Auditions

ARTHUR Caldicott: A graduate student in theoretical physics at Caltech, Arthur is intelligent and highly strung. He is determined to get his PhD. Possessed of a natural charm, he is nonetheless a bundle of nerves. He is the protagonist of this tale and haplessly ends up having to impersonate both a detective and the murder victim.

NORA FitzMorgan: A rich twentysomething socialite, Nora is looking for novelty to add excitement to her privileged life. She and Arthur fall in love. Nora is very self-confident and has a quirky, dry sense of humor.

Morgan “FITZ” FitzMorgan: A rich twentysomething socialite, Fitz is Nora’s cousin and Arthur’s childhood friend from boarding school. Forced to visit Caltech as a prospective student, Fitz is a man-about-town who fancies himself a mystery writer. He is a charming idiot.

CHARLIE: Charlotte, nicknamed Charlie, is a chemistry lab tech at Caltech. She is very intelligent, but as a woman has been excluded from enrolling. Arthur’s friend, Charlie is acerbically witty and a voice of reason.

Aunt CATHERINE: Full name Catherine Sophronia FitzMorgan-Vandersquire, she is Fitz’s and Nora’s aunt and guardian, in control of the family fortune. A supercilious aristocrat, her blue-blooded snobbery is punctuated by a worldly pragmatism and frequent unintended comedy. 

Prof. THORVALD Bjorngaard: An elderly theoretical physicist and colleague of Victor, Thorvald is a guest visiting from Norway. A lifetime ago, he was Catherine’s beau. Thorvald is avuncular and sweet as a person, but persistent and particular as a physicist.

Prof. VICTOR Marsh: Arthur’s PhD advisor, Victor is a Caltech professor of theoretical physics. Desperate for a professional coup, he feels beset by the challenges of his job and bitterly unappreciated while comically blind to his privilege.

MAÎTRE D’: A mysterious and daunting figure, the Maître D’ is a powerful personality. She exudes authority and is determined to run the Athenaeum as a tight ship. The Maître D’ is, in a sense, the spirit of the Athenaeum itself.

OSGOOD: The Athenaeum’s butler, Osgood is a man of middle age and is competent and professional with the guests. Somewhat secretive, he can become defensive when accused.

GLADYS: Gladys is the Athenaeum’s new maid. Adenoidal and bumbling, she projects an air of inexperience and nervousness.

Dr. OTTO Nilssen: Otto is a physics researcher and colleague of Thorvald.

All roles can be played by actors of any race or ethnicity.

A stormy night. An elite university. A body in the library. Absurdity and academia. Science,  shenanigans, and spies. And all with a PhD on the line. It’s Murder at the Athenaeum!

In the mid-1930s, at the Athenaeum faculty club at Caltech, physics graduate student Arthur Caldicott is near to having a breakdown. Desperate to prove himself, Arthur is tasked by his PhD advisor, Professor Victor Marsh, with making sure that a high-profile conference to be held at the posh club comes off without a hitch. Arthur’s task is complicated by his unwelcome discovery of a body! The murder of mysterious of a visiting professor is sure to ruin the conference and jeopardize Arthur’s PhD. So he does the natural thing: hide the body and try to solve the case! Hijinks ensue, with the arrival of Arthur’s snarky pal Charlie, woman chemistry lab tech extraordinaire; Fitz FitzMorgan, his airhead boarding school buddy; Fitz’s cousin Nora, a socialite who falls in love with Arthur; and their Aunt Catherine, a domineering aristocratic widow.

Together, the group of friends try to surreptitiously solve the case, as Arthur impersonates a detective in order to fool the judgmental Aunt Catherine and save his relationship with Nora, while simultaneously also impersonating the deceased to his advisor.

It’s nonstop musical madness as Arthur and the gang try to get to the bottom of the mystery, while the Athenaeum, its guests, and the staff—the forbidding and enigmatic Maître D’, butler Osgood, and maid Gladys—are cut off from the world by a fearsome storm, realizing that someone among their number is a murderer! Combining danger, disguises, espionage, physics, friendship, sleuthing, newfound romance, and above all the drive to finish that PhD, this is a musical like no other.

In beautiful Pasadena, California, on the leafy campus of the California Institute of Technology—one of the world’s preeminent scientific institutes of higher education and research—there stands a remarkable and imposing structure: The Athenaeum. An artifact from a bygone era, this Mediterranean Revival edifice, the crème-de-la-crème of university faculty clubs, combines old-Hollywood glamour and old-world luxury with Southern California charm.

A tale of hilarity, subterfuge, and mistaken identity, where nobody may be who they seem, Murder at the Athenaeum is a love letter to musical theater, to the cozy murder mysteries of Agatha Christie, to classic farces of stage and screen, and, of course, to the Athenaeum itself.