Open auditions for the Friends of the Arts Production of Sleuth

The Friends of the Art’s last play of the year is coming up! The Anthony Shaffer mystery, Sleuth, will be performed on April 27, 28, and 29. The actors or aspiring actors in the community are invited to audition for a role. Here is your chance to be on the stage as part of this production. An intense Broadway drama, Sleuth will be directed by Harold Easton with Ruth Loyola as the line producer for the Friends of the Arts.

Auditions will take place this Wednesday, March 21, from 6pm to 8pm, at the Dolphin Theater, Building T, at Marianas High School. The play has five parts: two male leads and three male secondary or two male and one female secondary roles.

The roles require a range in ages from 18 to the 50-60s. The two male leads will be one older and one younger. Come to the auditions and try out. If you have never been in an FOA play—that’s great—come in and make this your first. Previous FOA cast members are also invited.

Sleuth is a 1970 play written by Anthony Shaffer. The play is set in the Wiltshire, England manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. His home reflects Wyke’s obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing. He lures his wife’s lover, Milo Tindle, to the house and convinces him to stage a robbery of her jewelry, a proposal that sets off a chain of events that leaves the audience trying to decipher where Wyke’s imagination ends and reality begins.

The play’s first production, starring Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter, was at London’s St Martin’s Theatre. After four previews, the Broadway production, with Quayle and Baxter directed by Clifford Williams, opened on November 9, 1970 at the Music Box Theatre, where it ran for 1,222 performances.

In 1972, Shaffer adapted his play for film, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. Another film adaptation was released in 2007 with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. The 2007 film was directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Michael Caine and Jude Law as Milo Tindle, originally played by Caine in the 1972 version.

Sleuth was awarded the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance with Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter.

Interested individuals are encouraged to come and audition. You may also contact Frank Gibson at flgibson@yahoo.com or Harold Easton at eastonaa@hotmail.com.