AUDITION NOTICE FOR 'Lilies On The Land’

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Show Dates: 5-8th March 2025

Audition date: Saturday, 2nd November, 10 am, Shinfield Players Theatre. There is also a reserve audition date of Saturday 16th November if required.

Rehearsal Days: Tuesday and Thursdays at 7.30

The play was devised by the Lions part group from interviews with ex land girls, in 2010. So, all the events portrayed are true and have been dramatised for the stage. There is a fair amount of singing of war time era songs.

I have had a lot of interest from a wide age range of people so my thoughts on casting have become more flexible.

I’m looking for 4 or 8 women 18-55 to play either 4 land girls who play their older and younger selves or

4 older land girls in 1967 reminiscing after the death of Winston Churchill and 4 younger land girls who will play their younger selves (memories). They will all also double up as all other characters in the play, such as farmers, soldiers, boyfriends, friends, etc.

If I cast 4 older women, they will go backwards in time to portray their young selves during the Second World War, as land girls. If I cast 4 younger women , vice versa.

From the interest people have shown, my preference would be to cast 8, that is 4 older women who are reminiscing, and 4 younger women as their wartime selves. All ages will play many other characters and partake in whatever activities the land girls are doing. E.g. one of the girls lives with a farmer and his wife who were “not very kind” to her.

The Roles

Margie…from a large family in Newcastle. She describes herself as having a liking for makeup and rollers. County Durham or Newcastle accent needed which we can work on, but not essential for the audition.

Peggy...a happy, confident, cockney from a large family in the east end. She knows nothing about farming but soon acquires ploughing skills second to none.

Poppy…from a happy privileged family, who expected her to join the WRNS, but the romantic posters entice her into signing up for the land army, which she throws herself into with energy and enthusiasm.

Vera…a complex character escaping her snobby stepmother. Competent and hearty, she is the loneliest one of the four land girls and probably the only one to have read Virginia Woolf.

There are 28 other characters also portrayed by the cast.

Performance dates are 5-8th March 2025. As usual, tech and dress rehearsal will be the weekend and week before hand. Rehearsals will be on Tuesday and Thursdays at 7.30, as soon as Safari party has finished ( end of November) and will involve workshopping on war time culture and characters.

Due to a personal interest in land girls I would like this to be a tribute to the largely unrecognised back-breaking work these girls did and am so looking forward to telling their amazing stories.

If you want to read a script, give me a shout or if you can’t make any of the audition dates let me know and we’ll work it out. ( I’m away 3-12th November)

Linda Bostock

07716013925

Bostockl@btinternet.com

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