Audition Notice
A Tomb with a View
A Comedy Thriller by Norman Robbins
Directed by Claire Long
Venue: Ponteland Memorial Hall, Darras Road, Ponteland, NE209NX
Performance Dates: Friday 8th March – Saturday 9th March 2024 (3 performances)
Rehearsals: Thursdays (7-9.30pm) from January 2024 at The Badger, Street Houses,
Ponteland Road, Ponteland, NE20 9BT and an additional evening/weekend afternoon to be added for larger roles (night/weekend afternoon TBC). 3 additional Sundays in Ponteland Memorial Hall (3-6pm) in February for all cast.
Read Through: Tuesday 28th November 7pm at The Badger. An opportunity to meet the production team and read through the play and get to now the characters.
Audition Details: Tuesday 5th and Friday 8th December at The Badger or Ponteland Leisure Centre (Times TBC on application). Audition pieces can be provided by character on application. Email claireelainelong@hotmail.com or call 07506 719127.
SYNOPSIS
Think ‘Knives Out meets The Addams Family’, A Tomb with a View is an hilarious comedy murder! Set in as sinister an old library as one is likely to come across presided over by a portrait of a grim faced, mad-eyed old man. There, a dusty lawyer reads a will (involving some millions of pounds) to an equally sinister family – one member of which has were-wolf tendencies, another wanders around in a toga of Julius Caesar and a third member is a gentle lady who plants more bodies than seeds in her flower beds. By the third act, there are more corpses than live members left in the cast and what about the sympathetic nurse and the author of romantic novels? are they all, or more than, they seem to be? All is revealed as the plot twists and turns to its surprising conclusion!
Characters in order of appearance (description & ages)
Hamilton/Henrietta Penworthy; Male/Female/Non Binary; Acting Age 25+; Lines 360
The family lawyer, Penworthy knows all the family secrets and hides what he REALLY thinks of his employer (which is in reality nothing very nice) up to a point. He is intelligent, patient and long suffering – expressing his opinions with a heavy dose of sarcasm – but also reveals a surprising level of meticulous scheming and ruthlessness as the play progresses – at least until he is brutally murdered half way through Act 2. Think Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder.
Lucien/Lucilla Tomb: Male/Female/Non Binary; Acting Age 30+; Lines 170
Lucien/Lucilla is the new head of the family following their father’s death. Filled with a sense of self-importance they are opinionated, bossy and pompous in the manner of an army major but actually quite ineffectual and easily manipulated and dominated by their siblings. Quite unaware of what is REALLY happening around them – until their grisly head ends up in a box at the end of Act 2! Think Hyacinth Bouquet crossed with Basil Fawlty in a uniform!
Dora/Donald Tomb: Male/Female/Non-Binary; Age 25+; Lines: 185
Dora/Donald is an unlikely murderer – a shy, timid, nervous character who doesn’t really have a full grasp on reality. What she does like, though, is making wine – and burying the bodies of her hemlock ‘vintage’ experiments under the rose beds! Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter.
Emily Tomb: Female; Acting Age 25+; Lines: 259
The REAL head of the family, Emily dominates the family both physically and verbally. She has the aggressive manner of a sports coach and easily bosses Lucien and Dora around and has a verbal sparring match with her sister Monica with whom there is no love lost! She’s VERY keen on making sure she gets her inheritance and drives the plot forward with her sleuthing!
Marcus Tomb: Male; Acting Age 16+; Lines: 28
Marcus thinks he is Julius Caesar and speaks all his lines in a theatrical, Shakespearean manner – dressed in a home-made toga. He is more caricature than character.
Anne Franklin: Female; Age 16+; Lines: 460
Marcus’s nurse, Anne initially appears as a gentle, kind and deferential family servant. This is, however, later revealed to be a mask hiding a forceful, clever, ruthless and determined murderess who lies and manipulates others with ease.
Agatha/Angus Hammond: Male/Female/Non Binary; Acting Age 25+; Lines: 84
The family servant, Agatha/Angus is a dour, bossy, superstitious busy-body who clearly worshipped their recently deceased master and will do anything, including inciting his children to commit murder, to protect the family name. Surprisingly they all seem to listen to her!
Freda Mountjoy: Female; Acting Age 16+; Lines: 124
One of the two ‘outsiders’, Freda arrives, in the guise of famous, but reclusive, author Ermyntrude Ash at the mansion to falsely claim an inheritance from the late Septimus Tomb’s will. Whilst surprised to find she is fraudulently claiming a significant inheritance, she quickly rises to the challenge of impersonation – although doesn’t survive long enough to claim it – being the first murder victim at the end of Act 1.
Peregrine (Perry) Potter: Male; Acting Age 20+; Lines: 335
Masquerading for most of the play as Freda’s Secretary, Perry is really the true author Ermyntrude Ash. Despite hiding his identity, due to shyness, Perry is, however, the only real innocent of the play. He is nervous from the start, afraid when the murders start occurring – terrified of the advances of Monica and completely taken in by the faux ‘damsel in distress’ played by Anne – almost up until the end when he finds a surprising amount of courage and survives the lot of them. Perry is a key character in Tomb.
Monica Tomb: Female; Acting Age 20+; Lines: 200
Monica is a self-confessed sexual predator and only appears when ‘fresh meat’ in the form of Peregrine Potter arrives. She is 100% vamp but there is more to her than her low-cut dress and cleavage. She has verbal claws, is clever and determined. It is later revealed that she has committed several of the original murders and survives, to plague Perry, after the rest of the cast are corpses on the floor.