Theatre Casting Call for "Calendar Girls" Show
The company is holding auditions for "Calendar Girls" Show and looking for performers, please see the details below. ONLY LOCAL TALENT WILL BE CONSIDERED. About the project: 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. Additional info: Rehearsals begin: 2/5/25 Performances 4/5/25 - 4/20/25 Callbacks: Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 6-8pm Please apply if interested.
14 roles
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 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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
Annie’s husband. 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.
Chris’s husband. 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.
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 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 really doesn’t mean to be so patronizing. But Jessie seems from another world. The world of her Gran.
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 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.
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