We are currently seeking actors for our upcoming production of “M. Butterfly”!!

Asian actors are especially needed!

AUDITIONS are TUESDAY, DEC. 11, 2007 at 6.30 p.m. in the theatre at 888 Morro Street in downtown SLO. Please call for more information, 781-3889 x11.

Please see character descriptions below or visit our website at www.slolittletheatre.org.

Thank you!

Yours,
Wendy-Marie Foerster
Executive Director,
San Luis Obispo Little Theatre

M. BUTTERFLY
Performances are April 11 – May 4, 2008
Auditions Tuesday, December 11, 2007 6.30PM
SLO Little Theatre, 888 Morro St., San Luis Obispo, CA

Loosely based on the real-life relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Chinese opera diva Shi Pei-Pu and inspired by Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, this imaginative, and at times shocking play won the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award as Best Broadway Play in 1988.

Synopsis:
Life as a French diplomat holds no excitement for Rene Gallimard until he meets Chinese opera star Song Liling, a “woman” who personifies the Western vision of the submissive, exotic oriental female. They begin an affair that lasts for twenty years, the story told through Gallimard’s distorted recollections as he now sits in a prison cell, accused of treason. We see the curious parallel of his life with the opera as it unfolds, and through his wife and colleagues we are made painfully aware of Gallimard’s delusions about Song’s true identity. Song is not “the perfect woman,” in fact; “she” is a man, a Chinese spy, who uses her intimacy with Gallimard to bring French intelligence to the Chinese government during the Vietnam War. Even when presented with Song’s masculinity face to face, Gallimard cannot accept the truth, and is ultimately driven fatally into the operatic fantasy he has used over the years to keep the truth at bay.

Rene Gallimard – 40 – 65 Rene is an “everyman.” Someone you would pass on the street. He is someone whom a girl might say, “let’s be friends.” He can be easily seduced.

Song Liling – Beautiful, seductive Asian woman, 20 – 40. Must be played by a man.

Marc/Man #2/Counsul Sharpless – 35 – 50, First seen as a rowdy college man then Outgoing, sexy…everything Rene is not.

Renee/Woman at Party/Girl in Magazine – Pretty girl, 25 – 30. Seductive, shrewd.

Comrade Chin/Suzuki/Shu Fang – Asian woman – 30- 50 A Communist Official, “Butterfly’s ” lady in waiting…

Helga – Married to Rene. 30’s

M. Toulon/Man #1/Judge – Distinguished man in his 50’s – 60’s