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Community Corner

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.

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