Blog Posts

Walpole Footlighters Announce Auditions for Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon

1/8/2017

The Walpole Footlighters are pleased to announce auditions for their spring production of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 6 and 7, at 7:30 pm at the Footlighters Playhouse, 2 Scout Road, East Walpole, Mass. Callbacks if needed will be on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 7:30 pm.
Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Actors are welcome to attend either or both of the first two nights. Show dates are May 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20 at 8:00 PM and May 7 and 21 at 2:00 PM. Rehearsals are tentatively scheduled for Sundays, Tuesday, and Thursdays. The cast consists of two boys, two men, and three women.
Set in Yonkers in 1942, the play opens as Eddie leaves his two teenage sons with his mother, Grandma Kurnitz, while he goes on the road as a salesman. The boys’ mother has died recently, leaving their father deep in debt to loan sharks who financed her medical care.
The two boys are left to contend with their stern grandmother, with their mentally challenged but gentle and loving Aunt Bella and with their Uncle Louie, a small time hood. The story follows the boys’ changing relationship with the their grandmother and Bella’s growing longing for independence from her mother.
Lost in Yonkers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award, is perhaps Simon’s most enduring play.
Please direct any questions to [email protected] or to director Peter Bradley at [email protected].

The characters are:

Jay, about 16 years old
Arty, his brother, 13-14 years old.
Eddie, their father, late 30s
Bella, their aunt, mid-30s
Grandma Kurnitz, 60s-70s
Louie, the boys’ uncle, mid-30s
Gert, the boys’ aunt, late 30s

Walpole Footlighters Announce Cast for Don't Dress for Dinner

12/30/2016

The Walpole Footlighters is pleased to announce the cast for our February production, Don't Dress for Dinner, by Marc Camoletti, adapted by Robin Hawdon. The production is directed by Dan Delaporta.

Bernard: Dan Kirichok
Jacqueline: Ann-Marie Weaver
Robert: Peter McElhinney
Suzette: Emily Murray
Suzanne: Ashley Harmon
George: Andrew Bradley

Thank you to all who auditioned!

Walpole Footlighters Announce Auditions for Don't Dress for Dinner

9/27/2016

The Walpole Footlighters are pleased to announce auditions for Don’t Dress for Dinner by Marc Camoletti, directed by Dan Delaporta. Auditions will take place on Tuesday, November 1st and Thursday, November 3rd at 7:30 p.m. at the Footlighters Playhouse at 2 Scout Road, East Walpole, MA.

Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Auditioners are welcome to come both nights, but it is not required.

Rehearsals will most likely be Tuesdays, Thursdays and later afternoon Sundays, pending cast availability.

Show dates are February 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18 at 8:00 p.m. and February 12, 19 at 2:00 p.m.
The cast consists of three men and three women. The plot summary and character details are included below.

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].
We hope to see you there!

Plot Summary:
From the creator of Boeing Boeing, Don’t Dress for Dinner is a hilarious French farce. Bernard is planning a romantic weekend with his chic Parisian mistress in his charming converted French farmhouse while his wife, Jacqueline, is away. He has arranged for a cordon bleu cook to prepare gourmet delights, and has invited his best friend, Robert, along to provide the alibi. It’s foolproof — what could possibly go wrong? Well… pretty much everything! Suppose not everyone knows what is going on. Suppose there are other secret lovers in the house. Suppose the cook has to pretend to be the mistress and the mistress is unable to cook. Suppose everyone’s alibi gets confused with everyone else’s. It’s a hilarious evening of continuous confusion ensues as Bernard and Robert improvise at breakneck speed.

Roles:
Don’t Dress for Dinner is full of plot twists, mistaken identities and deceptions, and it requires fully committed actors with great comedic timing and the physical comedy skills to pull it off. All ages are approximate and the actor must believably be able to play that range.

Bernard: Male, 30s-early 50s
Jacqueline's husband and Suzanne's lover. Cheating husband planning a weekend with his mistress at his home, invites his friend, Robert, as part of the alibi; handsome businessman, flirtatious, dapper, self-assured.

Jacqueline: Female, 30s-early 50s
Bernard's wife and Robert's lover, changes her plans to be able to rendezvous with Robert once she learns he is coming for the weekend; lovely, assertive, romantic, intelligent. Must be comfortable wearing a negligée/lingerie onstage.

