Auditions in Leander for Shootout at Hole in the Wall, the annual melodrama at Way Off Broadway Community Players, June 10, 2013

Way Off Broadway Community Players will be holding open auditions on Monday, June 10, 2013 at 7 p.m. for our 12th Annual Melodrama and Fundraiser, Shoot Out at Hole in the Wall by Shubert Fendrich, and is being directed by Karen Miller. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. There are roles for 5 women and 5 men, age range from mid teens – mid 60’s. All interested parties are encouraged to audition.

This fresh approach to the ever-popular western comedy takes place at the turn of the century in Wyoming’s notorious Hole-in-the-Wall country. When the good and honest Ma and Pa Fritter set up shop in the midst of this den of rustlers and outlaws and a wagon load of ladies takes refuge there from attacking Indians, problems erupt all over the place. One rollicking scene follows another ’til Horace, our brave but occasionally clumsy good guy, and Slick Mason, the scoundrel, meet in the final, hilarious show-down and shoot-out... at Hole-in-the-Wall. Add to this a wagon load of ladies taking refuge from attacking Indians and the swaggering Cattle Kate and it’s an evening of western fun and frolic.

Auditions are open to the public and will be held at Way Off Broadway Community Players’ theater, located in the 2243 Business Park at 11880 West FM 2243, Leander, 1 mile west of Hwy 183, just east of Bagdad Road. Performances will be: July 26, 27; August 2, 3; 9, 10, 2013 at 8pm and a Sunday Matinee August 4, 2013 at 3pm. 
 
Click to view a character list with descriptions at www.AustinLiveTheatre.com

Wait Until Dark, Way Off Broadway Community Players, Leander, November 12 - December 4

Community theatre folks are glad that you came, and they make no pretense about that. They've worked for weeks, mostly after hours and on weekends, in an undertaking that doesn't pay the grocery bills or even the transportation expenses. I'm always touched and honored when players and staff position themselves to greet audience members as they come out of the theatre.

Over decades of diplomatic assignments I regularly shook hands of officials receiving guests at the entrances of embassies for national day celebrations. Here in Austin in contrast, particularly on the periphery, your artist hosts greet you at the end, sending you home with good wishes. They've shed their imaginary world and discarded fictitious characters, so you can commune briefly with them as part of the community of the theatre.

There was no particular protocol in the line after Wait Until Dark. Stephanie Newton, fresh off stage from her appearance as a police officer in the final scene, was the first who shook my hand. My friend Stephen Reynolds, cast as the mostly absent photographer husband of the blind protagonist Susy Hendrix, joked that every night between his scene in Act I and his last-second appearance in Act II he had time to read a novel. For opening night, to top it all, the company observed its tradition of inviting audience members to linger with them around a long table laden with good things to eat.

Wait Until Dark is a perennial. Frederick Knott had already written the successful Dial M for Murder (1952) as well as the script for Alfred Hitchcock's movie. In 1966 his Wait Until Dark with Lee Remick was a huge success, made into an even more successful film starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Alda. Knott never wrote another play, but the royalties from regular productions of those two playscripts provided him a income sufficient to live a comfortable social life in New York City until his death in 2002.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .