The Algarveans invites you to open auditions for Peter Shaffer’s LETTICE AND LOVAGE, directed by Jim Landis.

Auditions will be held at 1:30 pm on Sunday March 8th  at the Bombeiros in Lagoa. We will do readings from the script.

Rehearsals will begin the week of April 20, twice a week (exact days TBD). Performance dates are June 18, 19, 20 at the Convento do São José in Lagoa.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Lettice and Lovage is a comedic and satire play by Peter Shaffer. It is centred around a flamboyant tour guide who loves to embellish the history behind an English country house and who clashes with a fact-conscious official at the house.
The play is all about two distinct characters, the chemistry between them, and their reactions to one another. They are ladies of mature years. Lettice is a tour guide for visitors to stately English homes who finds her allotted mansion so dull that she embellishes its history with ever wilder invention. Charlotte is her boss at the Preservation Trust, who finds it necessary to sack her; not an auspicious beginning for the relationship about to develop.

Their paths cross again, and Lottie, severe and repressed, is drawn into the world of Lettice’s unbridled imagination. History is theirs to explore, and they pursue its dramas to a stage which lands the former in hospital and the latter in court. Their progress is littered with laughter and brings them to a conclusion which is at once logical and satisfying.

The play was written specifically for Maggie Smith.

The actresses who played both main characters each won Tony Awards for their performances in this play in the US.

THE CHARACTERS

• Lettice Douffet: Age 50+. Theatrical, eccentric, a gifted orator with an impeccable command of language and knowledge of history. She is employed by the Preservation Trust as a tour guide for an English manor house.
• Lotte Schoen: Age 50+. A by-the-book bureaucrat who works in the personnel office of the Preservation Trust in London. Strict, smart, intimidating but with a romantic past. Her character changes dramatically over the course of the play.
• Miss Framer: Age 20+. Ms. Schoen’s mousy secretary. A squashed cabbage leaf.
• Mr. Bardolf: Age 40+. A solicitor, professional and proper who is drawn into the wild world of the two lead ladies and is surprisingly able to cut loose when then need arises.
• Surly Man & Other Visitors: Various ages. Different characters on the tour of the English Manor. Same group of actors play different groups of tourists in 4 scenes. Requires the ability to come up with 4 distinct characters, with good reactions and ad libs that contribute to the scenes (no mugging). These may also be stagehands for the production.

This play will be FUN to put together and perform. We encourage everyone to come to this audition!!!