Audition Dates and Times
Dates: May 4 and 5,2009 Time: 7p
Location: Acting CompanyTheater Director: Chris Collier
Actors Needed and Director's Notes
This play won best play of the season, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best
American Play of the Year, and Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was released in a film version
starring Joanne Woodward.
The cast consists of five females: Beatrice is a woman in 40's to 50's with two high school age daughters-Matilda and Ruth. These are major roles. Janice is also a teenage girl with a smaller role appearing in one scene, who may be asked to understudy the roles of Matilda and Ruth. Nanny is a decrepit elderly woman who is a boarder in Beatrice's home. She has no liines, but appears in three scenes and her presence contributes greatly to the overall effect of the play.
Character Descriptions
Beatrice: A frowzy, acid tonged woman, supporting herself and her two daughters by taking on a decrepit old boarder Nanny. Beatrice Hunsdorfer wreaks a petty vengence on everybody around her. Tortured, ascerbic,slatternly, she is as much a victim of her own nature as of the cruel lot, which has been hers.
Ruth: A pretty, but high strung girl subject to convulsions. Her clothes aren't necessarily simple, and she gives the impresson of being slightly strange. Her hair isn't quite combed, her sweater's a bit too tight and her skirt isn't quite right, etc. She wear's Devil's Kiss lipstick.
Matilda: A plain and almost pathologically shy girl who has an intuitive gift for science. Encouraged by her science teacher, she undertakes a gamma ray experiment with Marigolds at her high school, and also brings on the shattering climax of the play.
Janice: She is anotther student entered in the science competition. She presents the skeleton of a dead cat which she boiled the skin off so as to display its skeletal structure. She has a voice which is immediately offensive and smug. She is irritating to listen to and her conciet is unbearable.
Nanny: Her busy daughter has consigned her to the care of Beatrice. She is utterly wrinkled and dry, perhaps a century old. Time has left her with a wisper of a smile- a smile from a soul half departed. If one looks closely, great catarracts can be seen in each eye, and it is certain that all that can pierce her soundless prision are mere shadows from the ouside world. She pervades the room with age and supports herself by a four legged tubular frame, which she pushes along with a shuffling motion that reminds one of a ticking clock. Good makeup work can work miracles.
Public Performances: Fridays, Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm; July 10 through Aug 2.
To own copies of the script, it can be ordered through Amazon or Boarders or through the Dramatist's Play Service.
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