Tred Avon Players will be holding auditions for the classic Agatha Christie mystery, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, on Tuesday, January 21 at 6:30 p.m.; Sunday, January 26 at 1:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, February 4 2020 at 6:30 p.m. at the Oxford Community Center, 200 Oxford Rd. The play will run April 30th through May 10th at the Oxford Community Center.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE is one of Christie’s darkest tales and a masterpiece of dramatic construction, its growing sense of dread and unfaltering tension will keep you guessing to the very end. Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. As the weather turns and the group is cut off from the mainland, the bloodbath begins and one by one they are brutally murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme.
Director Tim Weigand will be casting three women and eight men. Readings will be cold from the script. Bring a list of conflicts during March and April. The characters include:
Judge Lawrence Wargrave – A recently retired judge. Wargrave is a highly intelligent old man with a commanding personality. As the characters begin to realize that a murderer is hunting them, Wargrave’s experience and air of authority make him a natural leader for the group.
Vera Claythorne – A former governess who comes to Indian Island purportedly to serve as a secretary to Mrs. Owen. Vera wants to escape a past in which she killed a small boy in her care, Cyril Hamilton, so that the man she loved would inherit Cyril’s estate.
Philip Lombard – A mysterious, confident, and resourceful man who seems to have been a mercenary soldier in Africa. Lombard is far bolder and more cunning than most of the other characters.
Dr. Edward George Armstrong – A gullible, slightly timid doctor. Armstrong often draws the suspicion of the other guests because of his medical knowledge. He is a recovering alcoholic who once accidentally killed a patient by operating on her while drunk.
William Henry Blore – A former police inspector. Blore is a well-built man whose experience often inspires others to look to him for advice. As a policeman, he was corrupt and framed a man named Landor at the behest of a criminal gang.
Emily Brent – An old, ruthlessly religious woman who reads her Bible every day. Unlike the other characters, Emily feels convinced of her own righteousness and does not express the slightest remorse for her actions.
Thomas Rogers – The dignified butler. Rogers continues to be a proper servant even after the bodies begin piling up.
Ethel Rogers – Thomas Rogers’s wife. Ethel is a frail woman.
General John Gordon Macarthur – The oldest guest. Macarthur is accused of sending a lieutenant, Arthur Richmond, to his death during World War I because Richmond was his wife’s lover.
Anthony Marston – A rich, athletic, handsome youth. Tony Marston likes to drive recklessly and seems to lack a conscience. He killed two small children in a car accident caused by his speeding, but shows no remorse.
Isaac Morris – A shady, criminal character hired by the murderer to make the arrangements for the island. Morris allegedly peddled drugs to a young woman and drove her to suicide.