Auditions: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dinner With Friends: CANCELLED

Dinner With Friends
by Donald Margulies
A HLT Studio production
Directed by Meg Sara Andrews

Synopsis

Gabe and Karen, a happily married couple, live in Connecticut. They have been friends with Tom and Beth, another married couple, for many years. While having dinner at Gabe and Karen's home, Beth tearfully reveals that she is getting a divorce from Tom, who has been unfaithful. Tom, who had been away on business, finds out that Beth has told their friends about the looming divorce, and hastens to Gabe and Karen's home. Tom and Beth had planned to tell their friends about their breakup together, but Tom now believes that Beth unfairly has presented herself as the wronged party and feels he must present his own side of the story.

The time flashes back 12 years to a vacation home on Martha's Vineyard, when Karen and Gabe introduce Beth to Tom. Over the course of the play, both couples are seen at different ages and stages of their lives. Tom and Beth's breakup affects Gabe and Karen, who first feel compelled to choose sides, and then begin to question the strength of their own seemingly tranquil marriage. They also begin to see the real meaning behind their friendships with Tom and Beth.

Characters
All four actors will need a stage age of anywhere between 30 and 60.

Beth
Beth is Tom’s wife and Karen’s best friend. She is an artist of questionable talent. She is also the antithesis of Karen. She can’t cook, is totally unorganized, and leans more on her emotions to direct her life than on her rational thoughts. As a couple, she and her husband, Tom, stand as models directly opposed to the couple represented by Gabe and Karen.

Gabe
Gabe lives an orderly and structured life and writes about food for a living. He and his wife, Karen, seem perfectly matched. They are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They know one another so well that their conversations fit together, one piece overlapping the other, as they finish one another’s sentences.

Karen
Karen has been married to Gabe for more than twelve years. Karen and Gabe are international food writers. She also considers herself close friends first with Beth and then with Tom. She manages two houses and a couple of kids; she travels all over the world and maintains a profession. But there are edges about her that make the audience question her confidence.

Tom
Tom is a lawyer and a college friend of Gabe’s. He’s also the estranged husband of Beth. It’s easy to classify him as a ladies’ man, which he admits was a role he played in his youth. But it’s a role that he tries to deny when he explains why he has left Beth for another woman. He could be described as an “ambiguous creation, a carelessly sensual jock with an insecure streak.”

Director
Meg has acted professionally from a young age and has a deep love for community theatre. Some of her notable acting works include: performing for Prince Charles & Camilla on their trip to NZ; touring with The Ugly Shakespeare Company; performances with the popular Tim Bray Theatre Company; and recently performed as the deliciously evil Lady Macbeth in Auckland’s Summer Shakespeare. Her directing credentials include Lovepuke for the Auckland Fringe Festival and The Taming of the Shrew with The Ugly Shakespeare Company.

She enjoys working with actors to find truth in their characters and their characters relationships and encourages the actors to have a deep understanding of the story in its entirety—which will hopefully ensure a very fulfilling acting experience. She also likes to create a safe rehearsal space for actors to feel free to play and to be vulnerable. Meg welcomes anyone from every walk of life to audition—even if you feel you don’t fit the character brief, you just never know!

Contact: For more information regarding this play, a copy of the script and/or to book an audition please email the director: megsara.andrews@gmail.com.