Pauline Productions/Devereux Productions
Auditions – Seeing Violet – a new play by Peter Snoad
Jul 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
First Congregational Church of Ashfield
Pauline Productions and Devereux Productions are holding auditions for their upcoming collaboration of a Workshop Production of “Seeing Violet” a new play by Peter Snoad.
Auditions will be held on Monday, July 7 from 6-8:30 pm at First Congregational Church of Ashfield, 429 Main St., Ashfield MA. This is also where the play will be performed.
Production dates are Sept. 26, 27, 28 with tech week beginning Sept. 14. Rehearsals begin on or about Sept. 1st (location TBD) and will be 3 times a week–accommodating Actors schedules. All Actors will be paid for their work.
Local Actors (union and non-union) are invited to audition. (AEA agreement TBD).
TO SIGN UP FOR AN AUDITION SLOT, contact Jean Devereux Koester at jeanjkemail@gmail.com. NO MONOLOGUE REQUIRED. ACTORS WILL READ FROM SIDES AT THE AUDITION.
ROLES: 5 Characters played by 3 Actors.
BETSY MARSH, White, 40’s- 50’s, a marketing specialist.
JOHN MARSH, White, 40’s- 50’s, a hedge fund manager, Betsy’s husband
IMANI DAWES, Black, late 20’s/early 30’s, a psychology student and a U.S. Army sergeant
VIOLET (same Actor who plays IMANI), Black, 20’s, an enslaved woman
OBADIAH MARSH (same Actor who plays JOHN) White, 60’s, merchant and investor, ancestor of JOHN
THE STORY: A cowrie shell, a manumission paper, and a human skull are unearthed during renovations at John and Betsy’s 18th century manse. The house has been in John’s family for 5 generations. Betsy is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious “find”. Her dogged research reveals some unsettling truths: about the Marsh family’s secrets; about local resistance to confronting the community’s hidden history of slavery; and about her husband’s conviction that White people bear no responsibility to repair what happened in 1760. Through this experience BETSY and JOHN come to question their marriage, their priorities, and their future.
