[Capdist-auditions] Staged Reading of Angel in America Part One - Looking for an African-American Male Actor ASAP

[JJ Buechner]

Homemade Theater is looking for an African-American actor to play the role of 
Belize in their staged reading of Angels in America: Part One. 

 
There are two rehearsal dates (Friday, January 14th 7pm & Saturday, January 15th 
1-5pm) 

The reading is Sunday January 16th at 3pm
All rehearsals and the reading are in Saratoga Springs 
Belize
 
Set in New York City in the mid-1980s, Act One of Millennium Approaches 
introduces us to the central characters. As the play opens, Louis Ironson, a 
neurotic, gay Jew learns his lover, Prior Walter, has AIDS. As the play and 
Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, 
closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major 
promotion by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe doesn't 
immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his 
Valium-addicted, agoraphobic wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Roy is 
himself deeply closeted, and discovers that he has AIDS. Joe does not know of 
Roy's illness at this time.
As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who 
proclaim him to be a prophet; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his 
religion with his sexuality; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior 
and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she 
realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to 
look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront 
Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and 
finds strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, 
reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, 
Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal 
with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health.
The subplot involving Cohn is the most political aspect of the play. Portrayed 
as a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite, he prides himself on his political 
connections and power, which he has amassed through decades of corruption. In 
the play, he recollects with pride his role in having Ethel Rosenberg executed 
for treason. As he lies alone in the hospital, dying of AIDS, the ghost of 
Rosenberg sings him a Yiddish lullaby and then brings him the news that the New 
York State Bar Association has just disbarred him, destroying his final hope of 
dying as a lawyer.
Anyone interested please contact the director ASAP at togacub25 at yahoo.com. We 
are looking to fill this role ASAP – 25-35 A former drag queen, he is Prior's 
ex-boyfriend and best friend. He later becomes Roy Cohn's nurse.


      
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