Audition notice
DATE & TIME
Saturday 17 OCTOBER 2026
10.00 am–4.00 pm
Callbacks (if required):
To be confirmed
LOCATION
Dolphin Theatre
Rehearsal Hall
12 Spring Street
Onehunga
REHEARSALS
Tuesdays & Wednesdays
7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Sundays
Afternoon or early evening, to be confirmed
SIGN UP TO AUDITION HERE
Full script and audition pieces upon application submission
Full script and audition pieces upon application submission
ROLES
Lady Isadora Pollock
Female | 40s | Lead Role
A role of sustained complexity, demanding a completely believable surface and hidden interior held simultaneously throughout. The tonal range is wide: dry social comedy in Act One, controlled menace through Act Two, and finally a kind of manic release. Requires an actor of genuine subtlety and the ability to handle a very precise shift of register in Act Two Scene Three.
Captain Henrietta Woolmer-Cardington
Female | 20s–30s | Lead Role
Two distinct characters at opposite ends of the register, each completely believable, in the same body. The comedy of Henrietta’s surface requires precision and commitment; the intelligence agent underneath requires authority and genuine presence. This is a two-performance role.
Colonel Charles Craddock / Cardew Longfellow
Male | 60s | Lead Role — Double Character
Rarely does a role offer this degree of structural complexity alongside both comic and dramatic range. Charles’s befuddled warmth, Cardew’s theatrical excess, and the moments where Cardew impersonating Charles creates something genuinely eerie — this is a role for a performer who loves detailed, precise character work.
Cynthia Maple
Female | 40s–50s | Lead Role
The play’s hidden antagonist. A role that requires holding the secret of Cynthia’s real purpose through the entire first half — present in plain sight, completely unsuspected. The final confession scene is a genuine dramatic opportunity: a woman who chose infamy over obscurity, who engineered something she considered elegant, and who has no regrets except that it failed.
Martha Armstrong
Female | Any Age | Supporting Role
A strong, specific, grounded performance in a smaller role. Martha should feel entirely real; the most ordinary person in an extraordinary situation, and the most competent reader of what is actually happening.
Inspector Pratt
Male | 40s–50s | Lead Role
One of the great comic roles in British community theatre. The physical comedy demands commitment and precise timing. The malapropisms must be delivered without any awareness they are malapropisms — with complete sincerity, and exactly the right rhythm. The role also rewards an actor willing to find the genuinely human Pratt underneath the chaos. Ideally, he must also be able to scream very well.
Nurse Ann Parsley
Female | 20s–40s | Supporting Role
A role that rewards warmth, timing, and a genuine lightness of touch. A lovely role for an actor with natural charm and good comic instincts.
Lily Tuthill
Female | 30s–50s | Lead Role
A richly constructed dual role, and the character who ultimately explains and resolves the play’s interlocking mysteries. Lily needs to be entirely convincing as a cook — the comedy of her broad early scenes must land — and entirely convincing as an intelligence professional. The final exposition scene is substantial and requires clarity, authority, and the ability to hold the room.
Count Pavel Puchlik of Puszczykowo
Male | 40s–50s | Lead Role
A technically demanding double role; two distinct accents, both strong and consistent, wrapped in some of the play’s best verbal comedy. The dictionary scenes are gold if played with complete sincerity. The sudden German voice requires a genuine physical and vocal shift that must be believable and unsettling.
NOTES
The listed ages are a guide only. Casting decisions will be based on the overall balance of the company, relationships between performers, and each actor’s ability to inhabit the heightened comic world of the play.
Secondary Cause of Death is a fast-paced comedy thriller set in 1939. Although the characters and circumstances are deliberately larger than life, the comedy works best when played with complete commitment and sincerity rather than for laughs.
Several roles require strong character work, precise comic timing, physical comedy, accents or significant changes of character. Where these are particular requirements of a role, they are noted in the individual character descriptions above.
This is very much an ensemble production. While some roles carry more of the action than others, each character plays an important part in the increasingly complicated mystery surrounding Bagshot House.
Full scripts and selected audition pieces will be supplied following submission of an audition application.
Dolphin theatre is a community theatre and is run entirely by volunteers.
All acting roles are unpaid.