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Casting call: Kaatza Lakeside Players offering five roles in a Norm Foster play

If the name, The Great Kooshog Lake Hollis McCauley Fishing Derby , doesn’t get you, the fun will.
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Kaatza Lakeside Players productions, like Blithe Spirit from a few years ago, are always entertaining. (Andrea Rondeau/ Citizen file)

Calling all adult actors. If you want to be part of a Norm Foster play, now’s the time to step forward.

The Kaatza Lakeside Players are casting Foster’s The Great Kooshog Lake Hollis McCauley Fishing Derby in two nights of auditions.

They are being held Tuesday, Sept. 12 and Thursday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. both nights, in the upper part of the Centennial Hall at Lake Cowichan.

The Players are looking for five adult actors: three women and two men, according to play director Dena McPhee.

“When Investment banker James Bell’s car breaks down near the sleepy town of Kooshog Lake, he finds himself in the thick of one of the most competitive fishing derbys known to man. People come from miles around to catch one fish, a fish that has eluded capture for over 20 years. The Great Kooshog Lake Hollis McCauley Fishing Derby is the story of love, laughter and history in a small forgotten town. You will be hooked”

“It’s Norm Foster, of course, and he’s always great. This one is so funny. There are five characters, and they’re all adults. They’re from a very little town that hosts a fishing derby once a year, very like our town. The five people involved are very invested in the town. In fact they are just about the only business people in the town, too,” she said.

Sound like a community you know? That’s what makes a Norm Foster play so real and so fun to watch.

The parts include:

• an older female, who owns the only store in town, where everyone meets, wry and dry and divorced;

• a 30-something guy, who is a driven investment banker, stranded in Kooshog, who learns a lot about living during his stay there;

• another woman, aged 40-55, who’s a bit of a cougar: looking for love anywhere it might be. She owns the only hotel in town, so when a young guy shows up, it’s clear the track time;

• an older man who owns the garage and tackle shop. Full of stories, he’s the founder of the Hollis McCauley Fishing Derby.

• a younger woman, who owns an antique shop.

“There’s a place called Sienna’s Grocery, which is like a meeting place for the whole town,” McPhee said. “A younger man comes to town when his car breaks down and he walks into the community. He’s hoping to get his car fixed because he’s off to be, not the key speaker but the next-to-key speaker at his company’s big seminar in the next town. As you guessed, he ends up staying because his car can’t be fixed that quickly. He goes in the fishing derby.

“The townspeople are like a team and they play him so badly, and the one-liners are great. People will laugh all the way through this. And, of course it has a good ending as Norm’s plays do. It’s just fun. It’s a truly uplifitng and a feel-good story.”

Actors from all over the Valley are welcome to try out, according to McPhee.

The production will hit the stage starting Dec. 5.