AUDITIONS

SWITZERLAND

by Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Ruth Anne Baumgartner

Monday, Febuary 5 and Tuesday, February 6
at 7:30 PM


Westport Community Theatre
Town Hall • 110 Myrtle Avenue
, Westport, CT 06880

The Story: It is 1995. Mystery writer Patricia Highsmith receives a visitor at her home in the Swiss Alps.  The young man has been sent by a New York publisher to persuade Highsmith to write another Tom Ripley novel. She resists, and a sinister game of cat and mouse follows. The Guardian describes Switzerland as “a teasing metaphysical thriller.”

Seeking: Patricia Highsmith, described as an older woman who retains vestiges of her younger beauty; a successful novelist, sophisticated, acerbic, dark sense of humor, cruel, but seductive and playful when she chooses to be.

Also seeking Edward, twenties, handsome, ambitious, educated, charming, and cunning; clean-cut ivy league / prep school look.

These are challenging roles that require experienced actors.

Auditions: Cold reading from the script. Expect repeated readings. Monologues are not required but may be seen at your request.

PERFORMANCE DATES ARE APRIL 5 – 21, three weekends: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm; Sundays at 2 PM; and one Thursday evening performance (April 11) at 8 pm.

Born in Texas, Patricia Highsmith moved to New York City, earned a bachelor’s degree at Barnard College, and wrote her way to notoriety and fame with comic-book texts, short stories, and suspense novels. The Price of Salt (1952) was the first American novel to feature a lesbian love affair with a happy ending. Highsmith is best known today as the creator of the amoral, predatory con man Tom Ripley, featured in five of her books. Her psychological thriller Strangers on a Train is a perennial favorite on professional and amateur stages, and a film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley was a box-office hit in 1999. Biographer Andrew Wilson said of Highsmith “She could be a monstrous, violent, and quite unpleasant woman …but there are also reasons why she was like that.” She once went to therapy hoping, in vain, to learn to be attracted to men. (Her journals have been published by Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton.) A film version of Switzerland starring Helen Mirren is expected to be released this year.

Questions? Email us:  info@westportcommunitytheatre.com.