BREAKING THE CODE AUDITION NOTICE 

MELVILLE THEATRE COMPANY will be holding auditions for “Breaking the Code” by Hugh Whitemore on Saturday 14 March, 2026 from 9am-4pm, and Monday 16 March, 2026 from 7pm-10pm.

BREAKING THE CODE
By Hugh Whitemore

Based on the book Alan Turing, The Enigma by Andrew Godges
Directed by Barry Park
By arrangement with ORiGiN™ Theatrical on behalf of Samuel French, a Concord Theatricals Company 

Unpaid community theatre work for Melville Theatre Company

PERFORMANCES

Performances will be held at The Main Hall in the Melville Civic Centre, 10 Almondbury Rd, Booragoon WA

Preview at 7.30pm: 24 June 

Evening shows at 7.30pm: 26, 27 June, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 July. 

Matinees at 5pm: 28 June and 5 July. 

Bump out at 10am: Sunday 12 July

REHEARSALS

Rehearsals Commence Saturday 25 April ,2026 at 2pm
Mondays and Wednesdays – 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Saturdays – 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Additional rehearsal: Tuesday 23 June 2026 – 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Some actors will only be required for specific rehearsals.

Rehearsal Venues: The first 3weeks of rehearsal, after the read-though at the theatre will be in Subiaco (TBC). Thereafter, all rehearsal will be at The Space below The Main Hall in the Melville Civic Centre.

Please do not apply if you are performing in another production during the rehearsal or performance period.

You will be required to have your book down about three weeks into rehearsals.

AUDITIONS

Audition Dates, by appointment: (Exact time slot selected upon registration.)

• Saturday 14th     March, morning and afternoon
• Monday 16th     March, evening

Audition Venue: Melville Theatre Company, Melville Civic Centre (Lesser Hall), 10 Almondbury Rd, Booragoon. Best entry is via Marmion Street, turn into Davy Street, go through the roundabout and turn into the City of Melville Carpark. The Lesser Hall is under the Melville Civic Centre and has signage on the grey brick walls.

To book an audition slot, please sign up at:  https://www.trybooking.com/DKDXN

PLEASE notify the theatre in advance if you are unable to attend the audition at the time you have booked.

If you are unable to audition that day but would still like to be considered for a role, please submit a self-tape audition which includes your contact details to:  Melville.theatre.company@gmail.com

Audition Requirements:

• Please bring      or email your acting CV and a recent headshot.
• Arrive 10      minutes early to check in and collect an excerpt from the script      (or request a copy in advance from the theatre)
• Prepare a short      monologue* or text excerpt that suits the tone and character(s)      you are auditioning for, or an extract from the play Memorisation      is encouraged.
• You will also be      asked to read a selected excerpt from the play.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Breaking the Code is a moving biographical drama about Alan Turing, the brilliant British mathematician whose revolutionary work in cryptography helped shorten World War II — and whose life was later destroyed by the very society he helped save.

The play moves fluidly between different periods of Turing’s life: his schoolboy years and first experience of love and intellectual connection; his groundbreaking work at Bletchley Park, where he and a team of eccentric, driven codebreakers race against time to crack the German Enigma code; and the postwar years, when Turing becomes the subject of a police investigation due to Britain’s criminalization of homosexuality.

Rather than following a strict chronological structure, the play weaves memory, interrogation, and reflection together, revealing how Turing’s emotional life, intellectual honesty, and social awkwardness shaped both his greatest triumphs and his deepest vulnerabilities. As the investigation unfolds, the audience comes to understand that Turing’s “crime” is not espionage or betrayal, but his refusal to hide who he is.

At its heart, Breaking the Code explores the cost of truth in a world built on secrecy. It asks urgent questions about justice, loyalty, and the human consequences of laws enforced without compassion. Though rooted in history, the play remains strikingly contemporary — a portrait of a man far ahead of his time, and a society tragically unprepared to accept him.

The play premiered in London’s West End in 1986, starring Derek Jacobi as Turing, and received strong critical acclaim for its emotional depth and intellectual clarity. William A. Henry III of Time magazine described it as “elegant and poignant,” and reviewers called it a “powerful, riveting drama.” 

It transferred to Broadway in 1987–88, again starring Jacobi. That production received multiple major award nominations, including three Tony Award nominations — Best Actor in a Play (Jacobi), Best Featured Actor in a Play, and Best Direction of a Play — and two Drama Desk Award nominations for acting. 

Over the years, the play has been produced internationally by professional, university, and community theatres. It was adapted into a 1996 BBC television film starring Jacobi, which won a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and received BAFTA and GLAAD nominations. 

Breaking the Code continues to be regarded as a moving and socially significant drama, praised for its combination of historical insight and human storytelling.

This production contains references to discriminatory laws, and state persecution of homosexuality and same-sex relationships. It includes discussion of police investigation, emotional distress, and historical injustice, as well as brief references to death. Themes of prejudice, repression, and moral conflict are central to the play.

