YORK Settlement Community Players have been granted special permission by Marina Carr's agents to stage her award-winning play The Mai next March.

Open auditions will be held on Sunday from 2pm to 5pm and Tuesday, 7pm to 10pm, at Clementhorpe Community Centre, Lower Ebor Street, York. Directions can be found at itravelyork.info/planner/

Director Jan Kirk says: "Marina Carr grew up in County Offaly in the Irish Midlands in a literary household, her father a novelist and playwright, her mother a poet. As a child, she read children's versions of Greek Myths and these became major influences in many of her later works.

"She is prominent at the moment, having written a version of Hecuba, Euripides's Greek tragedy, for the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose production is in performance in The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon."

Set in the Irish Midlands, The Mai was first performed in Dublin in 1994, when it won the Dublin Theatre Festival Best New Irish Play Award. "In essence, the play explores the hopes and disappointments of four generations of women within one Irish family," says Jan.

"It stages the memories of Millie, The Mai's daughter. The adult Millie narrates the drama performed on stage but participates in the action as a teenager and reconstructs the summer of 1979, when The Mai's estranged husband returns after a five-year absence, and the summer of 1980, when the marriage has disintegrated again. The Mai is the story of the quest for love and depicts the loss of love, romantic and familial."

The play has seven female roles, ranging from 16 and 30 (for Millie) to 100 (Grandma Fraochlán) and one male role (The Mai's husband Robert, age 42). Other parts are The Mai, age 40; Beck, her sister, age 37; Connie, her sister, age 38; Julie, her aunt, age 75, and Agnes, her aunt, age 61.

"The audition will consist of a read-through of extracts from the play, which will be provided, followed by group work. Sections of the play will be given time for rehearsal and then shared with the rest of the group," says Jan. "Please come prepared to 'have a go' at a Southern Irish accent."

The Mai will be staged at Upstage Theatre, 41 Monkgate, York, from March 16 to 19 next year and rehearsals will start on Tuesday, January 5, taking place on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

Director Jan Kirk has extensive experience as an actor and director. For the Settlement Players, she has directed Travels With My Aunt in 2011, Humble Boy in 2013 and Rohilla in 2014.

Auditions forms can be requested from Jan by emailing jankirk.cop@gmail.com. "Let me know which date is best for you," she says. "If you can manage both dates, please indicate, as this will be useful for audition numbers."