Wit Audition Notice

Germantown Community Theatre announces the auditions for Wit.

Directed by James Kevin Cochran

Performs January 20-Februray 5, 2023

Rehearsals to begin in December 2022

Audition Dates

November 5^th  2:00pm-5:00pm

November 6^th  6:00pm-8:00pm

Callbacks TBA in necessary

Location:  3037 Forest Hill Irene Rd.  Germantown, TN 38138

Please arrive at the beginning of the audition time and be prepared for readings from the script.

Performers Needed:

GCT is seeking 5 performers for this production of all age ranges, races, and genders.  This production originally had auditions in 2020 and some actors have been able to remain in their original roles.  The following roles are currently open:

Vivian Bearing

Vivian is a university professor of English Literature, with a specialization in seventeenth-century poetry. We find her in hospital, dying of ovarian cancer. Approximately 50 years old.

Jason Posner

A clinical fellow in the Department of Medical Oncology. Now a student of Dr Kelekian, he was once a student of Dr Bearing’s. Actor would need to play mid-late twenties.

Lab Tech/Student

Three actors needed to play Hospital Lab Techs and Students.

Callbacks:

Callbacks will be by request if necessary.

Show Synopsis:

Vivian Bearing, a brilliant and uncompromising professor of English Literature who has spent years specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. She agrees to undergo an experimental chemotherapy treatment that, although not guaranteed to save her, will provide excellent research data for the future of oncology. Once the teacher, she is now the student, learning everything she can about the disease and constantly at the mercy of the doctors in authority. Over the course of her treatment, she begins to seek the warmth and care that, in her quest for excellence, she denied her students during her many years of teaching. Professor Bearing valiantly braves all eight rounds of the chemotherapy, but is told the tumor has not been completely dispelled, and there is nothing else that can be done. Through the agony of dying from a terminal illness, she learns a lesson of compassion; at her darkest hour she is shown mercy from her nurse, Susie Monahan, and her mentor, Professor E.M. Ashford. In a final acceptance of her fate, Professor Bearing institutes a Do Not Resuscitate order, finally succumbing to death, which she has studied so fastidiously in the teaching of Donne’s work. Wit is a poignant and humorous look at life, death, poetry, and compassion.