Auditions for Heat at The Grand Theatre

The Grand Theatre, located at 1575 South State Street, Salt Lake City, will be holding auditions for Heat on Saturday, March 31, 2012. The auditions will be from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Alumni Room (181W) of the South City Campus. Toni Byrd will be directing the production and it will run the end of May through early June. Rehearsals will begin April. Those who wish to audition must call the Grand Theatre box office at (801) 957-3322 to schedule an audition time. Each actor needs to perform a one minute monologue. See below for synopsis of the play and character requirements.

Heat, by Marsha Estell, takes place on a front porch, with three generations of family members in 105 degrees heat. It is a big-hearted play full of storytelling, laughter, and healing about an African American family of women. All of the characters are African American women: Mudear, a 68 year-old with a light complexion who is battling the early stages of senility; Rose, 49, and oldest daughter of Mudear; Sharon, 47, the youngest daughter of Mudear and mother of Shelly; and Shelly, age 25.

Heat has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Outstanding New Work, and also for an award through the BTAA. It has been produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, the ETA Creative Arts, and was featured in the 2011 Dramatic Reading series at Fleetwood Jourdain Theatre. Heat was a finalist in the Dayton Playhouse Future-Fest, Theodore Ward Award for African American Playwrights and a semifinalist for the Princes Grace Award. It was anthologized in “New Plays from Chicago”, Chicago Dramatists.

Marsha Estell is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a 2010-11 3Arts Residency Fellowship. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Actors Equity. In 2001 she was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Playwriting. Her plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatists, Goodman Theatre, Chicago Theater Company, ETA Creative Arts Foundation, Dayton Playhouse, Congo Square, Theatre New Perspectives, and Famous Door Theater.

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