Season 13 Auditions

Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble is holding auditions for its 13th season on Saturday, December 28th from 10am-12pm and Sunday, December  29 from 3pm – 5pm at Green Line Performing Arts Center at 329 E Garfield Blvd, Chicago, IL 60637. Interested artists should email info@fehintytheatre.org to set up an audition slot. 

MATERIALS TO PREPARE

Auditioners can bring an existing or original piece (monologue, poem, etc) of their choosing and be prepared to read sides from both plays. 

SEASON SYNOPSIS

The 2020 Diaspora Monologues, VA-NA-KU-LA, will explore Pidgin, Creole, Patois, African American vernacular and other language innovations of the African diaspora. The series will feature works that speak to and through the linguistic flora that mark identity, community, resistance, solidarity, and creative agency across the diaspora. VA-NA-KU-LA will culminate in the premiere of Fatty Bum Bum, a new play written by Nikkita Duke. In the spring, the company will present Efua Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN 

Fatty Bum Bum 

Written in Nigerian pidgin, Fatty Bum Bum comments on self-preservation as Emediong, a young woman ridiculed because of her weight, is forced to stand up for herself when her usual bus conductor insists she must pay more than other riders. Place: Calabar, Nigeria. Time: Present. 

CHARACTERS

Emediong: A Nigerian woman, 30s.

Conductor: Male, African

Passenger 1/ Market seller 1: Female, African

Passenger 2/ Market seller 2: Male, African

Police: Male, African

The Marriage of Anansewa

A classic work of African theatre, Efua Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa has roots in Akan storytelling tradition that feature Ananse, the spider, as the trickster character in many narratives. In Sutherland’s play, however, he is a father who cunningly barters his daughter to several chiefs only to be caught in a web of his own making.  Under Ananse’s humorous antics to gain financial wealth to improve his family’s lot, Sutherland addresses weightier matters of social values.

CHARACTERS

Ananse – George Kwaku Ananse (Male, African//Black)

Anansewa – Ananse’s daughter (African/Black)

Storyteller (Male or Female, African/Black)

Aya – Ananse’s Mother (Elder, African/Black)

Christie- Ananse’s Wife (African/Black)