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HART is a volunteer based company. There is no pay for this production.Calendar Girls by Tim Firth
Directed by: Leslie Inmon
Rehearsals begin: 2/5/25, Performances 4/5/25 - 4/20/25
DETAILS:
When: Saturday & Sunday, November 9th & 10th, 2024 - 12p - 4p
Location: The HIVE - 233 SE Washington St. Hillsboro, OR 97123
Possible Callbacks on Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 6-8p @ the HIVE
*Both locations are within 2 blocks from MAX Stop.
Sign up for auditions here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094BACA922A7F5C61-52309270-auditions
AUDITION REQUIREMENTS:
Auditions will be round robin style reading sides. Please visit our sign up genius and pick one slot (you may audition for more than one character, but choose only one slot). Sides will be emailed starting no later than October 28th, 2024 to ONLY those signed up to audition.
Calendar Girls:
Please note that the ages listed below serve only as a guide however all ages will be considered for all roles to achieve the best overall fit for the cast. All roles are available and casting is open. All those auditioning for a principal role must choose a monologue from the play to audition with. Sides will be sent out, but you may choose your own selection from the play to present.
Accents: the women of the real calendar in truth came from many parts of the country. Actors should resist the pressure to perform any kind of Yorkshire pyrotechnics. Nothing compromises the truth of comedy like too much attention to vowel sounds and dip thongs. It will become a pebble in the shoe. If you can fatten the “a” so that giraffe no longer rhymes with scarf then that will be more than sufficient; but even that should not be championed over the intrinsic rhythm of the line. People travel. Communities are now gloriously multi instrumental. We’ve had accents from Glasgow to Texas make the same part their own. For more information on dialects please visit: https://www.dialectsarchive.com
Nudity: Everyone will be aware that the calendar shoot is the best-known aspect of the Calendar Girls’ story. It is essential that the audience see nothing that we do not wish them to see in this scene. It will be carefully choreographed and will require a great team effort from all those involved to ensure that each person’s modesty is protected by her fellow actors. However, if you are uncomfortable about the possibility (and this is live theatre so there may be a possibility) do not audition for the role of Chris, Annie, Cora, Jessie, Celia or Ruth.
Characters:
CHRIS: 40 – 60. - You want Chris at your party. She will talk to people she doesn’t know, find things to say to fill silences and generate laughter. Part of this is because Chris is at home in crowds, holding court, being the center of attention. Without Chris in her life, Annie would be better behaved, her life less fun. The two of them are like naughty schoolgirls.
ANNIE: 40 – 60. Annie will join in mischief but is at the heart more conformist and less confrontational than Chris. After Chris has put a waiter’s back up in the restaurant, Annie will go in and pour calm. The mischievousness Chris elicits saves Annie from being a saint. She has enough edge to be interesting, and enough salt not to be too sweet.
Together these two are greater than the sum of their parts. They would be lesser humans had they not met each other. Each is spiritual mustard to the other's meat.
CORA: 30 – 50. Cora’s past is the most eclectic, her horizons broadened by having gone to college. This caused a tectonic shift with her more parochial parents. She came back to them pregnant and tail between-legs, but Cora has too much native resilience to be downtrodden. She is the joker in the pack, but never really plays the fool. Her wit is deadpan. It raises laughter in others, but rarely in herself. Her relationship with her daughter is more akin to that between Chris and Annie. Cora doesn’t need to sing like a diva but must be able to sing well enough to start the show with Jerusalem and sing the snatches of other songs required. Auditions for this role will require the actor to sing the song Happy Birthday, acapella.
JESSIE: 50 – 70. Get on the right side of Jessie as a teacher and she’ll be the teacher you remember for life. Get on the wrong side and you will regret every waking hour. A lover of life, Jessie doesn’t bother with cosmetics – her elixir of life is bravery. Jessie goes on roller coasters. Her husband has been with her a long time and is rarely surprised by her actions. Jessie bothers about grammar and will correct stallholders regarding their abuse of the apostrophe “s”.
