LIZZIE

LIZZIE BORDEN – (High belt: F#3-F#5, belt to A5 if possible). Damaged, twisted. She can turn on a dime from fragile, broken, meek and obedient to conniving, sinister, furious and terrifying. She is a wounded animal backed into a corner, terrified but enraged. We find her at the moment she realizes she has nothing to lose. She is transformed through an act of unspeakable transgression, turning her own historical infamy into an ascension to legend.

EMMA BORDEN – (Alto/mezzo belt: F#3-D5). The older sister, eclipsed by the younger. She must content herself by playing a motherly Lady Macbeth to Lizzie, dripping her own hatreds into Lizzie’s ears over the years, stoking the fires of Lizzie’s rage, disappearing when the deeds must be done, and suffering with guilt afterwards. Emma is a woman who has come to see that every opportunity for happiness has passed her by. She’s furious, but she’s also desperately sad.

BRIDGET SULLIVAN/MAGGIE – (Contralto/low alto: F3 with E3 pick-up/ghost-notes in one number and to Eb5 with an E5 opt. in one ad lib.) The Bordens’ Irish maid. She may be a Banshee, called to wail at the Bordens’ door. She always seems to know what is going to happen, does things one step before anyone else. She’s put upon, angry, and as resentful of the Borden sisters as she is of the parents. Bridget is the Sex Pistols rock and roll nihilist; ready to fuck things up because she knows that’s the only way anything is ever going to get better.

ALICE RUSSELL – (High mezzo lyric/mix/belt: G3 with F#3 pick-up/ghost-notes in one number to A5 legit soprano). The Bordens’ next door neighbor. She is a luscious pear, the sensuous mother-sister-lover which is sorely lacking in Lizzie’s life. She appears to Lizzie in her greatest moments of need and attempts to lead her away from a path of destruction and toward one of love, truth, and affection. Lizzie may have true feelings of affection for her, or she may be using Alice’s feelings to build an alibi.