ex-husband who has started a new life and family in Hong Kong. He is practical, successful, and emotionally distant, preferring to fix his family’s chaotic emotional problems with money and authority rather than genuine presence.
Izzy (Female, Playing age: 16–17): A privileged older girl at Mia’s boarding school who acts as a charismatic and dangerous ringleader. She is highly manipulative, enjoys wielding social power over others, and treats cruelty as a performance.
Alice (Female, Playing age: 13–14): A younger, innocent boarding school student who becomes the victim of a brutal initiation ceremony. Though she has very limited dialogue, this role requires strong physical acting to convey deep fear, trauma, and presence through stillness. *NB this role has no lines but is in two scenes – one tied to a chair and one in a hospital bed.
Rehearsals
Rehearsals will take place on Mondays & Thursdays 7pm-9.30pm and Sundays 2pm-6pm. Rehearsals will start on Sunday 29 November. You will be required to attend the Get-In on Sunday 7 February, as well as Technical Rehearsals on Monday 8 February and Dress Rehearsals on Tuesday 9 February. A full rehearsal schedule with confirmed rehearsal times will be created once casting is complete. Please ensure that you declare any dates that you are unavailable during the rehearsal period at your audition.
 Liam Stewart joined the Tower in 2023. He appeared as David in Labour of Love that year and as Davey in Jerusalem last summer. He directed Telling It (one of the Spring Forward plays) in 2024 and Hangmen in 2025. He had previously performed as part of a comedy group including several successful shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and hosted his own popular monthly stand-up comedy night. Liam is a local Drama Teacher. |