Robert: Male, 30s-early 50s
Bernard's single friend and Jacqueline's lover, caught up in his own affair, but having to play along with Bernard's alibi too; reserved, nervous, an all-around nice guy forced to improvise.

Suzette: Female, mid 20s to late 30s
A Cordon Bleu private cook, married, friendly, working class, funny, a swan beneath the seemingly “ugly duckling” exterior, independent, practical, and crafty, thrown into the mix of affairs by Bernard and Robert to take on shifting roles throughout the evening; French accent.

Suzanne: Female, mid 20s to late 30s
Bernard's mistress, a Parisian fashion model/actress, stylish, easily flustered, forced to play the cook's role upon arrival; French accent. Must be comfortable wearing a negligée/lingerie onstage.

George: Male, late 20s to late 30s
A big man, intimidating in stature, strong, jealous and protective of his wife Suzette, more brawn than brain, not one to indulge in the fooling around; French accent.

Announcing the Cast for The Great American Trailer Park Musical

7/19/2016

The Walpole Footlighters are pleased to announce the cast for our opening production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical.

Jeannie: Tracey O'Farrell
Betty: Kathleen Hardigan
Lin: Heather Vieira
Pickles: Juli Small
Pippi: Ashley Harmon
Norbert: Ken Golner
Duke: Kenneth Densmore

The Great American Trailer Park Musical runs from October 21 - November 6. Tickets will go on sale on August 1.

Auditions for The Great American Trailer Park Musical Announced

5/19/2016

WALPOLE FOOTLIGHTERS ANNOUNCE AUDITIONS FOR
THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL

The Walpole Footlighters are pleased to announce auditions for THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL by David Nehls and Betsy Kelso on Monday, June 13 and Wednesday, June 15 with callbacks on Thursday, June 16. All audition sessions will start at 7:30 pm at the Footlighters Playhouse, 2 Scout Road, East Walpole, MA.

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL will be directed by Marianne Phinney. The Music Director is Dan Moore and the Choreographer is Lisa Kelleher.
Performances will be October 21, 22, 28, 29, November 4, 5 at 8:00 pm and October 30 and November 6 at 2:00 pm. We will have a one or two music rehearsals and a read-through in June, then rehearsals will start in late August.

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL is a country-rock and blues musical about agoraphobia, adultery, 80's nostalgia, spray cheese, road kill, hysterical pregnancy, a broken electric chair, kleptomania, strippers, flan and disco. Most of the show takes place in “Armadillo Acres,” a trailer park in the North Florida town of Starke. The musical comedy centers on a regular guy and his agoraphobic wife, whose marriage is threatened by a hot young stripper who just shows up one day in Armadillo Acres. The trailer park also plays home to a trio of women, each dysfunctional in her own right, who serve as the Greek Chorus.

Ages are “stage age”. This show is strong country and rock and requires strong singers who also have comedic flair. The show contains adult language and situations. Pippi performs a pole dance during one scene.

Auditioners should prepare 32 bars of a country or rock song. Bring sheet music; an accompanist will be provided. Wear shoes you can dance in and be prepared to learn a combination. We will also do cold readings from the script.

For information and an audition form, please visit our web site: http://www.footlighters.com/auditions.html.

Characters:

Jeannie Garstecki - 35-45 years old. (Belt and Mezzo) Jeannie has lived in a trailer at Armadillo Acres for 20 years with her husband and high-school sweetheart, Norbert. A faded beauty, she was 17 when she married, 18 when her son was born and 23 when he got kidnapped. That, coupled with a really bad perm, has turned her into an agoraphobic. She hasn’t left her trailer in all these years, and the man she loves is drifting further and further away and she’s determined to get him back…that is if she could manage to get out of the trailer to do it…

Norbert Garstecki - 35-45 years old. (High Baritone) Jeannie’s husband Norbert collects tolls for a living and tries to be as good a husband as one can be to an agoraphobic. A former high-school football star, any good looks he may have had when younger, are now marred by fatigue and the stress of his difficult marriage. He is a simple man who desperately wishes his wife could get out of the trailer, but he’s not equipped with the emotional or intellectual tools to help her do it. He has never loved or slept with another woman other than Jeannie. That is until he meets…