CELIA: 30 – 60. The fact that Celia is in the WI is the greatest justification of its existence. A woman more at home in a department store than a church hall, she may be slightly younger than Chris or the same age, but she always feels like she’s drifted in from another world. Which she has. She is particularly enamored of Jessie, and despite the fact Jessie has very little time for most Celias of this world, there is a rebelliousness in Celia to which Jessie responds. It is what sets Celia apart from the vapid materialism of her peer group and what makes her defect.
RUTH: 40 – 60. Ruth’s journey is from the false self-confidence of the emotionally abused to the genuine self-confidence of the woman happy in her own skin. Ruth is eager to please but not a rag doll, and despite being Marie’s right-hand woman she is desperate to be the cartilage in the spine of the WI and keep everyone happy. She has a spine herself – if she was too wet, no one would want her around. But they do, and they feel protective of her because they sense there is 2 something better in Ruth than her life is letting out. They are proved right.
MARIE: 40 – 70. Marie has gradually built the current ‘Marie’ around herself over the years as a defense mechanism. She went to her Oz, Cheshire, and found Oz didn’t want her. She came back scorched. The WI is a trophy to her, which justifies her entire existence. There is a lingering part of Marie that would love to be on that calendar.
JOHN: Annie’s husband. 40 – 60. John is a human sunflower. Not a saint. Not a hero. Just the kind of man you’d want in your car when crossing America. When he dies it feels like someone somewhere turned a light off.
ROD: Chris’s husband. 40 – 60. You have to be a certain kind of guy to stick with Chris and Rod loves it. He can give back when he gets, and has a deadpan humor which has always made Chris laugh. He drinks a lot but never so much as to have a problem. He would work every hour to make his shop a success. And John was his mate, even though the relationship was originally channeled through their wives.
LAWRENCE: 20 – 30 but any age suitable. Hesitant without being nerdy, Lawrence is a shy man with enough wit to make a joke and enough spirit to turn up at the WI hall in the first place. When he arranges the shots he is close to female nudity but sees only the photo.
LADY CRAVENSHIRE: 50 – 70 but any age suitable. Lady Cravenshire really doesn’t mean to be so patronizing, but the WI girls seem from another world, the world of her estate workers. When she makes an entrance, she must make an entrance.
ELAINE: Any age. Elaine really doesn’t mean to be so patronizing. But Jessie seems from another world. The world of her Gran.
LIAM: Any age. Liam would like to be directing other things than photo shoots for washing powders. He’s not so unprofessional as to let it show, but we can sense a slight weariness at having to deal with these women. There’s a resigned patience to his actions and each smile he makes we feel is professional. For Liam, this photoshoot is a job, and not the job he wanted.
BRENDA HULSE: 40 – 60. Brenda is a woman committed to tedious subjects. In the previous year she spoke to the group on “The History of the Tea Towel”. This year it is “The Fascinating World of Broccoli”. She soldiers on seriously while her audience dissolves sniggering.
Synopsis: When Annie's husband John dies of leukemia, she and her long-standing best friend Chris resolve to raise money for a new settee in the local hospital waiting room. With varying levels of encouragement, they persuade four friends and fellow members of the Women’s Institute (W.I.) to pose nude with them for an "alternative" calendar. They are assisted by hospital porter and amateur photographer Lawrence, who looked after John in his final days. This is much to the horror of their local W.I. chairman, Marie. The success of the calendar goes beyond their wildest dreams and they have soon raised the money needed and much more. Their efforts also catch the attention of the national and international press, who soon descend on the small village of Knapely in the Yorkshire Dales. Although the calendar is a huge success, Chris and Annie's friendship is put to the test with their new-found fame and Chris is forced to question her real motivation behind doing the calendar. Tim Firth’s hilarious play is based on the true story of eleven W.I. members who famously posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund in 1999.
HART Theatre is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion in our casting process. We believe in providing equal opportunities for actors of all backgrounds and experiences. We welcome both new and returning actors to audition for our productions.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
185 SE Washington St, Hillsboro, OR, United States, Oregon 97123
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