AUDITION NOTICE
In recognition of Black History Month, the New McCree Theatre in collaboration with the Flint Jewish Federation is presenting the compelling drama, No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs by John Henry Redwood. The drama takes place in 1949 in Halifax, North Carolina, during the apex of the Jim Crow era in the southern United States. The title is derived from the many “No” signs that dotted the southern landscape during that despotic era in American History.
Please note the change in audition dates. Auditions for this drama will be held exclusively Saturday, January 3, 2015 at 12 noon at the theatre, G-2040 W. Carpenter Road, Flint, MI 48505. Please use the east entrance to the building. Cast for the “No” play calls for 2 adult males, one white, one black; 2 teenage black females; and 2 adult black females. Interested parties should come prepared to read a monologue or poem and cold readings from the script.
Characters:
• Yaveni Aaronsohn, White male, age 35 - 55
• Mattie Cheeks, Black Female, age 35 - 45
• Rawl Cheeks, Black Male, age 40 - 50
• Joyce Cheeks, Black Female, 15 - 18
• Matoka Cheeks, Black Female, age 10 - 13
• Aunt Cora, Black Female, age 40 - 50
Halifax, North Carolina is where the Cheeks family, Rawl and his wife, Mattie, and their two daughters, makes its home. The year is 1949, and the title refers to signs commonly posted in the region in that era. The Cheeks are visited by Yaveni, a Jewish scholar from Cleveland, who is researching the effects of prejudice on both blacks and Jews, and by Aunt Cora, a mysterious local black woman who wanders around wrapped in a black garment with a dark secret. The trouble begins in earnest when Rawl takes off for Alabama to work as a gravedigger. While he is gone, Mattie is raped by a white man. If she tells Rawl she's pregnant, she knows that he will seek revenge and be killed in the process. So, in order to save his life, she tells him that she willingly participated in an affair. Outraged and devastated, Rawl heads north, and Mattie is left to pick up the pieces of her fractured life and to struggle to find a way to put her family back together. With a woman of her strength and determination, it may just even be possible.
