In order to help you get an idea of the type of folks you’re going to need to cast The Pennsylvania Story, we’ve included below brief character sketches of all those with speaking or solo singing parts in the musical. After each character’s name, we’ve given them one of three key markers. If you see an (SV), then that character has at least one line of solo vocals in the performance. (BV) means a character sings backup vocals on stage in a song, and (NV) means the character sings only as part of the full-cast choral ensemble at the end of the musical.
THE SPEAKING CAST (in order of appearance)
Brock Lavender (NV) – is the male news anchor for KNZR, Channel 6 News, Nazareth. Like his counterpart, Vanessa Holiday, he is able to deliver horrible stories with a newscaster’s sense of ironic detachment.
Vanessa Holiday (NV) – is the female news anchor for KNZR. Young, pretty, and with a keen actress’s ability to change facial expressions on the fly, Vanessa can gravely deliver a story about a school-shooting, then instantly turn on a smile.
Summer Johnson (NV) – is a field reporter for the Channel 6 News. Standing on the steps of the Capitol in Harrisburg, she delivers the story about the state government’s decision to enact a year-end physical census.
Joseph (Joe) Carter (SV) – is a 23-year-old carpenter working in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. At the play’s outset, he is engaged to Mary Blake, and spends much of his time questioning the idea of starting a family in a world where crime runs rampant and there is little hope for a better future. When Mary reveals to him that she has been visited in the night by the angel Gabriel and that she is now pregnant via divine conception, Joe doubts the story’s veracity, and calls off the wedding. When, however, he receives a similar visit from Gabriel, Joe reconciles his relationship, and suggests that they move up the wedding date. By the time Joe and Mary make their way to Bethlehem for a new census to update electronic voting records, he has come fully to grips with his interesting position as step-father to the Lord’s child.
Mary (Blake) Carter (SV) – is the 18-year-old fiancée of Joseph Carter. Mary works as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, and is busy throughout much of the play’s first act planning her wedding. A realist who recognizes the potential issues associated with raising a family in the twenty-first century, Mary is also resolute in her determination to optimistically surge forward. When she learns of her unique pregnancy, she is surprised, but devout in her belief – and calls upon God to help Joseph see that what she is saying is the truth. When the play reconvenes in Act II, Mary is somewhat overwhelmed by the physical toll that pregnancy places upon her body, but handling the situation with as much patience and humor as can be expected. She gives birth to the Messiah in the janitor’s closet of the Bethlehem Comfort Inn.
Tom Shepherd (SV – one repeating line) – is a mill-hand at the Bethlehem Steel corporation, where he has worked for the last 30 years without ever calling in sick. A man of devout Jewish faith, Tom has been forced to reconcile the fact that his faith isn’t much respected by the mill’s higher-ups, who routinely force him to work on the Sabbath and High Holidays. Tom’s sons, John and Luke, now also work at Bethlehem Steel. At the play’s outset, after being scheduled once again to work on Passover, Tom considers storming up into the office of CEO John Fitzgerald III to complain, but is eventually convinced that this is a poor idea and will only lead his family to trouble. Nevertheless, when visited by the angel Gabriel in the play’s Second Act, Tom and his sons, along with foreman Mike McCarthy, drop everything and trudge through the night and 20 inches of snow to pay a visit to the newborn Christ-child at the Comfort Inn.
John Shepherd (SV – one repeating line) – is an employee at Bethlehem Steel, and the son of Tom. He is also the best man at Joe Carter’s wedding, although this friendship is not fully developed in the play’s action sequences.
Luke Shepherd (SV – one repeating line) – is also an employee at Bethlehem Steel, where he works with his father and brother.
Mike McCarthy (NV) – is a foreman at Bethlehem Steel, who has for years been the direct supervisor of the men in the Shepherd family. Mike is an honest, direct, and decent man who understands his place as another cog in a giant industrial machine. Although sympathetic to the plight of the Shepherds, he has little ability to effectively carry out Tom Shepherd’s scheduling requests. At one point, he attempts to speak with John Fitzgerald III about the situation, but is quickly reminded that his goal is to incite the men to work, and not to be their advocate. When the angel Gabriel visits the Steel Mill, McCarthy is present, and joins the Shepherds on their crazy midnight romp through the snow to the Comfort Inn.
John Fitzgerald III (SV – singing part only) – is the CEO of Bethlehem Steel. Although he has no speaking lines, he sits high in the tower above the mill floor throughout both Shepherd family acts, and delivers the chorus of the song “Bethlehem Steel” – where he waxes philosophical on the quotas being met with steel (with hot steel).
