Sylvia Auditions

The Strollers announce auditions for

Sylvia by A.R. Gurney.





Audition dates


Monday, September 9, 7:30 - 9 PM


Tuesday, September 10, 7:30 - 9 PM


Callbacks -Thursday, September, 7:30 - 9 PM


Performance Dates :


November 8, 9, 15 & 16 at 8 PM, and November 10

at 2 PM





Audition Location


The Burgdorff Center For The Performing Arts


10 Durand Rd., Maplewood, NJ 07040


(NJ Transit train station is at the end of the

street)





It is not necessary to make an appointment to

audition.





Please note that the Strollers is a membership

company and performers are expected to join. Dues of $35 include 1 ticket to

each of our 3 main stage shows (a $52 value) and the opportunity to participate

in our monthly membership meetings.








Sylvia tells the story of empty-nesters Greg and

Kate who have moved to Manhattan after twenty-two years of child-raising in the suburbs.

When Greg brings home a dog he found in the park, a street-smart mixture of Lab

and Poodle bearing only the name "Sylvia" on her name tag, she

becomes a major bone of contention between husband and wife. Greg is going

through a mid-life crisis, and Sylvia offers him the unconditional love and

acceptance that only man’s best friend can. They become inseparable, leaving

out Greg’s wife Kate who feels threatened by Greg and Sylvia’s burgeoning

relationship. A series of hilarious and touching complications arise.





Greg (Kate’s Husband) – 40’s + - Greg has been a

successful commodities trader who is now experiencing a midlife crisis. He is a

man discovering how to restore fun to his life. Greg has reached a terrible

point when his old job doesn't satisfy, and he doesn't know where to turn. He

has lost his inner compass. He finds Sylvia in Central Park (or she finds him), and she becomes crucial to his

salvation.





Sylvia (dog) – 20’s+ - an energetic actor not afraid

to crawl around on all fours, pant provocatively and lick the faces of total

strangers. But as Gurney wrote, the play works best when the dog is played

straight, with no attempt to be arf-arf or cutsie-poo. After all, this is first

and foremost a love story and should be treated as such. That said, she still

sniffs people and places and is a dog who walks and talks like a human -- in

other words, she incarnates our anthropomorphic ideal of the animal rather than

the beast itself. Sylvia is cute, sexy, innocent, knowing, loyal and amoral,

(when in the company of Bowser or chasing cats!)





Kate – (Greg’s Wife) 40’s+ - Kate is quick-witted,

with a preppy chill. Hers is a role that could easily become a stereotypical

whiner, but she must remain a sympathetic character and build to her blossoming

in the second act. There is every reason to sympathize with her. She and Greg

have moved from the suburbs into Manhattan now that their children are grown and out of the house.

She has taken up teaching, and it is going well. Kate loves this new calm,

orderly existence; the shakiness of Greg’s Wall Street career is upset enough,

without


adding a frenzied, flawed animal to the mix.





Tom – 30's + - Bowser’s dad and a philosophical

dog-lover Greg meets in the park.





Phyllis/Leslie – 40’s+ - Phyllis is an old Vassar

classmate of Kate's. Leslie is a marriage counselor whose therapy is based on

her being utterly androgynous. (I let my patients select my gender.) One

actress will play both roles.





This is a small cast show so Sylvia, Kate & Greg

will need to attend 95% of all of the rehearsals. No actor may miss tech week

rehearsals.