Pippi - 28-35 years old. (Big Belt) Up to this point, Pippi’s life has been about surviving. She is a professional stripper who has gotten by on her looks and talents for dancing and petty theft. She means no harm and is ready to stop making bad choices and start making changes, but first she has to get lost in a hick-town trailer park in North Florida so she won’t be found by her last bad choice…

Duke -24-28 years old. (Rock Tenor) Duke is Pippi’s obsessive, possessive and excessive Magic-Marker sniffing boyfriend; ex-boyfriend according to Pippi. Not so, according to Duke. Not the brightest guy south of the Mason-Dixon Line, Duke leaves a trail of disaster in his wake wherever he goes. His road trip to Starke is no exception and his arrival at the trailer park is full of surprises- even for a group of people who have had their share of excitement…

Betty - 38-50 something. (Rough Belt) Betty attended high school with Norbert and Jeannie Garstecki and has lived at Armadillo Acres for just as long. She now runs the leasing office and makes it her business to know everything about everybody who passes through the trailer park. Though a self-proclaimed bad-ass, Betty is really a mother hen to the denizens of the trailer park. Of all “The Girls,” Betty is the most grounded, earthy and dry.

Linoleum (aka Lin) - 30s. (Belt) So named because her mother gave birth to her on the kitchen floor, Linoleum has a husband on death row at the Florida State Prison. His fate is the electric chair that doesn’t work properly unless most of the town’s electricity is turned off. So Lin watches everyone's lights and appliances very closely in the hopes that she can keep the chair on the fritz. Sometimes self-absorbed and sometimes just a smart-ass, she hints at a wild, rock-and-roll past and is the fieriest of “The Girls.”

Donna (aka Pickles) - 17 or so years old. (Belt) A newlywed, Donna is called “Pickles” because she is perpetually hysterically pregnant- that is, she is so convinced she should be pregnant she’s exhibiting symptoms. Her husband is a lot fancier than she is, as he is from the big city of Jacksonville. His parents haven’t been very supportive of his marital choice, so Pickles is desperate to give her husband a family of his own - even if she has to fake it. The dimmest of “The Girls,” Pickles is airy, sweet and blissfully ignorant.

The Walpole Footlighters Announce 2016-2017 Season

4/23/2016

The Walpole Footlighters are pleased to announce their 2016-2017 season. The season begins with the comedy musical The Great American Trailer Park Musical, followed by the farce Don't Dress for Dinner in February and ending with the Neil Simon comedy Lost in Yonkers.

The Great American Trailer Park Musical
Music and Lyrics by David Nehls
Book by Betsy Kelso
Directed by Marianne Phinney
Musical Direction by Dan Moore
Choreographed by Lisa Kelliher

Oct. 21 - Nov. 6, 2016

In present day Florida, in a trailer park called “Armadillo Acres” (though there are few armadillos and even fewer acres), Betty, Lin and Pickles sun themselves with complete indifference to ozone depletion. Ever hospitable, they set aside their sun reflectors to welcome the audience, clearly not their style. “The Girls” also introduce Jeannie,
agoraphobic and unable to step outside her trailer, much to the exasperation of her toll collector husband, Norbert. Just another day, nothing new, except for Pippi, a stripper-on-the-lam who arrives to stir up trouble on her five-inch heels! A sparkling irreverence makes this a laugh-out-loud musical with a country-rock and blues score.

Don't Dress for Dinner
by Marc Camoletti and Robin Hawdon
Directed by Dan Delaporta

Feb. 3-19, 2017

Bernard is planning a romantic weekend with his chic Parisian mistress in his charming converted French farmhouse, while his wife, Jacqueline is away. He has arranged for a cordon bleu cook to prepare gourmet delights,
and has invited his best friend, Robert, along to provide the alibi. It’s foolproof, what could possibly go wrong? Well, suppose Robert and Jacqueline are secret lovers, and consequently determined that Jacqueline will NOT leave for the weekend. Suppose the cook has to pretend to be the mistress and the mistress is unable to cook. Suppose
everyone’s alibi gets confused with everyone else’s. An evening of hilarious confusion ensues as Bernard and Robert improvise at breakneck speed.

