Tag Archives: Mason Community Players

Mason Community Players is excited to announce auditions for the first show of the 2019 Season, THE VISIT.

Join director Alex Lisa and her production staff at auditions.

They will be held December 1 and 2 from Noon-5pm

Auditions consist of cold readings from the script.
Resume and headshot appreciated but not required.
No reservation of time needed.

Performances: February 22, 23 & 28 and March 1 & 2 at 8:00 PM and February 24 at 2:00 PM.

Auditions on both days will be held at Theatre 42, located at 2752 S. US Route 42, Lebanon, OH 45036. The venue is just north of Mason on Route 42, one driveway north of the Southwest Golf Ranch.

Synopsis
A wealthy woman returns to her debt ridden home town and offers a sum greater than they have ever imagined to help out. But there is a condition: she wants the life of a villager who years ago had caused her to be expelled from town in disgrace. Ringing denial of this absurd demand is followed by the gradual corruption of everyone in town. He is murdered and money is passed over his body to the town. The lady leaves with a fantastic entourage and with the coffin of her old lover.

Roles

• Claire Zachanassian (in her 60s) Born into poverty, she falls in love as a young woman and becomes pregnant. She loses a paternity suit against her lover, flees to Hamburg and becomes a prostitute. In the brothel, she meets an old Armenian oil magnate, Zachanassian, who falls in love with her. They marry, and she becomes a multi-millionairess, freely contributing to philanthropic endeavors and always creating a sensation with her many marriages. Over the course of the play, she weds husbands 7, 8 and 9. She returns to her hometown of Guellen to exact revenge by offering wealth to the town if they will kill her former lover. Claire now has an artificial leg and hand.
• “Ill” – Alfred Ill (in his 60s), runs the general store in Guellen, is considered the most popular man in town (perhaps because he allows the townspeople to purchase items on credit). He is married to Matilda, with whom he has one son and one daughter. The Mayor tells Ill that he is to be his successor in the next election. In his youth, Ill was the lover of Claire. While the town awaits Claire’s visit, the Mayor urges Ill to bank on nostalgia and see if he can convince her to donate funds. However, Ill quickly becomes the target of the townspeople once Claire declares that she will give a generous financial donation to the town only if Ill is murdered.
• Matilda Ill is Alfred Ill’s wife and the original owner of the general store. It is implied that Ill married her for the store, not for love.
• Karl Ill is Ill’s son. He is seeking work at the railway station. By the end of the play, he is driving a new car.
• Ottilie Ill is Ill’s daughter who is seeking work at the Labour Exchange. Later in the play, however, she is seen going off to play tennis.
• Moby, Hoby, and Zoby are Claire’s husbands. “Moby”, or Husband VII, is actually named Pedro, and owns tobacco plantations. “Hoby”, or Husband VIII, is a German film star she marries in Guellen Cathedral. Shortly after the wedding, Claire’s lawyers arrange for a divorce, and she prepares to wed “Zoby”, a Nobel Prize-winner. The play indicates that all three husbands can be played by the same actor.
• Boby is Claire’s butler. He was once the Lord Chief Justice of Guellen. He left his job there to serve in the Kaffigen Court of Appeals, where Claire approached him with a request that he become her Butler, and offering him a salary that he couldn’t refuse.
• Roby and Toby are former Manhattan gangsters who were facing death by electric chair before Claire paid one million dollars for each petition to have them amnestied and entered into her service. The two men are brutes, and are always chewing gum. Roby and Toby bear Claire’s sedan-chair and perform songs on the guitar whenever they are commanded to do so.
• Koby and Loby are really Jacob Chicken and Louis Perch, respectively. Alfred Ill bribed the two men to commit perjury in Claire’s paternity suit with pints of brandy. They falsely testify that they were her lovers. Later, Claire tracked Jacob Chicken down in Canada, and Louis Perch in Australia. Roby and Toby castrated and blinded them, and they are referred to as eunuchs.
• Mayor of Guellen initially tells Ill that he is to become the next Mayor, but he turns on him as the play progresses, and helps Claire to fulfill her revenge.
• Priest – Early in the play, the Priest is shocked when Claire asks him whether he comforts condemned men, stating that there is no longer a death penalty, but he too succumbs to the lure of wealth.
• The Schoolmaster goes with the Doctor to plead with Claire and implore her to act out of the goodness of her heart to alleviate the town’s debts. He is the one member of the town who attempts to speak to the press about Claire’s cruel proposal, but is stopped by the townspeople. In the end, he tells Ill that he knows that the townspeople are slowly becoming murderers, but that he is too weak to stop it.
• The Doctor, along with the Schoolmaster, implores Claire to help the town without requiring Ill’s death. In the end, however, the Doctor participates in Ill’s death, and pronounces him dead of a heart attack.
• The Policeman refuses to arrest Claire when Ill, fearing for his life, approaches him. The Policeman claims that there is no real threat. In the end, he forces Ill to remain in the auditorium so that he can be slaughtered.
• Townspeople: There are many townspeople who show the change from finding Claire’s proposal of murder to be horrific to accepting someone’s death for their own wealth.