Hilltowns Players Announce Auditions for New Musical

Posted by Gail M. Burns - July 2010

The Hilltowns Players announce auditions for their fall musical comedy, an
original written by local playwright, Penny Shaw (also wrote “Hand in Hand”,
“Beulah-by-the-Sea”, and “Not Yer Av’rage Fairytales”). August 2nd, 3rd, and 9th
at 7:30 pm at the Berne Reformed Church, Route 443 in Berne, New York.
(Rehearsals begin in September on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in
Berne, with performances in mid-November.)

Looking for a large cast of adults, teens,and children age eight and above. For
more info call 872-9455.

The three major roles are:
Doc (female; anger-management therapist for the County court)
Coach (male; one of Doc’s “patient’s”)
Mickey (young boy who always thinks positive of people, even grumps like Coach)

All other speaking roles listed below have eight/ten/twelve/fifteen lines…easy
to learn…no stress!
Karen (woman; steps in as an assistant as the play goes along)
Ray (man; the jokester; enjoys teasing Coach)
Gabby (woman; the token “gossip”…every community theatre group has at least
one!)

Heather (girl; tries to warm up to Coach; almost succeeds!)
Mel (boy; grows tired of Coach’s grumpiness and not afraid to finally confront
him, in spite of his youth!)

There are fourteen additional parts played by teens and adults, and ten
additional parts played by elementary-age children.

STORY: A group of friends have been rehearsing to perform a variety show to
benefit a children’s hospital, when their director is suddenly unable to
continue directing due a family emergency. The group is left without anyone
willing or experienced enough to volunteer to continue directing.

Out of desperation, one of the members of the group, Doc, whose job is not
only to provide anger-management therapy for court-appointed patients but to
assign community service projects for them as well, decides to give one of her
patients the service assignment of directing a play for charity…hers, of
course!

Begrudgingly, the patient shows up at the next rehearsal. The cast (with
no correction from Doc) mistakenly believes that he is a professional drama
coach from New York City and from that point on he is referred to as “Coach”.

From the minute he steps on the stage, this short-fused perfectionist has
to deal with a group of children, teens, and adults who are really only there to
have a good time and not take life so seriously! Though the cast members
steadily lose patience with their grumpy old director, it takes the big heart of
an optimistic little boy (and words of wisdom he learned from his grandma) to
help them break the walls down that this tough man has taken years to build.

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