Performance Details
Firth J Chew Studio Theatre
April 16 – May 2, 2027
Thu – Sat: 7:30PM | Sun: 2:00PM

About The Show
Wiletta Mayer, an African American actress of a certain age, has spent her career playing stereotypes, trapped on a merry-go-round of mammies, maids, and other menials. The curtain rises on the first day of rehearsal for Chaos in Belleville, a Broadway-bound play that tackles the harsh truths of racism in America. But when those truths spill out of the play and into the rehearsal hall, will Wiletta’s insistence on her dignity cost her the work she desperately needs?

Nominee: Four 2022 Tony Award, including Best Revival of a Play
Nominee: Two 2022 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Play

By Alice Childress

Directed by Juan A. Mas
Produced by Michael Bethely

Auditions
Sun. September 27: 6:00PM
Mon. September 28: 6:00PM

Callbacks
Sat. October 3: 6:00PM

Audition Location
Spokane Civic Theatre, Main Stage Lobby
1020 N. Howard St.
Spokane, WA 99201

Notes

• Content Note: Set in the 1950s, this play tackles themes of racism and sexism and includes the use of profanity and racially offensive terms.
• Click here to peruse the script.
• Click here to learn more about the show via the New York Public Library archives.
• We strongly encourage performers of all races, ethnicities, gender identities, gender expressions, sexual orientations, body types, and abilities to audition.
• Age range and gender of characters is to appear on stage as.
• Please prepare a modern monologue that runs two to two and a half minutes. Click here for some monologue suggestions (this list isn’t exhaustive, feel free to choose your own).
• For the role of WILETTA, please prepare an a cappella song that runs one to two minutes.
• Please be prepared for cold readings from the script at Callbacks (instruction, support and time with material will be provided).
• 1-3 rehearsals per month are planned until March, when production ramps up.

Roles

Wiletta Mayer 

• Gender: Female
• Age: Late 50s – early 60s
• Ethnicity: Black/African American
• Needs:  Must be able to sing a cappella
• A seasoned actress with decades of experience playing stereotypical Black roles. Intelligent, charismatic, funny, nurturing, and deeply perceptive. Wiletta has learned to survive in a racist industry by “playing the game,” but as rehearsals progress she reaches a breaking point and refuses to compromise her dignity or artistic truth.

Sheldon Forrester

• Gender: Male
• Age: Early 70s
• Ethnicity: Black/African American
• A veteran character actor finding himself in financial woes.  He sees this play as a very much needed economic relief. He has endured years of stereotypical casting and has learned to navigate prejudice with grace rather than confrontation. He knows the exact cost of defiance and fears that the younger generation’s actions or words will affect the future of the play. He tries to mediate the situation whenever he can.

Millie Davis

• Gender: Female
• Age: Early to mid 30s
• Ethnicity: Black/African American
• Stylish, witty, practical, and ambitious. A successful working actress who understands the industry’s limitations and is nipping at Wiletta’s heels for roles.  She shares many of Wiletta’s frustrations but believes survival often requires silence and compromise in the New York Theater, especially Broadway.  Even with that understanding, Millie struggles internally because she also embodies many of the ideas later identified with Black feminist thought.

John Nevins

• Gender: Male
• Age: Mid to late 20s
• Ethnicity: Black/African American
  A talented, educated young actor making his professional theater debut who is idealistic and influenced by the Method school of acting. Naïve to the realities of the New York Theatre business, he gradually witnesses the compromises and concessions that the white producers are demanding of the black actors for the play to have a Broadway premiere.

*** Important note: all the black characters need to be able to speak in Standard American English with speech patterns unique to the character and their background. When acting in the play-within-the-play, they must be able to shift into the scripted Southern Black vernacular required by the fictional play “Chaos in Belleville.”

Al Manners 

• Gender: Male
• Age: 40s – 50s
• Ethnicity: White
• A commercial director from LA looking to make a name for himself through this Broadway production. Charming, confident, and convinced of his own liberalism, yet blind to his own prejudices and biases. He definitely believes the end justifies the means, especially in making sure that this show is successful.

Bill O’Wray

• Gender: Male
• Age: Late 50s – early 60s
• Ethnicity: White
• Needs: Must be able to do a  gentle, educated white Southern accent in the fictional play within the play
• A veteran character actor. Pleasant, anxious, and eager to avoid conflict. He recognizes problems around him but rarely challenges authority, representing the many people who quietly enable injustice through inaction.

Judy Sears

• Gender: Female
• Age: Early 20s
• Ethnicity: White
• Needs: Must be able to do a gentle, educated white Southern accent in the fictional play within the play
• She comes from conservative rural Bridgeport, New York, but as a recent Yale graduate and newcomer to professional theater, she is enthusiastic and well-meaning but inexperienced. Her innocence is shattered as she gradually becomes aware of racial inequities she has never before considered because of the demands of the fictional play Chaos in Belleville and what is being asked of her fellow black actors.

Eddie Fenton

• Gender: Male
• Age: Late 20s – early 30s
• Ethnicity:  White
• The stage manager. Efficient, professional, and caught between management and performers in the hierarchy of theatrical production. He tries to navigate through the rehearsal period by not engaging with the artistic or racial conflicts unfolding around him. He wants to focus on just doing the best job he can.

Henry

• Gender: Male
• Age: Mid 70s
• Ethnicity: White
• The elderly theater doorman with Irish vaudeville roots. Warm, compassionate, and genuinely respectful, but suffers from constant condescending and dismissive remarks from Hollywood director Alan Manners. He understands the theater’s hierarchy, but the treatment does awaken something in him—a connection to pride, dignity, and echoes of the rebellious spirit of his Irish heritage

Performance Details
Margot and Robert Ogden Main Stage
November 27 – December 13, 2026
Wed – Fri: 7:30PM | Sat – Sun: 2:00PM
*Sat 11/28 performance at 7:30

About The Show
The timeless enchantment of a magical fairy tale is reborn with the Rodgers & Hammerstein hallmarks of originality, charm and elegance. Originally presented on television in 1957 starring Julie Andrews, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella was the most widely viewed program in the history of the medium. This contemporary take on the classic tale features Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible/It’s Possible” and “Ten Minutes Ago,” alongside an up-to-date, hilarious and romantic libretto by Tony Award nominee Douglas Carter Beane.

Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
New Book by Douglas Carter Beane
Original Book by Oscar Hammerstein II

Rated G

More information coming soon!