The Driftwood Players are preparing a new stage play and have put out a call for cast members and for people interested in taking on offstage roles.
The theatre company said in a news release that it will mount a production of A.R. Gurney’s off-Broadway comedy hit, The Dining Room, to run in the first two weeks of April 2022 at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons.
To acquaint people with the play and the organization, there will be a reading of The Dining Room and further conversation at the Sechelt Seniors Activity Centre from 2 to 4 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 12.
“Your best opportunity to meet us, and to hear about auditions and off-stage opportunities is to join us at a read-through of the play,” the release said. “Whether on stage, back-stage, set-construction, props, scenery decoration, costumes, or audience management, the Sunshine Coast Driftwood Players offers you the opportunity to join in the camaraderie, joy, and challenges of community theatre production.”
Troy Demmitt will direct the play, and noted that Driftwood Players, with its home theatre in Gibsons, has arranged the get-together in Sechelt quite on purpose.
“We’re trying to interest people across the Coast and maybe get some new actors who would like to try something that is really an acting challenge,” Demmitt said.
The Dining Room, a 1985 Pulitzer Prize finalist, is described as a comedy of manners, set in a single dining room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine, covering a period of 45 years, from 1935 to 1980. The characters change and the times change, with the dining room set itself the only constant.
“There are 57 speaking parts, usually played by three male and three female actors,” said Demmitt. “If we get some really fine auditions, we can push it up to eight actors.”
The players will have their hands full, each having to play different characters, some at a variety of ages.
“I’m not going to cast young kids,” said Demmitt. “I’m looking at actors from 40 or so to 65, who might at some point also be playing six-year-old kids at a birthday party.”
For further information and to RSVP attendance on Dec. 12, those interested are asked to email [email protected] or phone Troy Demmitt at 604-840-3141.
