Online Play Reading Group

Drama critic Mortimer Brewster’s engagement announcement is upended when he discovers a corpse in his elderly aunts’ window seat. Mortimer rushes to tell Abby and Martha before they stumble upon the body themselves, only to learn that the two old women aren’t just aware of the dead man in their parlor, they killed him! Between his aunts’ penchant for poisoning wine, a brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, and another brother using plastic surgery to hide from the police—not to mention Mortimer’s own hesitancy about marriage—it’ll be a miracle if Mortimer makes it to his wedding. Arsenic and Old Lace is a classic black comedy about the only thing more deadly than poison: family.

Characters:

• Abby Brewster: A darling lady in her sixties who poisons elderly men.
• The Rev. Dr. Harper: Minister and father of Elaine
• Teddy Brewster: Nephew of Abby and Martha Brewster, Teddy is a man in his forties who thinks that he is Theodore Roosevelt.
• Officer Brophy: A police officer
• Officer Klein: A police officer
• Martha Brewster: A sweet elderly woman with Victorian charm who poisons elderly men.
• Elaine Harper: An attractive girl in her twenties and Mortimer’s fiancee, Elaine is the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Harper.
• Mortimer Brewster: Nephew of Abby and Martha, Mortimer is a drama critic who is engaged to Elaine.
• Mr. Gibbs: A man who wishes to rent a room from the Brewster sisters
• Jonathan Brewster: Nephew of Abby and Martha Brewster, Jonathan is a psychopath who has had plastic surgery and now looks like Boris Karloff.
• Dr. Einstein: A plastic surgeon and an alcoholic who is in his fifties, Dr. Einstein has changed Jonathan’s face three times.
• Officer O’Hara: A police officer, O’Hara is a would-be playwright who pesters Mortimer to read his play.
• Lieutenant Roony: A tough and dominating police officer
• Mr. Witherspoon: The superintendent of Happy Dale Sanitarium

The script will be displayed during the reading. If you would like to dibs a character, please do so in the comments below. If you are not able to attend the day of, please change your RSVP. Two no shows will result in being asked to leave the group.

Henry Higgins, a phonetician, accepts a bet that simply by changing the speech of a Cockney flower seller he will be able, in six months, to pass her off as a duchess. Eliza undergoes grueling training. When she successfully “passes” in high society—having in the process become a lovely young woman of sensitivity and taste—Higgins dismisses her abruptly as a successfully completed experiment. Eliza, who now belongs neither to the upper class, whose mannerisms and speech she has learned, nor to the lower class, from which she came, rejects his dehumanizing attitude.

Characters:

• Clara Eynsford Hill (The Daughter)
• Mrs. Eynsford Hill (The Mother)
• Freddy Eynsford Hill (Freddy)
• Eliza Doolittle (The Flower Girl)
• Colonel Pickering (The Gentleman)
• Professor Henry Higgins (The Notetaker)
• The Bystander
• The Sarcastic Bystander
• Mrs. Pearce
• Alfred Doolittle
• The Parlor Maid
• Mrs. Higgins

There are different versions of Pygmalion. We will be using this script: https://classictheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Pygmalion-script.pdf

The script will be displayed during the reading. If you would like to dibs a character, please do so in the comments below. If you are not able to attend the day of, please change your RSVP. Two no shows will result in being asked to leave the group.