From farcical to foul-mouthed, from a two-hander to a cast of thousands (well, dozens), there’s a lot of variety in the plays Gabriola Players is considering for production in our 2024/25 season.
We face a particular challenge with three of the five plays. They all require male and female actors in their twenties. We understand that it is not always easy for people this age, who are working full time and/or have young children, to commit to three rehearsals a week for eight to ten weeks before the performance, but we can promise a lot of fun and a great deal of gratification. So this is a call out to all twenty-somethings (and youthful thirty-somethings) to consider giving acting a go.
ALL ARE WELCOME AND NO EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY.
NB: We have electronic copies of most of the scripts. If there’s one you would like to read before the auditions, please send an email to gabriolaplayers@gmail.com.
OPEN AUDITIONS
ROLLO CENTRE
Sunday, August 25 from 2pm to 4pm
The plays
Dear Jack, Dear Louise is playwright Ken Ludwig’s love letter to the correspondence that began the love story of his own parents. “When two strangers meet by letter during World War II, a love story begins. US Army Captain Jack Ludwig, a military doctor stationed in Oregon, begins writing to Louise Rabiner, an aspiring actress and dancer in New York City, hoping to meet her someday if the war will allow. But as the war continues, it threatens to end their relationship before it even starts.”
Roles to be cast:
Jack (male, thirties) and Louise (female, twenties).
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Glengarry Glen Ross is a dark and at times shocking satire by David Mamet. It tells the story of four Chicago salesmen and their office manager embroiled in the back-stabbing world of selling undesirable and overpriced Florida real estate in the early 1980s. In order to succeed they lie, flatter, bribe, threaten, intimidate and steal. The action takes place over two days at the end of a month when head office has set up a “sales contest”: the top two men will receive prizes, while the rest will be fired. The stress and anxiety this causes is so intense it seems almost tangible, apparent from the opening scene and escalating until the end. The play is a timely reminder that the greed mentality that surfaced in the 1980s is still very much with us.
Roles to be cast:
The desperate Shelly Levene (male/female, fifties), the big shot Ricky Roma (male/female, forties), the angry and aggressive Dave Moss (male, fifties), meek and mild mannered George Aaronow (male, fifties), their manager, company man John Williamson (male, early forties) and Roma’s client James Lingk (male, early forties).
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Our Town by Thornton Wilder is a play within a play set in the early 20th century. The Stage Manager serves as the narrator, guiding us through the lives, loves and losses of the simple townsfolk of Grover’s Corners, a fictional New Hampshire village, from 1901 to 1913. This is a play that entreats audiences to realize that it is the small things in life that are truly precious and that we should all learn to appreciate this before it is too late.
Roles to be cast:
The two central characters are Emily (early twenties) and George (early twenties), who meet in their teens and go from friends, to puppy love and eventually marriage and beyond. The Stage Manager and remaining 25 characters (male/female, forties or older) are doubled or tripled up by a troupe of up to 10 actors.
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The Deep Blue Sea, by Terrence Rattigan, takes place in a dingy London flat over the course of one day in 1952. It begins with an act of despair – Hester Collyer, the estranged wife of a high court judge, attempts to commit suicide. Her action is caused by the callous behaviour of her lover, Freddie Page, a handsome, feckless ex-RAF pilot. The story of Hester’s tempestuous affair with Freddie, and the breakdown of her rather austere marriage to Sir William Collyer, gradually emerges. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. The play ends as it begins, beside the gas fire, but this time it is lit – a tiny gesture of hope.
Roles to be cast:
Hester Collyer (female, late thirties or older), Freddie Page (male, late thirties or older), Sir William Collyer (male, fifties or older), the neighbours Philip Welch (male, late twenties or older) and Ann Welch (female, late twenties or older), Mr Miller (male, late forties or older), Mrs Elton, the landlady (female, late forties or older) and Jackie Jackson, Freddie’s friend (male, late thirties or older).
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The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s hilarious farce, is the story of Jack Worthing and his best mate Algernon Moncrieff, both of whom assume the identity of Jack’s fictional brother Ernest (created by Jack to allow him to lead a double life and regularly foray into London to partake in the various indiscretions the city has to offer without having to suffer the disapproval of his fellow rural Victorian era neighbours). As must happen in a proper farce, both Jack and Algernon fall in love as Ernest, which is where we – and the hijinks – begin.
Roles to be cast: Jack and Algernon (male, twenties), Cecily and Gwendolen (female, twenties), the butlers Lane and Merryman (male, forties or older), Lady Bracknell (female, forties or older), Miss Prism, a governess (female, forties or older), and Dr. Chasuble, the village rector (male, forties or older).