Ixion Season Opener Offers Audition Challenges
(April 24, 2017; Lansing, MI)--Ixion is holding auditions for its 2017-2018 season opener Hoodoo Love by Katori Hall. Auditions are April 29 from 1-4pm in the Capital Area District Library auditiorium, 401 S. Capitol Lansing, MI. No appointments necessary. For more information email ixionensemble@gmail.com or call 517.775.4246.
"We're taking a bit of a gamble with this show," observes Ixion Artistic Director, jeff croff. "Theatre has struggled to be more inclusive both of women playwrights and minority actors. With this show we hope to become part of the solution. But it is is a bit of a chicken or egg situation. There aren't a lot of African American stories represented on stage, which means that a number of talented people have stopped auditioning or engaging in theatre. This then means it is often difficult to cast an all African American show because of a reduced pool of actors. We're hoping to prove that there is not only a pool of talent, but also an appetite for dynamic stories told by a talented new female playwright. We're equally excited to be giving a new director her Ixion debut. Herasanna Richards will be directing this piece."
The story of Hoodoo Love by Katori Hall
Young Toulou has run away from the cotton fields of Mississippi to big city Memphis to make it as a blues singer. When she falls in love with a rambling bluesman, Ace of Spades, she gives into the suggestions of the local madam, Candylady, and conjures up a hoodoo trick to make him fall in love with her back. When her brother Jib, a born-again Christian missionary, arrives in town, Toulou is forced to confront all that she was running away from, and a chain of events with devastating consequences is set in motion.The first of Katori Hall’s ‘Memphis Plays’, Hoodoo Love is set during the Great Depression, when the memory of slavery, and the slave belief in hoodoo folk magic, is still very much alive. With original music and lyrics by Katori Hall, the play was first produced by Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City in 2007.
Performances are the first two weeks of September. Rehearsal schedule will be arranged with cast.
Seeking African American actors for all roles.
Ace: 30-35. A man whose free spirit captures the attention of the women around him.
TouLou: blues singing woman, reads young 20s.
Jib: preacher man, reads mid-20s to 30.
Candylady: medicine woman, sings, reads over 30
Auditions will be cold reads from the script. Those auditioning for TouLou are asked to prepare 16 bars of a soul/R&B song acapella.
KATORI HALL is a playwright/performer from Memphis, TN. Hall’s plays include: The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play), which ran on Broadway at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre starring Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, Hurt Village (2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Signature Theatre), Children of Killers (National Theatre, UK and Castillo Theatre, NYC), Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane Theatre), Remembrance (Women’s Project), Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature Theatre) and Pussy Valley (Mixed Blood). Her awards include the Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship, the ARENA Stage American Voices New Play Residency, the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecomte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a NYFA Fellowship, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre, and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award. Hall’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, UK’s The Guardian, Essence and The Commercial Appeal, including contributing reporting for Newsweek. The Mountaintop and Katori Hall: Plays One are published by Methuen Drama. Hall is an alumna of the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop, where she developed The Mountaintop and Our Lady of Kibeho, and a graduate of Columbia University, the A.R.T. at Harvard University, and the Juilliard School. She is a proud member of the Ron Brown Scholar Program, the Coca-Cola Scholar Program, the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild of America East and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is currently a member of the Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York City. Katori will make her directing debut with a film adaptation of Hurt Village which received its world premiere at Signature in 2012.
www.ixiontheatre.com
_______________________
Jane Zussman
G.L.U.T. List
(Greater Lansing Ubiquitous Theatre)
517-323-6855
cell 517-930-0932
JSZussman@gmail.com
www.greaterlansingtheatre.net —Our webmaster has taught me to add new posts myself, but there is a gap from about April to January. To review past emails exactly as they were sent, click “About the G.L.U.T.” and choose “email list” from the drop-down menu.
(April 24, 2017; Lansing, MI)--Ixion is holding auditions for its 2017-2018 season opener Hoodoo Love by Katori Hall. Auditions are April 29 from 1-4pm in the Capital Area District Library auditiorium, 401 S. Capitol Lansing, MI. No appointments necessary. For more information email ixionensemble@gmail.com or call 517.775.4246.
"We're taking a bit of a gamble with this show," observes Ixion Artistic Director, jeff croff. "Theatre has struggled to be more inclusive both of women playwrights and minority actors. With this show we hope to become part of the solution. But it is is a bit of a chicken or egg situation. There aren't a lot of African American stories represented on stage, which means that a number of talented people have stopped auditioning or engaging in theatre. This then means it is often difficult to cast an all African American show because of a reduced pool of actors. We're hoping to prove that there is not only a pool of talent, but also an appetite for dynamic stories told by a talented new female playwright. We're equally excited to be giving a new director her Ixion debut. Herasanna Richards will be directing this piece."
The story of Hoodoo Love by Katori Hall
Young Toulou has run away from the cotton fields of Mississippi to big city Memphis to make it as a blues singer. When she falls in love with a rambling bluesman, Ace of Spades, she gives into the suggestions of the local madam, Candylady, and conjures up a hoodoo trick to make him fall in love with her back. When her brother Jib, a born-again Christian missionary, arrives in town, Toulou is forced to confront all that she was running away from, and a chain of events with devastating consequences is set in motion.The first of Katori Hall’s ‘Memphis Plays’, Hoodoo Love is set during the Great Depression, when the memory of slavery, and the slave belief in hoodoo folk magic, is still very much alive. With original music and lyrics by Katori Hall, the play was first produced by Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City in 2007.
Performances are the first two weeks of September. Rehearsal schedule will be arranged with cast.
Seeking African American actors for all roles.
Ace: 30-35. A man whose free spirit captures the attention of the women around him.
TouLou: blues singing woman, reads young 20s.
Jib: preacher man, reads mid-20s to 30.
Candylady: medicine woman, sings, reads over 30
Auditions will be cold reads from the script. Those auditioning for TouLou are asked to prepare 16 bars of a soul/R&B song acapella.
KATORI HALL is a playwright/performer from Memphis, TN. Hall’s plays include: The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play), which ran on Broadway at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre starring Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, Hurt Village (2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Signature Theatre), Children of Killers (National Theatre, UK and Castillo Theatre, NYC), Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane Theatre), Remembrance (Women’s Project), Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature Theatre) and Pussy Valley (Mixed Blood). Her awards include the Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship, the ARENA Stage American Voices New Play Residency, the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecomte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a NYFA Fellowship, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre, and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award. Hall’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, UK’s The Guardian, Essence and The Commercial Appeal, including contributing reporting for Newsweek. The Mountaintop and Katori Hall: Plays One are published by Methuen Drama. Hall is an alumna of the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop, where she developed The Mountaintop and Our Lady of Kibeho, and a graduate of Columbia University, the A.R.T. at Harvard University, and the Juilliard School. She is a proud member of the Ron Brown Scholar Program, the Coca-Cola Scholar Program, the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild of America East and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is currently a member of the Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York City. Katori will make her directing debut with a film adaptation of Hurt Village which received its world premiere at Signature in 2012.
www.ixiontheatre.com
_______________________
Jane Zussman
G.L.U.T. List
(Greater Lansing Ubiquitous Theatre)
517-323-6855
cell 517-930-0932
JSZussman@gmail.com
www.greaterlansingtheatre.net —Our webmaster has taught me to add new posts myself, but there is a gap from about April to January. To review past emails exactly as they were sent, click “About the G.L.U.T.” and choose “email list” from the drop-down menu.
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