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Auditions for RolePlay by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Ewen Coleman, will be held at 6.00 p.m. on Sunday 28 February 2010 at the Newlands Community Centre. The production dates are 6 to 9 May and 13 to 15 May 2010.
RolePlay is a hilarious piece of theatre with dark undertones - a vintage dinner-party from hell. As a playwright Alan Ayckbourn is a master at writing about people divided by class, accent, habits and race and RolePlay is no exception.
Synopsis
A young well-to-do couple, but mis-matched in love, Justin and Julie Ann, living in a posh London docklands apartment, have planned a dinner party at which they hope to introduce each other's parents and also announce their engagement.
Into this rather intense environment arrive two unexpected guests, one a lap-dancing gangster's moll, the other her burly gun-toting minder.
What Julie-Ann's parents (the bigoted northern stereotype and his dim twittering wife) and Justin's mother (who is toy-boy chasing and drink-soaked) find when they arrive shows us that the bourgeois guests, under their respective veneers, are far more acid frightening than the interlopers.
Although a comedy with farcical elements RolePlay nevertheless says something about how we all play roles and make assumptions about other people's roles.
A quote from one of the many reviews of the original production:
"One of Ayckbourn's greatest skills is the mixing of the accidental and the improbable with the inevitable and the realistic, and in RolePlay he displays it with magisterial cunning. The writing is as funny, nimble and lethally observant as ever".
Is there a part for you?
Characters – ages approximate only
- Justin Lazenby: about thirty, a software developer - serious, kind, eager to please, anxious, nervy, indecisive.
- Julie-Ann Jobson: early twenties, Justin's somewhat mismatched prissy girlfriend, sweet and conventional but an obsessive perfectionist.
- Paige Petite: late twenties, an ex-lap dancer and a boxing promoter's moll living in a penthouse upstairs - a sexy Cockney blonde.
- Micky Rale: early forties, an ex-boxer and Paige's "minder" - an intellectually challenged monosyllabic Neanderthal bruiser.
- Derek Jobson: late fifties, Julie-Ann's right-wing joke cracking father, an unforgiving racist Yorkshire businessman.
- Dee Jobson: late forties, Julie-Ann's dippy dim witted and twee mother.
- Arabella Lazenby: fifties, Justin's stylishly alcoholic acid-tongued mother, a glamorous, gravel-voiced, sophisticated soak from Surrey.
Dates and details
- Auditions: 6:00 p.m. on Sunday 28 February at Newlands Community Centre, Batchelor Street, Newlands.
- There is no need to book an audition time, and prepared pieces are not required.
- Production dates: 6 to 9 and 13 to 15 May 2010.
- Contact details for the director:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or 027 428 849, 384 1413 (h); 385 5864 (w).
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