Foothills Community Players' auditions are open to everyone. No experience is required, although it is helpful. Please carefully check audition requirements, as they may differ from production to production.
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Plot synopsis:
The story is about an affable man Elwood P. Dowd and his unseen to all but Elwood, presumably imaginary friend Harvey, a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall rabbit. When Elwood starts to introduce Harvey, a pooka, to guests at a society party, his society-obsessed sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter Myrtle Mae and their family from future embarrassment.
When they arrive at the sanitarium, due to a comedy of errors, the doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When he shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors, including Dr. Chumley, his medical partner Dr. Sanderson, and Miss Kelly, a comely nurse. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection, Dr. Chumley's Formula 977, that will make him, as his taxi driver says, into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" does Veta realize that she'd rather have Elwood be the same as he's always been — carefree and kind — even if it means living with Harvey.
Here's a link to purchase a script if you'd like.
Myrtle Mae Simmons - Myrtle is a young woman, the daughter of Veta. She is afraid that prospective suitors will be frightened away when they find out that Elwood has an imaginary friend.
Veta Louise Simmons - Elwood’s sister. Veta throws society functions that are covered by the local newspaper, and she is terrified that her social position will be subject to ridicule or scandal. It is her embarrassment with Elwood and her fear that her daughter, Myrtle, will not be able to land a suitable husband because of his eccentricities, that has her take him to Chumley’s sanitarium to be committed.
Elwood P. Dowd - The central character of the play, a friendly eccentric who spends his days and nights in the taverns of his unnamed town. Elwood’s best friend is Harvey, an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit. The play leaves open several possibilities regarding exactly what Harvey is, whether he is a figment of Elwood’s imagination, as the psychiatrists would like to believe, or he is, as Elwood asserts, a supernatural being known as a pooka.
Miss Johnson - Miss Johnson is a cateress and/or maid.
Ethel Chauvenet - Mrs. Chauvenet is an old friend of the family. She is a member of the town’s social circle, which Veta wants Myrtle to break into, and so they both flatter her and curry her favor.
Ruth Kelly - Nurse Kelly is a a pretty young woman who appears to have some sort of love/hate relationship with Dr. Sanderson. Of the people at the sanitarium, it is Nurse Kelly that Elwood responds to—he holds her hand (asking permission first) and recites love poetry to her.
Duane Wilson - Wilson is the muscle of Chumley’s Rest, a devoted orderly responsible for handling the patients who will not cooperate voluntarily. He is vulgar and crude and completely devoted to Dr. Chumley.
Dr. Lyman Sanderson - Dr. Sanderson is young, for a psychiatrist, but very qualified—Dr. Chumley has picked him out of the twelve possible assistants that he tried. He is just as infatuated with Nurse Kelly as she is with him, but he only reveals his concern indirectly.
Dr. William B. Chumley - Chumley is an esteemed psychiatrist and the head of the sanitarium, ‘‘Chumley’s Rest,’’ to which Veta has Elwood taken. He is a difficult, exacting man, feared by his subordinates, unwilling to tolerate his mistakes.
Betty Chumley - Dr. Chumley’s wife shows up just briefly in Act I, Scene II. Like Veta, she is more concerned with socializing than with science.Judge Omar Gaffney - The judge is an old family friend of the Dowds, a representative of the people in town who are accustomed to seeing Elwood talking to Harvey and who do not think anything of it. He is the family’s lawyer; so, when Veta wants to commit Elwood, it is up to Judge Gaffney to arrange the commitment papers, and when Veta wants to sue Chumley’s Rest for wrongly committing her, it is also his case to file.
E. J. Lofgren - At the end of the play, it is the cab driver, Lofgren, who makes Veta realize that the treatment that is supposed to make Elwood stop seeing Harvey might drain him of his kind personality. He explains that all of the people that he drives out to Chumley’s Rest for treatment are kind and cheerful on the way out, but on the way back, after their treatment, they are angry, mean, and no fun. ‘‘Lady,’’ he tells her, ‘‘after this, he’ll be a perfectly normal human being and you know what bastards they are!’’
