HALLOWELL — Gaslight Theater recently announced in a news release auditions for its first show of the season, Ken Ludwig’s “Leading Ladies.” This show is a slam-bang comedy that involves missing family, questionable clerics, young love and Shakespeare.

Auditions will be cold readings from the script and are scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 28, 29 and 30 at Hallowell City Hall.

The play centers on two down-on-their-luck English Shakespearean actors, Leo Clark and Jack Gable who are reduced to touring the back roads of 1950’s Pennsylvania to make ends meet. The pair discovers through a newspaper that Florence, an older ailing woman in nearby York, Pa., has been unable to find her sister’s children, Max and Steve, who moved away to England as children. Florence is at death’s door and wants to include them in her multi-million dollar estate. Her daughter, Meg, is in favor of that, but her fiancé is not. Clark and Gable decide to make a play for the money and pose as Max and Steve to claim portions of it. When they discover that “Max” and “Steve” are actually “Maxine” and “Stephanie,” they continue on, undaunted in drag and Meg’s fiancé becomes suspicious. It is classic Ken Ludwig with a touch of “Some Like it Hot!”

The theater seeks five men, three youngish and two older, and three females, two youngish and one older: Meg, young woman; Leo Clark and Jack Gable, two young actors; Audrey a young friend of Meg’s; Duncan Wooley, older but engaged to Meg; Florence, Meg’s ill mother; The Doctor; and Butch, a friend of Audrey.

Production dates are March 13, 14, 15, 20, 21 and 22, 2015. Richard Bostwick is the director.

For more information, email gaslighttheater@yahoo.com, or call 626-3698.