In 2020, Company XIV prepared to honor the 10th season of its holiday production, Nutcracker Rouge. A libertine twist on the classic ballet, the show features bawdy, rigorous choreography danced with a glittering cocktail of carnal abandon and precision. Throughout the show—which includes opera on an aerial hoop—the cast performs onstage and among the audience. […]

“Auditions are weird anyway,” says Zach Morris, co-artistic director of Third Rail Projects. “So let’s double down on the weirdness.” It’s mid-October, and Then She Fell, the company’s wildly successful immersive theater production riffing on Victorian hospital wards and Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, is looking for one male performer to fill a very specific role. […]