WILLIAMSVILLE — The Rock River Players' summer season, slated for Aug. 18 to 28, features two summer-worthy plays to be played in repertory: “On Golden Pond,” directed by Cris Parker-Jennings, and “Arsenic and Old Lace,” directed by Sara Vitale, according to a news release.
Auditions will be held at the Williamsville Hall on Dover Road in Williamsville on Thursday, June 9, at 6 p.m.; Friday, June 10, at 6 p.m.; and Saturday, June 11, at 10 a.m. Each session will last about two hours. Participants are asked to bring calendars of conflicts so directors can set rehearsal schedules.
“On Golden Pond” is a 1979 play by Ernest Thompson. The plot focuses on aging couple Ethel and Norman Thayer, who spend each summer at their home on Golden Pond. During the year the story takes place, they are visited by daughter Chelsea with her fiancé Billy and his son Billy Jr. The play explores the turbulent relationship the young woman shared with her father growing up, and the difficulties faced by a couple in the twilight years of a long marriage.
Roles are: Norman Thayer Jr., late 70s, a retired college professor brooding about his own mortality; Ethel Thayer, late 60s, Norman's wife, who is energetic, loving, and sociable; Chelsea Thayer Wayne, 40s, the only child of Ethel and Norman. She is divorced, but engaged to Bill Ray, 40s, a dentist from California and father to Billy Ray Jr., age 13; Charlie Martin, 40s, is a local man who has known the Thayers most of his life. He was the childhood summer love interest of Chelsea.
Arsenic and Old Lace, by Joseph Kesselring, is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster family, descended from the “Mayflower,” but now composed of homicidal maniacs. The hero, Mortimer, is a drama critic who must deal with his crazy family and local police in Brooklyn, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves.
Roles: Abby and Martha Brewster, darling little old ladies who poison lonely old men with glasses of homemade elderberry wine laced with arsenic; Elaine Harper, an attractive girl in her 20s who is Mortimer's fiancee; Mortimer Brewster, drama critic and nephew of Abby and Martha; the Rev. Dr. Harper, a minister and father of Elaine; Teddy Brewster, nephew of Abby and Martha, who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt; Officers Brophy and Klein; Mr. Gibbs, who wishes to rent a room from the Brewster sisters; Jonathan Brewster, nephew of the Brewster sisters and a psychopath; Dr. Einstein, a plastic surgeon; Officer O'Hara, a would-be playwright who pesters Mortimer to read his play; Lieutenant Rooney, a tough and dominating police officer; and Mrs. (or Mr.) Witherspoon, the superintendent of Happy Dale Sanitarium.