Amateur thesps wanted for production to take place this October

Putney Theatre Company is holding two auditions to cast a forthcoming production of Alan Bennett’s Single Spies. This comprises two, one-act plays ‘An Englishman Abroad’ and ‘A Question of Attribution’.

They are taking place on Monday 30 July and Monday 6 August at 7.30pm with recalls on Wednesday 15 August at 7.30pm.

The plays will be performed from Tuesday 16 October – Saturday 20 October.

Audition sides will consist of short scenes and speeches from the plays. These will be provided on the day. There are loan copies of the plays available for collection at the box office by arrangement with the director Kim Dyas, by email or phone: 077 66 00 44 55. You are asked to arrive for the audition at least fifteen minutes before it starts and be prepared to be at the theatre for a while. They will want to take a head shot of you on arrival.

If you are planning to attend, it would help if you could let the director know on which audition date you plan to attend. Kim Dyas at: Kim@FinePitch.co.uk. Use the subject line ‘Spies Audition’ and include a phone number.

Rehearsals will begin in late August or early September and generally consist of two or three evenings a week and during the day/evening on Sundays. Not everyone will have to attend every rehearsal until closer to the production dates and since there are two separate plays, there is scope to be sceptical with other commitments.

This an amateur production and you do not need to be a member of Putney Theatre Company to audition, but actors and crew will need to become members to take part in the show (£20 a year), and actors pay a £20 show fee.

An Englishman Abroad’ covers a factual meeting of the Australian actress Coral Browne and the ‘Cambridge spy’ Guy Burgess in Moscow in 1958. Miss Browne is touring in Hamlet, visits Burgess in his state-provided flat and observes the shabby circumstances of his exile.

‘A Question of Attribution’, is Bennett’s fantasy on a meeting that never happened. The austere but acerbically witty grandee, Sir Anthony Blunt (‘The Fourth Man’) is Keeper of The Queen’s Pictures in the late 60’s and we have him trading thoughts on the very essence of fakery and artistic deception with the Quee,nwho happens on him in a corridor in Buckingham Palace whilst as he hangs a ‘fake’ Titian portrait.

July 24, 2018