About the Show

Joel Chandler Harris and Walt Disney profited from Harris's “Stories from Uncle Remus.” Harris became prosperous. Disney's adaptation of Remus's stories, "Song of the South," made hundreds of millions for Walt Disney's studio. It took H.L Mencken to call Harris, an Amanuensis, someone who takes dictation. This is because Harris transcribed the stories

told to him by three enslaved members of the Turner plantation, including Aunt Crissy, Old Harbert, and George Terrell. Joseph Addison Turner, the publisher of a pro-slavery newspaper called "The Countryman" and owner of the Turnwold Plantation, profited from their labor. Their stenographer, Harris, became one of the most beloved men in the United States. He was even invited to the White House, while those whose stories he copied, after the Civil War, returned to sharecropping, a form of Emancipated slavery. In Ishmael Reed's play, The Amanuensis, Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox insist they be paid.

Audition Date(s) and Time(s): 

Saturday, August 23 11:am-3:00 pm

Sunday, August 24 3:30-6:30 pm

Audition Location: 

Theater 33, 533 Sutter Street, 2nd floor, San Francisco, 94102

Characters

Joel Chandler Harris (White male, 30s up): Harris was an American journalist and folklorist (1848-1908), best known for his Uncle Remus stories, which he heard from slaves on the Turnwold plantation in Georgia between 1852-1866 and wrote down (the definition of an amanuensis) and published. Besides being best sellers during his lifetime, Walt Disney increased the fame of the Uncle Remus tales in his film “Song of the South,” widely criticized for its racism. Chandler published some tales in the voice of a female slave, the fictionalized mammy he named Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue, and in this play he first appears impersonating her.

Brer Rabbit (Male): One of the characters in the Uncle Remus tales, a trickster whose origins can be traced to Africa, and also appears in Native American tales. Walt Disney included him in his film, “Song of the South.”

Brer Fox (Male or Female): One of the characters in the Uncle Remus tales, a trickster whose origins can be traced to Africa, and who Walt Disney included in his film, “Song of the South.”

Uncle George Terrell (Black male, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a primary source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.

Old Harbert (Black male, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a frequent source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.

Aunt Crissy (Black female, 30s up): A slave on the Turnwold plantation who was a primary source of the tales in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus publications.

Miss Sally (White female, 30s up): Mistress of the Turnwold plantation

Pay

$400 stipend inclusive of rehearsals and performances

How to Submit

Send resume to blankcr@gmail.com 

As currently a work-in-progress, sides will be provided by the director when contacted at blankcr@gmail.com