THENEWYORKER,OCTOBER18, 2021 15
“Job alert,” the notice, posted to BAM’s
social-media accounts, read. “No expe-
rience necessary. Requirements include:
ability to lie on a beach for several hours.”
Community members of “any age (at
least 12 years old), gender, ability, racial
and ethnic background, and body type”
were encouraged to apply. More than
three hundred did. From there, the
“Sun & Sea” team narrowed down the
candidates, then conducted two days of
video auditions, ultimately selecting
around thirty lucky beachgoers.
John Hoobyar, a casting director
for the show, recently emphasized the
production’s wish to “represent the
breadth of all the different kinds of
bodies and people that you see at the
beach.” He added, “And the diversity of
Brooklyn, too.”
On September 15th, the beachgoers
prepared for their opening night. More
than twenty tons of sand had been dumped
onto the floor of the BAM Fisher build-
ing; beach balls, bottles of sunscreen, and
colorful towels completed the scene. A
retiree named Cheryl George (“Just like
Boy George,” she said) sat in an off-white
beach chair. She wore a one-piece lime-
green swimsuit and had electric-blue
nails. “I’m a senior and had nothing to
do,” she said, explaining her decision
to apply. “I’ll try anything once.” George
said that her friends had been worried
when she’d told them about the role:
Did she really want strangers looking
at her in a bathing suit? “I was, like,
‘It’s not pornographic!’” she said, with
a shrug.
A couple of towels over, Dante Hus-
sein, a college student, chatted with
Sonia Ganess, who works in tech and
writes. They had struck up a friendship
during rehearsals. Hussein’s partner had
pushed them to apply after seeing the
casting notice on Instagram.
“I thought it was a far-fetched idea
at first,” Hussein said, with an eye roll.
But on ref lection the opportunity
sounded like an ideal trial run. “I got
top surgery a few months ago,” Hus-
sein said, their button-down open. They
wanted to emphasize the fun of being
at the beach and “feeling comfortable
for the first time.”
Lina Lapelytė, one of three creators
of the opera, appeared on a staircase
above the stage. She had asymmetri-
cal bangs and wore a billowy frock, andwas there to critique the previous night’s
dress rehearsal.“People were too stiff
and, like, too silent,” she told the nov-
ice beachgoers. “A lot of you were prob-
ably exploring the situation with your
eyes and ears rather than with your
bodies.” She urged the extras to be more
dynamic: Play badminton. Pick up rub-
bish. Apply sunscreen.
Hoobyar was standing on the sand
in a red Speedo. “Beachgoers!” he shouted.
“Swimming is in this corner.” He pointed
offstage, where a hose was set up to spray
extras. He suggested that anyone who
felt like being splashed message him
on the production’s WhatsApp channel.
In a corner, Debbie Friedman, a for-
mer stage manager, took the notes to
heart and walked over to a bicycle. “I
want to ride this bike!” she murmured,
gripping the handlebars.
“Don’t whisper,” Lapelytė contin-
ued. “It’s important that you speak aloud.
We were missing that yesterday—the
soundscape, the buzz of voices.” She
added, “You can have conversations
with the singers, if you wish. Just don’t
bother them when they’re singing.”
When the show started, the classi-
cally trained singers keened about the
collapse of coral reefs. (“Not a single
clima-a-a-atologist predicted a sce-
nario like thi-i-i-is!”) At her spot on
the sand, George f lipped through a
copy of InStyle and napped. Hussein
read a Western adventure book. A cou-
ple walked a dog along the beach. A
few children, wearing masks impro-
vised out of bandannas, ran barefoot.
On the WhatsApp thread, Hoobyarvolume, listed sales to Hollywood cli-
ents, and media visibility.”
The first award, for Celebrity Prop-
erty Portfolio, went to Rappaport.
“Shocking, shocking, shocking!” a
heckler shouted.
The Media Maverick award went
to Jason Oppenheim, of the Oppen-
heim Group and the reality series “Sell-
ing Sunset.”
“You fucking maverick!” the heck-
ler hooted.
The Stratospheric Sale award went to
a trio that had unloaded a seventy-
million-dollar Bel Air estate to the
Weeknd.
“We finally made it,” Branden Wil-
liams, one of the winners, said, accept-
ing his trophy. “Us Realtors bust our
balls seven days a week, 24/7, and there’s
no awards. But we’ve finally got ’em,
right here in Hollywood!”
Oppenheim regarded the award it-
self: a hunk of black crystal shaped like
the head of a spear. “It comes with a
cleaning cloth,” Ali said.
“It’s a weapon,” Oppenheim said.
“I’m not even sure I want it in the house.”
Pener announced an after-party hosted
by a home-staging company.
“Someone is going to kill someone
with one of these, and then it’ll be a Net-
flix documentary,” Oppenheim said, walk-
ing out. “And then it’ll be worth a lot.”
—Sheila Yasmin Marikar
1
DEPT.OFAMATEURISM
BEACHSCENE
A
n open casting call is rarely as egal-
itarian and meritocratic as the word
“open” implies. Starry-eyed hopefuls are
expected to possess some panache and
some relevant experience, or to be an
undiscovered talent of mythic propor-
tions. But the Brooklyn Academy of
Music recently decided to embrace the
concept of true amateurism. It put out
a call for people who wanted to be beach-
goers in the avant-garde climate-crisis
opera “Sun & Sea.” The piece was com-
missioned for the Lithuanian pavilion
at the 2019 Venice Biennale, and this
would be its American première.