Lost in Yonkers
by Neil Simon
Directed by Peter Bradley

May 5-21, 2017

By America’s great comic playwright, this memory play is set in Yonkers in 1942. Bella is a 35 year-old, mentally
challenged and living at home with her mother, stern Grandma Kurnitz. As the play opens, ne’r do-well son Eddie
deposits his two young sons on the old lady’s doorstep. He is financially strapped and taking to the road as a salesman. The boys are left to contend with Grandma, with Bella and her secret romance, and with Louie, her brother, a small-time hoodlum in a strange new world called Yonkers.

Walpole Footlighters Announce Cast for "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (revised)

1/15/2016

The Walpole Footlighters is pleased to announce the cast for "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

Charlie Brown: Ken Golner
Snoopy: Luke Witherell
Lucy: Heather Vieira
Sally: Elaine Bono
Linus: Patrick Murphy
Schroeder: Richard DeJesus

Thank you to all who auditioned!

Walpole Footlighters Announce Auditions for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (revised)

12/16/2015

The Walpole Footlighters will hold auditions for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, directed by Stephen Lee, with musical direction by Danielle Clougher, on Wednesday, January 6 and Thursday, January 7, 2016 at the theater at 2 Scout Rd., East Walpole.

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown (revised script)
January 6 & 7 @ 7:30 pm
Callbacks January 10th @ 3pm if needed

Based on the comic strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schultz
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Clark Gesner
Additional Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa
Additional Dialogue by Michael Mayer

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is “an average day in the life of Charlie Brown.” It really is just that, a day made up of little moments picked from all the days of Charlie Brown, from Valentine’s Day to the baseball season, from wild optimism to utter despair, all mixed in with the lives of his friends (both human and non-human) and strung together on the string of a single day, from bright uncertain morning to hopeful starlit evening.

The cast of six characters in the revised version includes Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, Snoopy and Sally Brown (she replaces Patty).

Please prepare 32 measures of a song in the style of, but not from, the show. Please bring sheet music in the appropriate key. A pianist will be provided. All readings will be from the script.

Rehearsals will begin the last week of February and the show runs May 6th -22nd.

If you have any questions please contact [email protected]

Performance Dates:
May 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21 at 8:00 PM
May 15, 22 at 2:00 PM

Walpole Footlighters Announce the Cast for "Incorruptible"

10/28/2015

The Walpole Footlighters are proud to announce the cast for Incorruptible, directed by Roger Campbell.

Charles: Steve Small
Jack: Peter McElhinney
Martin: Paul MacPhee
Olf: Michael Dornisch
Felix: Ed Churchill
Peasant Woman: Ninette Cummings
Marie: Colleen Lavery
Agatha: Christine Grudinskas

Thank you to all who auditioned!

Auditions for Incorruptible Oct. 12 and 13.

9/28/2015

The Walpole Footlighters will hold auditions for Incorruptible, directed by Roger Campbell, on Monday, Oct. 12 and Tuesday Oct. 13, with callbacks, if necessary, on Thursday, Oct. 15, at the theater at 2 Scout Rd., Walpole, at 7 pm. Performance dates are: February, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, and 21.

THE STORY: Welcome to Priseaux, France, c. 1250 A.D. The river flooded again last week. The chandler's shop just burned to the ground. Nobody's heard of the wheelbarrow yet. And Ste. Foy, the patron of the local monastery, hasn't worked a miracle in thirteen years. In other words, the Dark Ages still look pretty dark. All eyes turn to the Pope, whose promised visit will surely encourage other pilgrims to make the trek and restore the abbey to its former glory. That is, until a rival church claims to possess the relics of Ste. Foy —and "their" bones are working miracles. All seems lost until the destitute monks take a lesson from a larcenous one-eyed minstrel, who teaches them an outrageous new way to pay old debts.

Characters:

Charles, Abbot of Priseaux: 50's--60's
Brother Martin, his second in command: 30's--50's
Brother Olf, a novice: 30's--50's
Brother Felix, a novice: 20's--30's
Peasant Woman, from the village: 30's--50's
Jack, a one eyed minstrel (ability to play guitar helps): 20's--30's
Marie, Jack's wife of sorts: 20's--30's
Agatha, Abbess of Bernay: 50's--60's

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