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Auditions for new history-based summer theatre production in Cowichan

Auditions for ‘Messages In The Dust’ to be held April 5 , 7, and 10
Chadd Cawson
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Seeds and Salt Theatre Company is calling for actors for their new summer production ‘Messages In The Dust’. Commissioned by the Mill Bay Historical Society, auditions will be held at Mill Bay Community League Hall on April 5, 7, and 10. (Submitted)

Calling all actors who want their chance to shine this summer.

The Seeds and Salt Theatre Company is looking for four actors between the ages of 17 and 70 who want to lend their talents to the play Messages In The Dust that will depict real events from Vancouver Island and will be performed in various locations throughout the Cowichan Valley such as Mill Bay Community Hall, Shawnigan Museum Hall, and BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan. The show will run from the middle of July to the middle of August

This one-hour long show without intermission will feature several true stories from Vancouver Island’s history and will be retold in a dramatic and physical style. It will be an opportunity to step back and look at the island’s history in a new and exciting way, a chance to celebrate the forgotten, the humorous, the tragic and the sometimes not so heroic events of the past and the men and women who made them happen. The show will stay true to what the performance challenges of a traveling show would be in the first half of the 20th century, using props repeatedly to convey a variety of different things and using what can be created with the actors’ own bodies and imaginations.

Commissioned by the Mill Bay Historical Society, Messages In The Dust was written by local actor Will Johnson who was recently seen in the Mercury Players’ production of Tartuffe and in last year’s Shakespeare productions of All’s Well That Ends Well and Hamlet. The play will be directed by Mercury Players president Rien Vesseur (Tartuffe, The Curious Incident of the Dog, Tempting Providence).

Auditions will be held at the Mill Bay Community League Hall at 1035 Shawnigan Lake-Mill Bay Rd. on April 5 at 8 p.m, April 7 at 4:30 p.m. and April 10 and 7 p.m. Scripts will be provided and auditions will be carried out in a workshop style with careful guidance by the director to bring out your best performance. All ethnicities, and genders are encouraged to come out, and while previous theatre training and the ability to sing or play an instrument is preferred, it is not mandatory.

For more information or to register for an audition contact Rien Vesseur at 250-510-1746 or email Mony Vesseur at mvesseur@gmail.com