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HALLOWELL — The Gaslight Theater will hold auditions for “Not About Nightingales” by Tennessee Williams 6 p.m. Sunday and Monday, Aug. 26 and 27, at Hallowell City Hall, 1 Winthrop St.
Auditions will be cold readings from the script.
The play is scheduled to be performed Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 19 through 21, and again Oct. 26 through 28.
An early work by Williams, who wrote “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat of a Hot Tin Roof,” “Nightingales,” caused a sensation in Houston, New York and London when first performed.
The play is a raw, sprawling dramatization of real events at a Philadelphia prison in 1937. Convicts who led a hunger strike to protest conditions were locked in a scalding cell where four of them died.
There is also a soft love story, with the characters Eva, the new secretary at the prison, and Jim, an inmate serving a 10-year term, who works for the warden and is trying to get out on parole.
Although written in 1938, it was not produced until 1998, where the world premiere of was at London’s Royal National Theatre, directed by Trevor Nunn and then opened at Circle in the Square Theater in New York, where it received six Tony nominations, including Best Play and Best Direction of a Play. The sympathetic treatment of black and homosexual men was revolutionary for the time of the premiere and may explain why the play remained unproduced for 60 years.
There are parts available for a minimum of nine males and two females, which include the following (some of these characters will play multiple roles):
Eva — single woman, early to mid-20’s, who recently gets a job at the prison as the Warden’s secretary.
Jim — convict who’s been at the prison for 10 years, he works for the Warden, mid to late 20’s.
Warden Whalen — warden of the prison, unlikeable man, mid-40’s.
Butch — smart talking convict, many look to him as the leader of the convicts, 40s or 50s.
Ollie — well-respected black convict who is very religious, any age.
Queen — image-obsessed convict who is a homosexual.
Swifty — new convict, former Olympic athlete, late teens/early 20’s.
Joe — typical convict, viewed by many as a sidekick to Butch, any age.
Sailor Jack — former sailor, 20s or 30s.
Mrs. Bristol — mother of Sailor Jack, 40s.
Chaplain — the chaplain of the prison, 40s to 60s.
Reverend — the new reverend of the prison, 30s or 40s.
Mex — Mexican convict, who is constantly praying for a way out, mid to late 20s.
The play will be directed by Lucy Rioux. Although this will be her first directing experience with Gaslight, she has a long history of directing for community theaters in the area. She was the founder of the Monmouth Community Players, co-founder of Gardiner’s Open Book Players and has also directed for the Waterville Opera House among others.
For more information, contact Lucy Rioux at lucyrioux@gmail.com or The Gaslighttheater@yahoo.com or 207-626-3698.
