'Empty Page, Empty Stage' Has Character(s)

Besides the characters created by Hopkinton High drama teacher Valerie Von Rosenvinge and members of the Hopkinton High School Drama Ensemble, Empty Page, Empty Stage draws on archetypal characters in our common ancestry.

Most of us know them from our high school reading, but here's a cheat sheet to help theater-goers in Hopkinton and Edinburgh, where the play will be performed in August.

Jo March (Paige Guarino) from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a tomboy, would-be author, and object of desire for Laurie, the boy next door.

Holden Caulfield (Liam Horsman) is the teen protagonist of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. He doesn't like phonies.

Scout Finch (Catherine Cote) is the narrator of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. She is 6 at the time the novel's events take place, but tells many of the events from a grown-up perspective, looking back on how on her younger self.

Capt. Ahab (Sam Chirco) maniacally chased the white whale Moby Dick in Herman Melville's novel.

Elizabeth Bennet (Kate Phelan) is the protagonist in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She initially falls for the wrong man.

Mick Kelly (Taylor Forsmo) is a character in Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She is a tomboy who dreams of buying a piano.

Francie Nolan (Leah Raczynski) overcomes poverty and family problems in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

Hester Prynne (Madeline Lipkin) is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Novelist John Updike called her "the epitome of female predicaments."

Becky Sharp (Evelyn Oliver) is a  gold digger in William Makepeace Thackeray's satire Vanity Fair.

Robert Frost (Mackenzie Britt) used simple, colloquial language in his poetry to convey complex ideas.

Pip (Will Blanchette), the orphan narrator of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, falls in love with a girl who doesn't love him.

Nancy Drew (Ali Weinstein) is a fictional girl detective and cultural icon.

Jay Gatsby (Aidan Connelly) is the tragic figure in love with Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. He knows everyone but few know him.

Oedipus (Dan Liberta) was the mythical king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father, married his mother and plucked his eyes out in remorse.

Sherlock Holmes (Matt Clark) was Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional, invincible sleuth.

Hamlet (Sean Mitchell) is the fictional Prince of Denmark in William Sakespeare's play of the same name. Today, we would say Hamlet overthinks things, resulting in tragedy.

Juliet (Jaymie Hession) is also a Shakespearean character from Romeo and Juliet. Not yet 14, she experiences love, life and death in only a few days.

Jane Eyre (Adrianna Langford) is the title character of Charlotte Bronte's novel. In 1847, when it was written, Jane was the paragon of a confident, intelligent and moral woman.

Huck Finn (Nikki McLaughlin) was the prototypical American boy as imagined by Mark Twain - honest, resilient, adventurous, kind and clear-eyed.

Santiago (Alex Kirshy) is a down-on-his-luck fisherman who battles sharks and brings to port the skeleton of a huge marlin in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.