Lettice and Lovage
Audition Dates
Tues 18th and Thurs 20th June, Rehearsal Room 8pm
Production Dates
Tuesday 1st - Saturday 5th October
1. There are two really great parts for women plus two excellent cameo roles and the opportunity for two or three other actors to upstage everyone else.
2. The play is a rallying call for anyone fighting mediocrity.
3. It is very funny.
Lettice is the daughter of an actress who travelled in France with an all-female theatre company. Now working as a guide in a rather boring stately home, she begins to enliven her tours with a few extra anecdotes. Over a period of time her tours become theatrical events, very entertaining and firmly rooted in fantasy. She is, of course, found out and is sacked by the efficient, very correct Lottie who administers the Trust that runs the stately home. From this inauspicious beginning an odd friendship grows up. Both women revere excellence and despise the "mere" and Lottie obviously just needs someone to liberate her creativity. They meet regularly to explore and act out the more dramatic moments in history. It is whilst acting out the execution of Charles the First that disaster strikes.
Lettice is a wonderful character, flamboyant, stagy, passionate and very funny. Lottie is restrained, very intelligent and only needing a little encouragement to really let herself go. Between them they expose the dreariness and uniformity of much in society today. They raise a flag for the eccentric and the colourful. They are supported by two characters, Bardolph, the stuffy lawyer, who like Lottie is drawn into Lettice's technicolour vision of the world and Miss Framer, Lottie's neurotic assistant. Lots of opportunity in both cases for part building!!
The play begins with four tours of the stately home (we do have one of two design challenges in this production,) when the tour members will have ample opportunity to upstage each other and generally entertain. I'd like to do the tours with no more than four people so this will involve quite a bit of ingenuity and lots of fun.
Come and read for this show. It's a play for the individualist.
Cast
Lettice............................................................ 38 - 68
Lottie...............................................................38 - 68
Mr Bardolph (Lawyer)............................ middle aged
Miss Farmer.............young thing (but really any age)
Woman with (and without) baby.................. Any age
Man............................................................... Any age
Rehearsals begin in mid-August. Scripts and further information from the Director from June.
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