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PHOTO: Gregor Smith, Rebecca Singer, Emily Lagace, Cody Curtis, and Kathleen Leopold prepare to audition for Gaslight Theater’s production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Hallowell City Hall auditorium in 2019. (Gaslight Theater photo)
HALLOWELL – Auditions will be held March 12 and 14 for Peter Shaffer’s “Black Comedy,” which will take the stage at the Gaslight Theater in April and May.
Auditions are at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 12, and Tuesday, March 14, at Hallowell City Hall, 1 Winthrop St. Bring proof of COVID-19 vaccination to auditions. There are parts for three women and five men, and auditions are cold readings.
“Black Comedy” is a one-act farce first performed in 1965. The premise is that light and dark are transposed, so that when the stage is lit, the cast are supposed to be in darkness and only when the stage is dark are they supposed to be able to see each other and their surroundings. Set in London, a young sculptor and his fiancée have borrowed expensive antique furniture from a neighbor’s flat without his permission to impress an elderly millionaire art collector. When the power fails, the neighbor returns early, other people arrive, and the fun begins.
Show dates are the weekends of April 28-30 and May 5- 7. All shows are at Hallowell City Hall Auditorium.
The parts are;
BRINDSLEY MILLER – a young sculptor, mid-20s, intelligent and attractive, but nervous and uncertain of himself.
CAROL MELKETT – Brindsley’s fiancée. A young debutante; very pretty, very spoiled, very silly.
MISS FURNIVAL – a middle-aged lady. Prissy and refined. Clad in the blouse and sack skirt of her gentility, her hair in a bun, she reveals only the repressed gestures of the middle-class spinster — until alcohol undoes her.
COLONEL MELKETT – Carol’s commanding father. Brisk, barky, yet given to sudden vocal calms that suggest a deep alarming instability. It is not only the constant darkness that gives him his look of wide-eyed suspicion.
HAROLD GORRINGE – the bachelor owner of an antique-china shop, and Brindsley’s neighbor, Harold comes from the north of England. His friendship is highly conditional and possessive: sooner or later, payment for it will be asked. A specialist in emotional blackmail, he can become hysterical when slighted, or (as inevitably happens) rejected. He is older than Brindsley by several years.
SCHUPPANZIGH – a German refugee, chubby, cultivated, and effervescent. He is an entirely happy man, delighted to be in England, even if it means being employed full time by the London Electricity Board.
CLEA – Brindsley’s ex-mistress. Mid-20s; dazzling, emotional, bright, and mischievous. The challenge to her is to create a dramatic situation out of the darkness is ultimately irresistible.
GEORG SAMBERGER – an elderly millionaire art collector, easily identifiable as such. Like Schuppanzigh, he is German.
For more information, visit www.gaslighttheater.org or call 207-626-3698.
