SUMMIT — The Summit Playhouse is delighted to announce the second production of its 2014 season, ‘The Last Night of Ballyhoo”. Open auditions will be held on Thursday, Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. at the Playhouse, 10 New England Ave. in Summit. Call backs will be held on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 4 p.m. Production dates are Feb. 21 and March 9. Rehearsals begin the first week of January.
“The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” is a wildly popular, humorous, and poignant examination of Southern Jewish culture. The play was written by Alfred Uhry,who also wrote “Driving Miss Daisy.” It is set in an upper class German-Jewish community in Atlanta, Georgia in December of 1939, while “Gone with the Wind” storms the silver screen with the cast in town for its world premiere. News of Hitler invading Poland is all over the radio.
The well-to-do Freitag and Levy families are part of such a small minority that they have lost their Jewish identity. Yet they still chafe at the bigotry of the community that denies them admission into the South’s high society. Their own version is the annual Ballyhoo cotillion, where they can take out their frustration by discriminating against “the other kind” – a reference to Jews of Eastern European extraction, more recently arrived, more religious, and more obviously ethnic.
A handsome newcomer from Brooklyn, New York arrives and brings comic drama, sweet romance and unexpected turns along with him. “The Last Night of Ballyhoo” proves that a play can cause us to think and explore profound themes while also making us laugh.
Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play, Alfred Uhry is the first American playwright to win the”Triple Crown” of dramatic writing: Tony Award (2), an Oscar, and a Pulitzer Prize.
Director Sherrie Ahlin requests that actors be familiar with the script. She is seeking seven actors to fill the major roles — three males and four females. Auditions will start with cold readings from sides provided in small groups. To access sides prior to the auditions, visit www.summitplayhouse.org.