AUDITIONS ANNOUNCED FOR TWO FALL PLAYS

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – The department of theatre arts at Mount Holyoke College announces auditions for the following fall productions:

Venus
by Pulitzer Prize winner and MHC alumna Suzan-Lori Parks '85
Directed by Julia Whitworth, visiting instructor in theatre arts.

Venus is based on the true story of Saartjie Baartman, a southern African woman who was lured to Europe in 1810 and exhibited nude in a London circus on account of her (purportedly) sizeable posterior. Her keepers renamed her the "Hottentot Venus." In Venus, Parks does not simply tell Baartman's tragic story; rather, she deconstructs the act of viewing itself in order to examine racist and sexist acts of objectification and stereotyping. The play's deliberately ironic tone and considerable humor creates a disturbing and thought-provoking political vaudeville.

Venus will be cast according to principles of diversity and multiculturalism. People of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, and physical disabilities are welcome to audition, regardless of formal theatre experience.

Audition dates: Rooke Theatre, MHC
Friday, Sept. 10, 6-10 pm
Saturday, Sept. 11, 10-2 pm

Callbacks: Sunday, Sept. 12, 1-5:30 pm

Roles for: 2-6 men, 6-10 women
Rehearsals begin: September
Performances: November 3-7

Contact Julia Whitworth at jwhitwor@mtholyoke.edu or (413) 538-2658 for more information.

Falling Bodies
By Mary Jo Salter, Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities
Directed by Holger Teschke, visiting professor of theatre arts.

In 1638, the young English poet John Milton takes the grand tour of Europe and visits the blind physicist Galileo Galilei. The famous astronomer is under house arrest near Florence, having been found guilty of heresy for defending a Copernican view of the universe. Milton has his eyesight, but he isn’t clairvoyant: he does not know that like Galileo, he will go blind, be imprisoned for his beliefs, and create his own revolutionary cosmos in his epic Paradise Lost. The play and its characters are moving in and out of history to explore time and space, blindness and seeing, art and science, and the price of cosmic ambition.

Audition dates:
Friday, Sept. 10 - 7-10 pm,
McCulloch Auditorium, Pratt Memorial Hall
Saturday, Sept. 11 - 2-5 pm, 7-10 pm, Rooke Theatre
Callbacks: Sunday, Sept. 12 –10 am-2 pm, McCulloch Auditorium
Roles for: 5 men and 12 women, dancers and musicians
Actors should prepare a brief monologue or a poem.

Rehearsals begin: September 14
Performances: November 18-21