CARNAVAL
By Nikkole Salter
Produced by Luna Stage, West Orange, NJ.
www.lunastage.org
www.nikkolesalter.com
WHEN: NYC AEA OPEN CALL: Wednesday November 28, from 9:30 AM-5:30 PM
WHERE: Actors’ Equity Building, 165 West 46th Street, NYC
WHEN: NJ OPEN CALL: Monday December 3, from 1 PM-4 PM
WHERE: Luna Stage 555 Valley Road West Orange, NJ
- Rehearsals begin Tuesday January 8, 2013.
- The Production runs from January 31 through March 3, 2013; performances Thurs.-Sun.
- This production is under an SPT Tier 2 AEA contract.
All characters are male and African-American.
Actors should read between the ages of 23 and 33.
Please prepare a contemporary monologue.
For questions and further information, please contact Luna Stage Associate Artistic Director, Cheryl Katz at cheryl.katz@lunastage.org
CHARACTERS:
- DEMETRIUS - 1996: a twenty-six-year-old police officer, husband, and father to a 5-year-old daughter, from the Bedford Stuyvesant community in Brooklyn, NY. Overwhelmed with responsibility, he struggles to reconcile his moral conscious, with his desires; who he wants to be, with who he is. 2010: a forty-year-old man suffering from severe injuries trying to make peace with the role he played in his own fate and his need for reconciliation.
- JALANI- 1996: A twenty-one-year-old college student from the community of Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, NY. The younger brother of the recently deceased Jared, Jalani is riddled with insecurities that he tries to mask with sexual prowess and bravado while striving for attention, recognition, respect and individual identity. 2010: A thirty-five-year-old spiritually evolved husband of a Dominican wife, and father to an 8-year-old son.
- RAHEEM - 1996: a twenty-six-year-old educated, yet failed, entrepreneur also from Brooklyn looking for a way to gain the necessary capital to launch his Manhattan night club. Unsatisfied with the outcome of mediocrity displayed by his own parents and peers, and deathly afraid of poverty, he is willing to do anything to make sure he rises to the top. 2010: a forty-year-old owner of Club Carnaval, a premier hip-hop night club themed around Brazil’s biggest cultural attraction, Carnaval. He is shrewd and resourceful, and yet, because of his success, he is even more entrenched in his “by any means necessary” mantra.
ABOUT THE PLAY
A year ago in Brooklyn, two young men mourned the untimely loss of their best friend. In his honor, they decided then and there that, despite their differences, no matter where life took them, they would take care of his younger brother and get together on the anniversary of his death to celebrate the life he should have had. So, on a cold day in the winter of 1996, these three twenty-somethings board a plane for Rio De Janeiro for a taste of the good life: sun, fun and, of course, women paid to serve—What better way to pay homage to a fallen friend? But what starts out as a joyride takes an unexpected turn, and the three sex tourists find themselves in a situation that will change their friendships and their lives forever.
