Audition Dates:

Saturday, August 12, 2023 at 1pm

Sunday, August 13, 2023 at 7pm

Callbacks: Monday, August 14, 2023 at 7pm

CENTERstage Productions presents The Iceman Cometh, a play written by Eugene O’Neill in 1939 and first published in 1946, premiered on Broadway the same year. 

A monologue will be provided at auditions and sides will be provided at callbacks.

Eugene O’Neill, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, is generally considered to be one of our greatest playwrights. And The Iceman Cometh is considered by many to be his finest work. 

The play is set at Harry Hope’s rundown saloon and boarding house in 1912 and tells the story of a group of aimless patrons and boarders whose empty lives underscore the human need for dreaming and hope. It opens with the rag-tag group awaiting the arrival of their favorite visitor, charismatic salesman Theodore “Hickey” Hickman. Typically, Hickey brings the party and brightens their dismal lives. When Hickey appears this time, things take a turn. Hickey has a dark secret, is newly sober, and urges the men to find a new life of peace and contentment. Thrown into disarray by their fervent friend, the men at Harry Hope’s bar are forced to confront their life choices and see the reality of who they are. There is one member of the group who is not impressed with Hickey’s turnaround and demands to know why Hickey has changed his life so drastically. Eventually, Hickey is forced to reveal the devastating turn of events in his own life.

Director: Donna Betts

Producer: CENTERstage Productions

Location: The Center for Performing Arts, Rhinebeck, NY

Performance Dates: October 20-22 and October 27-29, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm

Seeking: We strongly encourage women, persons of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals to audition. We are strongly committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in all areas of our work.

Questions: Contact Director Donna Betts at bettsdo@cs.com

Casting Breakdown:

Theodore Hickman

A salesman. Immediately likable, Hickey speaks like a salesman with an easy flow of glib, persuasive convincingness. Hickey is the saloon’s anxiously awaited guest, his arrival promising free drinks and merriment. However, this time the group’s “messiah” comes bearing a different gospel of salvation, urging them to divest themselves of their pipe dreams and make peace with themselves. Male, 40 to 60’s

Larry Slade

Once a Syndicalist-Anarchist. Having bitterly retired from the work, he presents himself as a man who has chosen to watch the carnage form the grandstand of philosophical detachment and eagerly awaits his death. O’Neill notes that Larry has a mystic’s meditative eyes with a gleam of sharp sardonic humor in them and his look of tired tolerance gives his face the quality of a weary priest. Male, 60’s

Don Parritt.

Parritt is a young man who is on the run having tipped off the police about his mother’s anarchist activities. He searches for Larry who he believes was in love with his mother and who he believes was the one person who cared for him. Male, 20 to 30’s

Harry Hope

The owner of the saloon and rooming house. Likable to all he hides his vulnerability behind a testy truculent manner but fools no one. Hope has not ventured outside the bar in twenty years since the death of his wife Bessie. Male, 60’s

Rocky Pioggi

Rocky is an Italian American who tends bar at night. He maintains Pearl and Margie as “ladies of the night” but fervently claims he is not their pimp. His temperament is prickly and he is hot-headed but loyal to Harry and protective of the establishment. Male, 30 to 50’s

Hugo

Hugo spends much of the play drunk and when he does speak it is with a heavy German accent. He intermittently denounces the crowd and whines for a drink. Male, 60’s

Ed Mosher

A born grafter, con man, and practical joker. He had a career in the circus. He is Hope’s brother-in-law. Male, 50 to 60’s

Pat McGloin

Mosher’s drinking partner. He has the look of his former police days. Once brutal and greedy he is good-humored. Male 50 to 60’s

Willie Oban

Willie left Harvard Law School upon the ruin of his prominent industrialist father. Male, 30 to 50.

Joe Mott

A black man who dreams of re-opening his gambling house. Male, 50 to 60’s

Piet Wetjoen

The “General” is Lewis’s drinking partner and one-time leader of a Boer commando. Male, 60’s

Cecil Lewis

The “Captain” a Boer War veteran, speaks with an English accent. 60’s

James Cameron

Jimmy Tomorrow, a former newspaper writer, is elegant, intelligent, and reserved. Male, 60’s

Chuck Morello

Chuck is the day bartender at the saloon who plans to marry Cora. Male, 30 to 40’s

Pearl

Rocky’s “tart” a bit ditzy, sentimental and lazy, and content with life. Female, 20 to 30’s

Margie

Also Rocky’s “tart” a bit ditzy, sentimental and lazy, and content with life. Female, 20 to 30’s

Cora

Cora is also a lady of the night and plans to marry Chuck and move to a farm in New Jersey. 30 to 40’s

Moran

Detective. Male, 30 to 40’s

Lieb

Also, a detective. Male, 30 to 40’s