Fayetteville First United Methodist Church will begin auditions at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11, for “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!” Auditions will be scheduled over three days.

One of the most popular holiday productions of the past 25 years, the play is based on a 1972 best seller by Barbara Robinson.

FFUMC will present the play Nov. 13-14-15.

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!” is about the Bradleys, a young couple struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant. They are faced with casting the Herdman kids – probably the most inventively awful kids in history. When the Herdman’s collide with the Christmas story head-on, the mayhem and nonstop fun commence. First-time director Len Gough will direct the production.

Cold readings will be from the script, which is available for checkout and review during office hours at the church office. If a child can’t read yet, he or she will be given some simple direction and lines to act out.

Organizers are looking for actors and actresses to fill the following roles: four roles for adult males aged 18 and up; six roles for adult females aged 18 and up; eight roles for boys aged 6 to 16; and nine roles for girls aged 6 to 18.

FFUMC will have an open casting policy, with first audition priority given to Fayetteville First UMC members. No experience is required. All parts require some basic stage movement. The church reserves the right for pre-casting. Everyone, regardless of experience, is encouraged to try-out.

Rehearsals begin Tuesday, Sept. 16. Additional rehearsals will be scheduled for lead parts. Rehearsals will be on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and perhaps a Saturday or two during the late afternoon. If scheduling permits, rehearsals for school kids will be as early in the afternoon or evening as possible, and may entail a Saturday or two to accommodate school schedules.

For the audition, contestants should come prepared with a short one-minute-or-less monologue, or choose one of the following three readings from the script. Please note that these readings are not gender specific:

1. “The Herdmans were the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars, even the girls, and talked dirty and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken down tool house.”

2. “There were six of them — Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys and they went through Woodrow Wilson school like those South American fish that strip your bones clean. They went around town the same way stealing things and tearing things up and whamming kids — so it was hard to get away from them.”

3. “Our Christmas pageant isn’t what you’d call four-star entertainment. Mrs. Armstrong breaking her leg was the only unexpected thing that ever happened to it. It’s always the same old Christmas story, and the same old carols, and the same old Mary and Joseph and that’s what my mother was stuck with.”

Call or email Len Gough, 404-216-2566, or len27@bellsouth.net to book an audition time.

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