Auditions

UNFINISHED WOMEN CRY IN NO MAN'S LAND WHILE A BIRD DIES IN A GILDED CAGE

by Aishah Rahman

Directed by Gilbert McCauley

When & Where

Audition: November 19 and 20, 6:30-10:30 pm BCA 413

Callbacks: November 21, 6:30 - 10:30 pm BCA 413

Please arrive to the 4th Floor Lobby (just outside of BCA 413) Prior to your Audition

Summary: This play is set in 1955. Five young women face their futures and the fates of their yet-to-be born children as residents of the Hide-A-Wee Home for Unwed Mothers while jazz musician Charlie Parker contemplates his life through a drug-addled haze in Pasha’s boudoir. Black theater historian Margaret Wilkerson has stated that, “Aishah Rahman 'reaches well-beyond statistics and sociological theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teenage mothers.'” According to Thadious M. Davis, who wrote the introduction to Plays by Aishah Rahman, “Music provides the connective link that makes understanding possible. Through the music of Charlie Parker, the Bird, Rahman connects 'life and death, wholeness and fragmentation, community and isolation.'”

Additionally, this play is a fine example of the jazz aesthetic in theater and Rahman is often cited as the first to use the term. She describes her work in this way: “'I was trying to dramatize the unconscious or emotional levels of character. And that’s why I find that I always have to make some kind of leap that might be described in some Eurocentric term like “absurdist.” But I don’t think of it that way. My work is in the tradition of what I call the “jazz aesthetic,” which acknowledges the characters' various levels of reality. They have triple consciousness: of the unborn, the living and the dead…the jazz aesthetic in drama expresses multiple ideas and experiences through language, movement, visual art and spirituality simultaneously.'” (from Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àse, and the Power of the Present Moment by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones)

Content advisory: descriptions of drug use and overdose, mention of sexual assault, depiction of gendered violence

Timing: Rehearsals are Monday-Friday evenings. One week in the fall semester, December 2 through 6, and resuming on February 3. Tech begins on February 28, with performances running March 7 through March 15.

CHARACTERS

Charlie Chan (M, Black) - Master of Ceremony and a magic mimetic man. This character is a minstrel character who is Charlie Parker’s alter ego.

Wilma (F, Black) - Loves Charlie Parker’s music. She is “a Black gal in conflict,” as described by the playwright.

Paulette (F, Black) - College-aged, listens to jazz, and her boyfriend loves Charlie Parker. She is “someone who is upward bound,” as described by the playwright.

Consuelo (F, Latina) - A Castilian Puerto Rican young woman who has just given birth. She is waiting for her boyfriend to arrive and marry her.

Mattie (F, young woman of color) - Younger than the other girls, tough, angry. She is a survivor of rape.

Midge (F, white) - She was in an inter-racial relationship, and she contemplates what it would mean to raise a bi-racial child in 1995. She is “All-American,” as described by the playwright.

Head Nurse Jacobs (F, Black from the Caribbean) - The woman who manages the Hide-A-Wee home and provides care for the young women. She reveals her own secret about the child she is raising.

Charles Parker, Jr. (M, Black) - A leader in the Be-bop era of Jazz; saxophonist, bandleader, and composer.

Pasha (F, white) - A wealthy patron of jazz musicians; Charlie Parker dies in the boudoir of her hotel.

A note on casting:

The character of Charlie Chan will appear in blackface.

The gendered roles in this play are linked to the time (1955) and place (NYC) of this play as well as the larger ideas about race, class, and gender that Aishah Rahman explores with this work. People of all genders are encouraged to audition. Please note that actors must be comfortable presenting as a character’s assigned gender on stage. All of the young women in the play: Wilma, Paulette, Mattie, and Midge are in the last stages of pregnancy while Consuelo has recently given birth to a baby.

What to Prepare:

Auditioners should familiarize themselves with the Sides of the character they wish to read for based on the Character Breakdown. Each auditioner will have a 10 minute individual slot.

Sides can be found here.