Auditions

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is often called the greatest comedy of the English stage, this is an absolutely hilarious, satirical farce from the supremely witty pen of Oscar Wilde, which skewers 1895 England’s rigid social conventions, mores and romantic ideals. Conventions, mores and ideals all of which, moreover, have parallels in today’s society.

Two young men about town, Jack and Algernon, lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name and fictitious identity of Jack’s disreputable, younger brother Ernest. While doing so, they both fall in love with women who have firmly, resolved to love only someone of the name of Ernest. Their quest for true love and happiness is further complicated by the opposition of the domineering enforcer of social rectitude, Lady Bracknell (Algernon’s aunt and the mother of Jack’s love), who emphatically disapproves of Jack’s origin as an infant found in a handbag in the cloakroom of Victoria station!

Guaranteed to make you laugh!

John (Jack/Ernest) Worthing, (Age: late 20s-30s) - The play's protagonist. Jack Worthing is a seemingly responsible and respectable young man who leads a double life. In Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate, Jack is known as Jack. In London he is known as Ernest. Jack is in love with his friend Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax.

Algernon Moncrieff (Age: late 20s-30s) - The play's secondary hero. Algernon is a charming, idle, decorative bachelor, nephew of Lady Bracknell, cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing, whom he has known for years as Ernest. Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral, and given to making delightful paradoxical and epigrammatic pronouncements.

Gwendolen Fairfax (Age: 20s) - Algernon's cousin and Lady Bracknell's daughter. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest. A model and arbiter of high fashion and society, Gwendolen speaks with unassailable authority on matters of taste and morality. She is sophisticated, intellectual, cosmopolitan, and utterly pretentious.

Cecily Cardew (Age: 20s) - Jack's ward. Cecily is probably the most realistically drawn character in the play. Like Gwendolen, she is obsessed with the name Ernest, but she is even more intrigued by the idea of wickedness.

Lady Bracknell (Age: 50-65) - Algernon's snobbish, mercenary, and domineering aunt and Gwendolen's mother. Lady Bracknell married well, and her primary goal in life is to see her daughter do the same. She has a list of "eligible young men" and a prepared interview she gives to potential suitors. Like her nephew, Lady Bracknell is given to making hilarious pronouncements, but where Algernon means to be witty, the humor in Lady Bracknell's speeches is unintentional. Through the figure of Lady Bracknell, Wilde manages to satirize the hypocrisy and stupidity of the British aristocracy. Lady Bracknell values ignorance, which she sees as "a delicate exotic fruit." When she gives a dinner party, she prefers her husband to eat downstairs with the servants. She is cunning, narrow-minded, authoritarian, and possibly the most quotable character in the play.

Miss Prism (Age: 40-65) - Cecily's governess. Miss Prism is an endless source of pedantic bromides and clichés. Puritan though she is, Miss Prism's severe pronouncements have a way of going so far over the top that they inspire laughter. Despite her rigidity, Miss Prism seems to have a softer side. Also, she entertains romantic feelings for Dr. Chasuble.

Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. (Age: 50-65) - The rector on Jack's estate. Both Jack and Algernon approach Dr. Chasuble to request that they be christened "Ernest." Dr. Chasuble entertains secret romantic feelings for Miss Prism. The initials after his name stand for "Doctor of Divinity."

Lane (Age: 30-65) - Algernon's manservant. Lane appears only in Act I.

Merriman (Age: 30-65) - The butler at the Manor House, Jack's estate in the country. Merriman appears only in Acts II and III.

Dates / times arranged with cast.