Dr. Jerry Frankincense (SV) – is introduced in the play’s First Act as the San Diego State University Physics Department’s newest hire. His recently completed UC-Berkeley dissertation, which studies long-sequence elliptical alignments, postulates that within the next ten years the six visible planets will align to form a super-star structure in the Eastern sky. After poring through ancient Hebrew texts, Jerry has justified this phenomenon with an ancient prophecy which he believes indicates the coming of the Messiah. Although Jerry grew up in Palo Alto, where his father was a professor, he spent his summers with his grandparents in Rancho Carne, where he learned to surf. At the Physics Department’s reception in March, Jerry befriends Byron Goldberg and Hezekiah Myrrh, who are also avid surfers and synagogue-attending Jews. When Jerry decides in December that he has shot his data a little short, and the superstar appears in the Eastern sky, he invites Byron and Hez on a wild 48-hour road-trip eastward towards the Bethlehem Comfort Inn.
Dr. Helen Lerner (NV) – is the chair of the SDSU Physics Department. She introduces Jerry to the crowd, and invites her colleagues to take full advantage of the stingy university’s annual extension of free food and beverages.
Dr. Byron Goldberg (BV) – is a surfer, physics professor, and friend of Hezekiah Myrrh. At some point in his past, Byron used to live in Rancho Carne, only a few blocks from a bank that was recently robbed. He is also a widower.
Dr. Hezekiah Myrrh (BV) – is a surfer and SDSU physics professor. In the original production of The Pennsylvania Story, Hez was also a ham, and quite a dancer.
Elizabeth Blake (BV) – is the sister of Mary Blake, and has been married for a few years to her husband, Zach (who remains off-stage). Elizabeth is 6-months pregnant (with John the Baptist), and waiting for Zach to finish up the construction of their house, so that they can move out of the apartment above the Blake family’s garage. During Act I, Elizabeth helps Mary navigate the headaches of planning a wedding, and helps her understand Joe’s hesitation. She is also the Matron of Honor at her sister’s wedding.
Gabriel (SV) – is the Messenger Angel of the Lord, and delivers the news of Christ’s birth respectively to Mary Blake, Joseph Carter, the Shepherd family, and Matthew Tolcher. Throughout the play, Gabriel is attired in an entirely white 3-piece suit, and the human characters constantly wish to touch him to verify that he is real. He also has the biggest opportunity to ham it up for the Crowd – and must be played by someone with an enormous personality.
Elton Greensburg (SV) – is the Rabbi who performs Mary and Joe’s marriage ceremony. We are introduced to him as a character when he attempts to cut off the gossip of Ethel and Lucy with words of admonishment. After this, he launches into his rock-version of the Wedding Song.
Gossip Lady #1 (Ethel) (BV) – is a guest at the Carter wedding who desperately wishes that some sort of slapstick comedy will occur.
Gossip Lady #2 (Lucy) (BV) – is a guest at the wedding who speculates on the possibility that the women are attending a shot-gun wedding. She also humorously believes that all of the world’s problems can be solved by weddings and babies.
Old Man (SV) – is the guest at the Carter wedding who is unfortunately seated between Gossip Lady #1 and Gossip Lady #2. Throughout the waiting period, he is forced to listen to their gossip, take numerous elbows to the ribs, and deliver dry responses to their questions.
Rachel Tolcher (NV) – is the night clerk at the Bethlehem Comfort Inn, and a former flame of the County Clerk. At first, she attempts to send away the Carters, just as every other hotel in Bethlehem has already done. When, however, she discovers that Mary is enormously pregnant, she kindly arranges for the family to sleep in the Janitor’s closet. Later that night, Rachel is visited, in what she assumes to be a dream, by the angel Gabriel, who informs her of the Messiah’s pending birth. In the morning, when Joe reveals that Mary is going into labor, Rachel Tolcher rushes off to alert Dr. Davidson. Later that day, Tolcher acts as the gatekeeper between the crowd of people who wish to see the Christ-child and the Carter family.
Dr. Isaac Davidson (NV) – is an ear-nose-and-throat specialist who happens to be the only doctor staying at the Comfort Inn. While he hasn’t been in a delivery room since Medical School, Dr. Davidson successfully delivers Mary’s baby.
Karen Davidson (NV) – is the wife of Isaac Davidson. While her husband checks into the hotel, Karen kindly introduces herself to the Carter family. Later, when labor is under full swing, Karen – a mom three times over – acts as a nurse and assists her husband during the delivery.
Student (NV) – is one of the college kids taking Dr. Frankincense’s final exam. She requests that he grade it generously.
Guest (NV) – is the guest at that the Comfort Inn who has a speaking line.
Extras (BV) – include the SDSU science faculty, guests at the wedding of Mary and Joseph, the Heavenly Host Choir, guests of the Bethlehem Comfort Inn
