Calendar Girls

Comedy by Tim Firth

Sunday, November 3 at 2:00pm

Monday, November 4 at 7:00pm

At the Old Opera House Theatre in Charles Town, WV
6 Performances: February 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16 2025

All roles are available… 9 women, 4 men

When Annie's husband John dies of leukemia, she, and best friend Chris resolve to raise money for a new settee in the local hospital waiting room. They manage to persuade four fellow Women's Institute members to pose nude with them for an "alternative" calendar, with a little help from hospital porter and amateur photographer Lawrence. The news of the women's charitable venture spreads like wildfire, and hordes of press soon descend on the small village of Knapeley in the Yorkshire Dales. The calendar is a success, but Chris and Annie's friendship is put to the test under the strain of their newfound fame.

Based on the true story of eleven WI members who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukemia Research Fund, Calendar Girls opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre and has since become the fastest-selling play in British theatre history.

Do you want to be involved in a show but don’t like being on stage? We will also need backstage and tech crews. If you have an interest in helping backstage, please let Lee Hebb lee@oldoperahouse.org, our Production Manager, know. No prior experience is required.  

Please, feel free to share this opportunity with anyone who might be interested.

All roles are available (ages are approximate) …

Characters

• Roles (ages are approximate)     

• Chris (50s) You want Chris at your party. She will talk to people she doesn’t know, find things to say to fill silences and generate laughter. Part of this is because Chris is at home in crowds, holding court, being the center of attention. Without Chris in her life, Annie would be better behaved, her life less fun. The two of them are like naughty schoolgirls.

• Annie (50s) Annie will join in mischief but is at heart more conformist and less confrontational than Chris. The mischievousness Chris elicits saves Annie from being a saint. She has enough edge to be interesting, and enough salt not to be too sweet. Together these two are greater than the sum of their parts. They would be lesser humans had they not met each other.  

• Cora (40s) Cora’s past is the most eclectic, her horizons broadened by having gone to college. This caused a tectonic shift with her more parochial parents. She came back to them pregnant and tail-between-legs, but Cora has too much native resilience to be downtrodden. She is the joker in the pack.

• Jessie (60-80) Get on the right side of Jessie as a teacher, and she’ll be the teacher you remember for life. Get on the wrong side and you will regret every waking hour. A lover of life, Jessie doesn’t bother with cosmetics – her elixir of life is bravery.

• Celia (30-60) The fact that Celia is in the WI is the greatest justification of its existence. A woman more at home in a department store than a church hall, she may be slightly younger than Chris or the same age, but she always feels like she’s drifted in from another world.

• Ruth (40s) Ruth’s journey is from the false self-confidence of the emotionally abused to the genuine self-confidence of the woman happy in her own skin. Ruth is eager to please but not a rag doll, and despite being Marie’s right-hand woman she is desperate to be the cartilage in the spine of the WI and keep everyone happy.

• Marie (50s) Marie has gradually built the current ‘Marie’ around herself over the years as a defense mechanism. She went to her Oz, Cheshire, and found Oz didn’t want her. She came back scorched. The WI is a trophy to her, which justifies her entire existence.

• John (50s) Annie’s husband, John is a human sunflower. Not a saint. Not a hero. Just the kind of man you’d want in your car when crossing America. When he dies it feels like someone somewhere turned a light off.

• Rod (50s) Chris’s husband, You have to be a certain kind of guy to stick with Chris and Rod loves it. He can give back what he gets, and has a deadpan humor which has always made Chris laugh. He drinks a lot but never so much as to have a problem.

• Lawrence (25+) Hesitant without being nerdy, Lawrence is a shy young man with enough wit to make a joke and enough spirit to turn up at the WI hall in the first place.

• Lady Cravenshire (60+) Lady Cravenshire really doesn’t mean to be so patronizing. But the WI girls seem from another world. The world of her estate workers.

• Elaine (20+) Elaine really doesn’t mean to be so patronizing. But Jessie seems from another world. The world of her grandma.   

• Liam (25+) Liam would like to be directing other things than photoshoots. He’s not so unprofessional as to let it show, but we can sense a slight weariness at having to deal with these women. There’s a resigned patience to his actions and each smile he makes we feel is professional. For Liam, this photoshoot is a job. And not the job he wanted.

  Director                       Steven Brewer

  Stage Manager            Lydia Dunn

  Producer                      Karen Martin