Only the leading role of Alan Turing has been pre-cast, with Melville Theatre's consent

Gender: Male
Playing Age: Mid-30s to late 40s (appears from late teens to age 41)
Accent: Educated Southern English (Cambridge/London; gentle speech eccentricities)

Alan Turing is the brilliant, unconventional heart of the play — a man whose intellect helped shorten World War II, yet whose emotional honesty led to his destruction. Socially awkward, piercingly intelligent, and often unintentionally funny, Alan speaks with a directness that disarms others and leaves him vulnerable. His journey spans youthful idealism, wartime innovation, and the quiet devastation of persecution. He struggles not with morality, but with a world that punishes truth. Alan is a man who speaks plainly in a society built on concealment — and pays dearly for it. There is an intimate scene with Nicos.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: 30s–50s
Accent: Standard British / Southern English (police-professional, middle-class)

Ross is a conscientious police officer whose routine investigation sets Alan’s downfall in motion. He is neither cruel nor ideological — merely efficient and obedient to the law. As the play unfolds, Ross begins to recognize the human cost of his actions. His ordinariness is what makes him dangerous: a man enforcing injustice without malice.

Gender: Female
Playing Age: 50s–60s
Accent: Educated upper-middle-class English (Southeast England; refined but natural)

Sara is Alan’s devoted, formidable mother — intelligent, socially polished, and deeply loving, yet constrained by Edwardian values. She is proud of her son’s brilliance but bewildered by his difference, constantly trying to reconcile him with her rigid sense of respectability. Her affection is genuine, her blind spots profound. Sara embodies the well-meaning incomprehension of a generation that loves deeply but fears deviation.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: about 20 (Actor can be older)
Accent: Northern English (working-class)

Ron is a young, working-class man whose brief relationship with Alan becomes central to the police investigation. Open, sincere, and emotionally direct, Ron contrasts sharply with Alan’s guarded intellect. He represents warmth, physicality, and the possibility of simple human connection — as well as the vulnerability that comes with it in a hostile society.

Gender: Female
Playing Age: 30s–40s
Accent: Educated British English (professional, middle-class)

Pat is a perceptive, capable codebreaker and one of the few people who truly understands Alan. Emotionally intelligent and grounded, she forms a deep friendship with him — tinged with affection, loyalty, and unspoken longing. Pat’s compassion and clarity offer a vital emotional counterpoint to the play’s intellectual world, reminding us that empathy is a form of intelligence.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: About 60
Accent: Educated upper-class or upper-middle-class English (Oxford/Cambridge; gently eccentric)

Dill is a brilliant classical scholar and cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park — humane, witty, and quietly subversive. A colleague rather than a superior, he offers Alan intellectual companionship and rare acceptance. Eccentric without being foolish, Dill represents a fading academic tradition that values imagination and kindness over hierarchy and control. His warmth and dry humour ground the play’s wartime scenes.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: middle aged
Accent: Educated British / Upper class

Smith is the courteous, immaculate face of the British intelligence establishment. Polite, controlled, and quietly threatening, he embodies institutional power — valuing brilliance only insofar as it remains compliant. His exchanges with Alan are elegant duels between authority and integrity.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: About 20 (Actor can be older)
Accent: Speaks only Greek (warm, musical Mediterranean tone) The actor must be able to learn to speak Greek for the play
Notes: He appears in only one significant scene towards the end of the play, partially clothed, and is intimate with Turing.

Nikos is a young Greek man whose openness and physical ease offer Alan a glimpse of unguarded affection. Tender, confident, and emotionally fearless, Nikos reveals Alan’s capacity for intimacy and longing. Their brief connection is hopeful — and dangerous — underscoring the fragility of love in a repressive world.

Gender: Male
Playing Age: Late teens (Actor can be older)
Accent: Educated English (public school; bright, youthful)

Christopher is Alan’s first intellectual soulmate and emotional awakening. Open-hearted, curious, and kind, he introduces Alan to the joy of shared thought and connection. Though his life is brief, his influence endures — shaping Alan’s emotional world and belief that ideas, like love, transcend death.

About the Playwright

Hugh Whitemore was an acclaimed British playwright and screenwriter known for his intelligent, humane explorations of real lives, moral responsibility, and social justice. Born in London in 1936, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and went on to build a distinguished career in theatre, television, and film. Whitemore was particularly celebrated for his biographical dramas, often focusing on historical figures whose lives illuminated wider cultural and ethical issues. His best-known stage work, Breaking the Code (1986), based on the life of mathematician Alan Turing, earned international acclaim and multiple award nominations, becoming one of the most important British plays of the late 20th century. Other notable works include Pack of Lies (adapted from a television play and nominated for a Tony Award), Stevie (about poet Stevie Smith), Frankenstein: The True Story, and numerous television dramas for the BBC. Across his body of work, Whitemore was praised for combining rigorous research with emotional clarity and theatrical accessibility. He was regarded as a writer of moral seriousness and deep compassion, drawn to stories of individuals caught between private truth and public expectation. Hugh Whitemore died in 2011, leaving a legacy of thoughtful, socially engaged drama that continues to be widely performed.

About the Director

Barry Parkhas been teaching, acting, and directing since the 1980s, earning numerous awards for his work across theatre and performance. Based in Perth, his extensive directing credits include A Song at Twilight, The Lady in the Van, Private Lives, Beautiful Thing, Hay Fever, Present Laughter, and Design for Living (Old Mill Theatre); Hansard, The Lisbon Traviata, and The York Realist (Garrick Theatre);  The Deep Blue Sea (Melville Theatre); Arcadia (Harbour Theatre); The Normal Heart, French Without Tears, The Boys in the Band, A View from the Bridge, The Real Thing, Broken Glass, M. Butterfly, All My Sons, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (GRADS Theatre Company); and August: Osage County and Other Desert Cities (Playlovers). In addition to his work in Perth, Barry has directed numerous plays and musicals overseas and has performed professionally at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Grahamstown Festival, as well as in London, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. His performance credits span plays, musicals, pantomime, film, radio, television productions, and commercial work.