Remembering Florence.
Cast-size: 16, mostly spread across yrs 12-13. One female adult actor required.
4 male, 12 female (inc adult actor).
Run-time roughly 1.5 hours.
The play is set mostly in an elite Swiss private boarding school. Those actors playing students have to play both their own age and young adult versions of themselves. Apart from Valentine they need to exude sophistication, confidence, wealth, erudition. One of these, Sofia, needs to be a very good dancer (ballet). For the rest, one very strong younger actor (playing Pascal) is required (ideally aged between 11 and 13) and an older female actor with a playing age of 40s/50s is needed to play the students’ teacher (I used a professional acquaintance). Those playing Petra, Dominique and Leoni have to look old enough to play late/mid/early 20s.
Students:
Character Lines Playing age Description
Cast-size: 16, mostly spread across yrs 12-13. One female adult actor required.
4 male, 12 female (inc adult actor).
Run-time roughly 1.5 hours.
The play is set mostly in an elite Swiss private boarding school. Those actors playing students have to play both their own age and young adult versions of themselves. Apart from Valentine they need to exude sophistication, confidence, wealth, erudition. One of these, Sofia, needs to be a very good dancer (ballet). For the rest, one very strong younger actor (playing Pascal) is required (ideally aged between 11 and 13) and an older female actor with a playing age of 40s/50s is needed to play the students’ teacher (I used a professional acquaintance). Those playing Petra, Dominique and Leoni have to look old enough to play late/mid/early 20s.
Students:
Character Lines Playing age Description
|
Flo
Anton Valentine Eugenie Marta Marcus Eva Rosa Lottie Sofia |
**
*** **+ ** ** **+ *** ** *+ *+ |
17/18 and early 20s
17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s 17/18 and early 20s |
Sweet-natured, serious, spiritual
Personable, sexually undecided, self-mocking, romantic. Also serves as narrator figure Handsome, taciturn, volatile, socially disenfranchised, angry Politically driven, intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, pretty In thrall to Eugenie, her ‘wing-man’, ambitious and scheming on her behalf, content to be power behind the throne Handsome, wealthy, driven, arrogant, paranoid, sexually aggressive A good-time girl, arch, knowing, sarcastic, promiscuous, bitter Eva’s hand-maiden, knowing, seductive, nonchalant, louche Eva’s other hand-maiden, more guileless and free-spirited Self-contained, stand-offish, driven in her pursuit of ballet success |
Their teacher:
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Mademoiselle Lestrade
|
***
|
40s/50s
|
Formidable, no-nonsense, charismatic, experienced, soft-centered
|
Others:
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Katrin (Valentine’s older sister)
Pascal (Valentine’s younger brother) Petra (Party political apparatchik) Dominique (Petra’s PA) Leoni (Journalist) |
**+
** **+ * ** |
Early 20s
11-13 Mid/late 20s Early 20s Early 20s |
Pascal’s carer. Impoverished, harassed, stifled, unhappy, desperate
Mentally impaired (shown through physical tics, over-emphatic speech and a much younger mental age), vulnerable, dotes on Valentine Predatory, abrupt, intimidating, humourless Ditzy, earnest Rookie journalist. Apparently sweet- natured, but secretly hard and ambitious |