Auditions Jan. 11 for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Date: 1/8/07
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Community actors are invited to audition on Thursday, Jan. 11, for the Illinois State University School of Theatre's Crossroads Theatre production of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," which will be performed Feb. 23 through March 2 in the Center for the Performing Arts Theatre.

Community auditions for roles for five black men, two white men and two black women will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 11 in the CPA Theatre, located at the corner of Beaufort and School streets on the south edge of campus. Auditions will consist of cold readings and improvisations. In addition, females auditioning for the role of Ma Rainey will be asked to sing one stanza of a Negro spiritual or blues song.

The award-winning August Wilson play, which will be directed by Illinois State Theatre alumna Kathryn M. Ervin, a theatre professor at California State University in San Bernardino, is about Gertrude "Ma" Rainey. Rainey was one of earliest known professional blues singers, helping to popularize the music and influencing younger women blues singers. The play deals with Rainey and her musicians who, while rehearsing in a studio, start to reveal their heart-wrenching experiences of racial discrimination.

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was Wilson's first major work and was received the New York Drama Critics Circle best play of the year award in 1984-85.

Information about the auditions can be obtained by contacting Leslie Sloan Orr, artistic director of Crossroads Theatre, at (309) 438-2895 or lsorr@ilstu.edu