OPEN CALL for August Wilson’s “GEM OF THE OCEAN”

3pm – Trustus Rehearsal Space
Directed by Trustus Artistic Director Dewey Scott-Wiley

 The story:

Set in 1904, August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean" begins on the eve of Aunt Esther's 287th birthday. When Citizen Barlow comes to her Pittsburg's Hill District home seeking asylum, she sets him off on a spiritual journey to find a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Gem of the Ocean is the ninth work in Wilson's ten-play cycle that has recorded the American Black experience and helped to define generations. A beautiful play by one of America’s classic playwrights, "Gem of the Ocean" will leave you moved and inspired.

 Character Description:

• Aunt Ester Tyler
  is both the physical and the mystical link between present and past. Her home is a sanctuary where troubled people come to be cleansed of guilt and sorrow. Aunt Ester’s birth, 285 years before the play takes place (1904), coincided with the arrival of the first shipment of African slaves in the English colonies. She is both the keeper and the transmitter of African-American memory.
• Black Mary
  lives in Aunt Ester’s house, earning her living by taking in wash, cleaning people’s clothes much the way Aunt Ester cleanses their souls. She is Aunt Ester’s chosen successor, although she doesn’t always relish the role.
• Citizen Barlow
  is a young African-American recently arrived in Pittsburgh from Alabama, seeking understanding and redemption from Aunt Ester for his role in the death of another man. (Late 20’s, early 30’s)
• Eli
  owns a rambling house in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, which he shares with Aunt Ester and Black Mary. He accompanied Aunt Ester north many years before, and now serves as her friend and protector. 
• Rutherford Selig
  is a white traveling merchant who keeps track of and reports on people’s whereabouts and activities along his route. He is friends with Aunt Ester. 
• Solly Two Kings
  Self-named for biblical kings David and Solomon, the 67-year-old Sollyis Aunt Ester’s sometime suitor. He is an ex-slave and Underground Railroad worker who shares Aunt Ester’s sense of history and the need to keep its memory alive. 
• Caesar
  is Black Mary’s brother, a police officer who rules his district with an iron hand, intent on using his power to bring order to the confused masses who in his estimation can’t think for themselves.

 RUN DATES: February 10 – March 3

 

Auditions for AMAZONS AND THEIR MEN 

Where: The Trustus Black Box (enter thru glass doors on the HUger St. side of the building)
When: Sunday November 6th - 7:00pm

What you need to know: Looking for 2 men (ages 20's or 30's) and two women (ages to be determined)/ Auditions will be cold readings of sides.

THE STORY:
The Frau used to direct beautiful films for a fascist government. Now she’s trying to make a film that’s simply beautiful. The Frau casts herself in the lead role of the Amazon queen Penthesilea, who falls in love with Achilles on the battlefield of the Trojan War. She recruits a man from the Jewish ghetto to play her Achilles. Her own sister, a long-suffering extra, plays all the nameless Amazons killed in the background. With chariot crashes and adoring close-ups, it all has the makings of a glamorous war. But when telegrams start to arrive from the Minister of Propaganda, it becomes impossible for the Frau to ignore the real war outside her sound stage. A darkly comedic look at the role of artists during wartime, Amazons and Their Men is inspired by the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl.

By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Company Member Larry McMullen

Run Dates: January 26 - 28 & February 2-4, 2012