All MHDS auditions are open, which means everyone is free to turn up and be considered, irrespective of previous experience.
If you are cast in a production and are not already an MHDS member, you will need to join.
Details of auditions will be posted below as they become available.
Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale
Dates and times
Performance dates 8th-12th November 2022. Open Auditions, Tuesday 12th July, and Monday 18th July, at 7.30 pm. in the Harborough Theatre Lounge
Blue Stockings is a fictional story inspired by real events. Set in Girton College, Cambridge during the 1896/97 academic year. This was a time when most people (including women) still believed that a woman’s place was in the home. In fact, a desire to pursue an academic career was seen as ‘unnatural’ and, as such, a woman who did so was seen as an outcast and unmarriageable. (There was a belief at the time that mental taxation affected a woman’s physiology, which would render unable to have children.) The few universities and colleges that had started to open their doors to women in the latter part of the 19th century only awarded certificates. Cambridge in particular, steeped in male-orientated tradition, viewed the idea of female graduates as anathema. This play, set at a time when the suffrage movement was starting to gather momentum, is about a small group of women who were determined to defy the conventions of the time. They wanted to learn. And more than that, they wanted their achievement to be properly recognised with a Cambridge degree.
The Girton College Students’ Characters are: Tess Moffat, Celia Willbond, Carolyn Addison, and Maeve Sullivan.
The Trinity College Students’ Characters are: Ralph Mayhew, Lloyd, Homes, Edwards, Will Bennett.
Other Characters are: Elizabeth Welsh, Mistress of Girton College; Dr Maudsley, renowned psychiatrist; Mr Banks, Lecturer at Girton and Trinity; Miss Blake, Lecturer at Girton; Professor Collins, Lecturer at Trinity; Professor Anderson, Lecturer at Trinity; Professor Radleigh, A board member at Trinity; Mr Peck, The Gardener/Maintenance man; Miss Bott, A Chaperone; Billie Sullivan, Maeve’s brother; Mrs Lindley, Shopkeeper. (N. B. There will be doubling up of some parts)
If you have any questions, or would like to borrow a copy of the script, please contact the director, Liz Clarke on 07757 736415 or lizandmartin@talktalk.net
The auditions are open to anyone, but if you are given a part or get involved in a production in any other way you will be asked to become a member of the Market Harborough Drama Society.