Auditions for a staged reading of THE AMANUENSIS by Ishmael Reed will be held from 11:00am-3:00pm on Saturday, August 23rd and from 3;30-6:30 pm on Sunday, August 24, 2025 at Theater 33, 533 Sutter Street, 2nd floor, San Francisco CA 94102. The director of this project is Carla Blank.
There will be a few Zoom rehearsals (times TBA) starting mid-September. All actors need to be available for in person rehearsals on the evenings of Oct 13-15 at Theater 33, with performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday Oct. 16th-18th @7:30 and Sunday matinee Oct. 19th @ 3:00 pm
We need actors to play the following characters:
The ghost of Walt Disney (White male, 40s) The ghost of the historical person.
Joel Chandler Harris (White male, 30s up): Harris was an American journalist and folklorist (1848-1908), best known for his Uncle Remus stories, which he heard from slaves on the Turnwold plantation in Georgia between 1852-1866 and wrote down (the definition of an amanuensis) and published. Besides being best sellers during his lifetime, Walt Disney increased the fame of the Uncle Remus tales in his film “Song of the South,” widely criticized for its racism. Chandler published some tales in the voice of a female slave, the fictionalized mammy he named Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue, and in this play he first appears impersonating her.
Brer Rabbit (Male): One of the characters in the Uncle Remus tales, a trickster whose origins can be traced to Africa, and also appears in Native American tales. Walt Disney included him in his film, “Song of the South.”
Brer Fox (Male or Female): One of the characters in the Uncle Remus tales, a trickster whose origins can be traced to Africa, and who Walt Disney included in his film, “Song of the South.”
Uncle George Terrell (Black male, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a primary source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.
Old Harbert (Black male, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a frequent source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.
Aunt Crissy (Black female, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a primary source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.
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