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Saturday, December 17, 2016

THE STROLLERS TO HOLD AUDITIONS FOR “GOOD PEOPLE”

AUDITION NOTICE:

Good People
by David Lindsey-Abaire
directed by Keith Hoovler

WHEN: January 8 & 10, callbacks January 12, 2017; 7:00-10:00P
WHERE: Burgdorff, 10 Durand Rd., Maplewood NJ

First read-thru: Sunday, January 15, time TBD
Rehearsals: 3 nights/week: Tu, Th, Su (subject to change based on cast needs)
Tech week:
March 13-16
Performances: March 17, 18, 24, 25 at 8P; March 19 at 2P (2017)
Strike: March 26

Director's note for auditioners
: The characters in Good People are all people we are familiar with. A genuine and honest representation of them should be portrayed. Do away with all affectation and focus on the subtleties of real life, including a real effort at a Boston accent, specifically a Southie accent.

Play synopsis:
In post-election America, there is this pervasive assumption that the Great Divide is simply between urban and rural parts of the country. But in David Lindsey-Abaire’s Good People we find a microcosm of that division within the borders of Metropolitan Boston, where a ride on the “T” is a journey through America’s self-imposed caste system.

Margaret, a Southie born and bred, never left the old neighborhood. Now, she’s lost her job at the Dollar Store and must reach beyond her world to try to keep her apartment and provide for her developmentally challenged daughter.

Believing that old loyalties must count for something, she reaches out to Mike, her high school boyfriend who’s moved on and made good.  In doing so, old memories surface like sharks to threaten the smooth waters of the life Mike has created for himself and his young multicultural family.

Mike wants to help Margaret, but how much is too much? Margaret needs to protect her daughter, but how far is too far? They all want to be good people. But what does that even mean?

Characters:

  • MARGARET – White, about fifty
    A native of south Boston, she is "southie” to the core. She’s also a single mom with an adult developmentally challenged daughter to care for. Though occasionally rueful of what her life has come to, she muddles along trying to make ever-shortening ends meet. She is fiercely proud and loyal to her small circle of friends, but there is a side of her that wonders what good these traits have really done for her.
  • STEVIE – White, late twenties to mid-thirties
    As manager of the Dollar Store where Margaret works, Stevie’s in a difficult position. He wants to help the people who scrape out a living working there, but he’s also trying to move his life along the best way he can with the limited avenues open to him. He has to decide what’s more important in the long run, sticking by his fellow southies or looking out for himself.
  • DOTTIE – White, mid-sixties
    A lord over her own small domain, Dottie is Margaret's friend and landlady. She lives one rent receipt to the next, content to syphon off a living from her small circle of dependents. She’s one of those resourceful, aging, urban dwellers who can cobble together what’s needed to preserve her situation, but at what cost to herself and those who need her?
  • JEAN – White, about fifty
    Jean and Margaret have been best friends since high school. Jean is Margaret’s only advocate and defends her unquestioningly because so much of her own situation is reflected in Margaret. She is a generous, kind, and loyal friend, but she also displays cynical street smarts, which might just be what saves Margaret in the end.
  • MIKE – White, about fifty
    Mike is that rare Southie who has gone beyond the limitations set by his neighborhood. He has worked hard to make his exit and has never looked back, that is, until now. We observe him in the last scene, struggling to bridge the different halves of his life, as represented by Margaret and his wife Kate, desperate to find some peace with where he is and where he came from.
  • KATE – African-American, early thirties
    Kate represents the world Mike has come to inhabit, a world very far from his old neighborhood. With her beauty, class, education, and style, Kate embodies that progressive ethos so many urban dwellers aspire to. She is liberal in her outlook but always tempered and aware of where she has come from and what it took to get there. Never naïve of how she is viewed from both sides of the American racial divide, she is always ready to defend the space she occupies.

Sides
Sides are provided at www.thestrollers.org under the Auditions tab for reference. You are not required to memorize or even read through these scenes before the audition. These sides will be provided at auditions also.