The Woman in Blackby Stephen Mallatratt
from the original novel by Susan Hill
Directed by David G. Cox
Performance Dates: 02-12 November 2022
Auditions: Saturday 14 - Sunday 15 August 2022
Callbacks: Wednesday 17 August 2022
Audition Details
Auditions will be held on:- Sunday 14 August (1 – 5 pm)
- Monday 15 August (7 – 9 pm)
Callbacks on Wednesday 17 August may be required.
Auditions and callbacks will be held at the Gryphon Theatre, Ghuznee Street, Wellington
Auditions will be held in small groups at specified times. Audition pieces will be provided prior to the auditions.
To register to audition or to request more information please email auditions@stagecraft.co.nz. |
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About the Play
This is a ghost/horror story and is second only to “The Mousetrap” as the longest-running play on London’s West End. A middle-aged lawyer hires a young actor to tutor him in recounting to family and friends a tale that has long haunted him. Several years earlier the lawyer visited the house of a recently deceased elderly recluse and there caught sight of the Woman in Black – a spectre who terrifies the local population and about whom it is said that anyone who sees her suffers tragedy. The actor takes on the role of the young lawyer and the lawyer plays all other characters, apart from the eponymous spectre herself. The experience of terror needs to be real and conveyed to our audience.
The play is set in England. |
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About the Production
With a speaking cast of only two, both switching between characters, the cast needs to be polished in moving between roles (and in learning a bucket load of lines). The luxury of a small cast will allow for character identification and thence realisation. The staging is representational rather than real, so there is great emphasis on e.g. creating the impression of moving over distance and in turning an empty stage into something the audience accepts as being whatever it is meant to be – and this changes throughout the play. Technical effects will play a significant role in the production. |
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The Characters
A total of 2 speaking roles are available.
Although no time period is specified the bulk of the action takes place in eras loosely recognisable as the late 1940s/early 1950s (‘now’) and the 1920s ‘(then’).
The Actor/Young Kipps: Male, age mid 20s – early 30s. An actor, hugely confident in his abilities as a ‘juvenile lead’ with a glittering career and life ahead of him. In helping Arthur Kipps tell his story, The Actor takes on the role of the Young Kipps: an earnest, newly qualified solicitor who sets about his job methodically and enthusiastically but who is eventually overcome by genuine and absolute terror. The auditionee will need to be able to tell a story, to be an excellent physical performer and to transform between roles without change of clothing or props.
Arthur Kipps/Everyone Else: Male, aged late 40s upwards. A successful lawyer but who is actually close to mental collapse under the weight of the terror which has consumed him since his youth. Under the tutelage of The Actor his initial attempts to act other roles are clumsy but as our play progresses he adopts the personae of other characters seamlessly. The auditionee will need to have an ability with accents and physical movement styles to ensure that all the characters portrayed are distinct and believable. But underneath we need to know that he is the man to whom everything actually happened and who has experienced, at awful cost, the terror of the Woman in Black. |
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COVID-19 PROTOCOLS Stagecraft has fully-documented Covid-19 protocols which we regularly update in line with Government advice. Some flexibility in rehearsal and performance dates may be required depending on the evolving Covid-Omicron situation. At this stage, all cast and crew are required to be fully vaccinated.
Please email auditions@stagecraft.co.nz to request an audition or to ask any questions.
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