AUDITION NOTICE:
World Premiere of
THE FANNY BRICE STORY
By Chip Deffaa
Directed by Lauren Moran Mills
Musically Directed by William Arnold
WHEN: Monday August 26, 7-9 PM. Callbacks are August 29. 7-9 PM. Rehearsals begin the week of September 9. Performances are October 12 and 13 and October 19 and 20.
WHERE: The Wayne YMCA, 1 Pike Drive, Wayne
For audition information contact Meryl Budnick at 973.595.0100 ext 257.
Starting in 1950 The Fanny Brice Story chronicles the life of the famed performer through an interview with a young girl named Emmie who claims to be her biggest fan. Flipping back and forth through time we meet the many people who influenced and shaped Fanny’s life and career in show business such as Eddie Cantor, WC Fields, Flo Ziegfeld, Arnold Rothstein, George M. Cohan, countless Vaudeville showgirls and of course Nicky Arnstein, her husband and noted con man. The play boasts songs from Fanny’s era such as Second Hand Rose, Oh, That Beautiful Rag, Give My Regards to Broadway and many more!
Be a part of this first-ever produced Americana Showbiz journey!
Please prepare 16 bars of a song in the vaudeville style.
Roles to be Cast:
- Emmie: teenage girl in the 1950’s who is interviewing Fanny Brice-singing role 15-19
- Fanny Brice: the stories narrator, she plays ages 20’s to her 50’s- 30’s-50’s
- Eddie Cantor:Comedian/Entertainer friend of Fanny (singing role) costume 30’s-50’s
- Lew Brice: Fanny’s Brother 30’s-50’s
- Young Fanny: singing role 15-17
- Young Lew: singing role 15-17
- Theron and Johnson:Theater owners in Brooklyn 20-40’s
- Max Bierstein (singing role): Performer in Madame Bordonaros show 20’s –50’s
- Pops Zander (singing role): Performer in Madame Bordonaros show 20’s –50’s
- John Fredrick Chance: small-time Producer 30’s-50’s
- George M. Cohan: singing role 30’s-50’s
- Rose Borach: Fanny’s Mother 40’s-50’s
- Charles Borach: Fanny’s Father 40’s-50’s
- Madame Victoria Bordonaro (singing role): head of a traveling Theatrical Company 30’s-50’s
- J. Saleeby Jackson( singing role):Emcee and Comic in Madame Bordonaros show 30’s-50’s
- Flo Ziegfeld: Producer of the Ziegfeld Follies 30’s-50’s
- Ziegfeld girls
Olive Thomas: sing and dance 15-20’s
Bessie McCoy: sing and dance 15-20’s
Ann Pennington: sing and dance 15-20’s
Lillian Lorraine: sing and dance 15-20’s
Vera Maxwell: sing and dance 15-20’s - Nicky Arnstein (singing role): handsome, dashing, smooth-talking gambler, married to Fanny
- W.C Fields: famed Comedian
- Arnold Rothstein: organized crime Kingpin
- Many bit and ensemble roles
About the playwright:
Deffaa has written and directed in New York such plays as George M. Cohan: In his Own Words (published by Samuel French Inc.,), Yankee Doodle Boy (Drama Source), The George M. Cohan Revue (Baker's Plays), George M. Cohan & Co. (Eldridge Plays), The Seven Little Foys, The Johnny Mercer Jamboree, and Theater Boys.
His play, George M. Cohan Tonight!, which Deffaa wrote and directed off-Broadway in New York at the Irish Repertory Theatre, was called "brash, cocky, energetic and endlessly euphoric" by the New York Times. The cast album was released in 2006 by Sh-K-Boom / Ghostlight Records. George M. Cohan Tonight! opened September 21, 2010 at the New Players Theater on the West End in London. "A great US entertainer lives again..." wrote The Times (September 28, 2010).
Deffaa's most recent plays include The Family that Sings Together... (published by Drama Source), Song-and-Dance Kids, and One Night with Fanny Brice. (The cast album of One Night with Fanny Brice was released in September 2010 by Original Cast Records). After several regional productions, One Night With Fanny Brice was produced Off-Broadway in New York at St. Luke's Theatre, 308 W. 46th Street; previews began on March 16, 2011, with an official opening night set for April 3, 2011.
Deffaa has written liner notes for many CDs, including those of such artists as Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Ray Brown, Diane Schuur, Ruth Brown, Tito Puente, Dick Hyman, Randy Sandke, Scott Hamilton, and the Count Basie Orchestra. Deffaa has won an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award, a New Jersey Press Association Award, and an IRNE Award (Independent Reviewers of New England). Deffaa is a member of the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers, the Dramatists Guild, ASCAP, NARAS, the Jazz Journalists Association, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, the Drama Desk, and the American Theatre Critics Association. Deffaa is a trustee of the Princeton Tiger magazine.
The Metro YMCAs of the Oranges is a proud partner of The YM-YWHA of North Jersey.
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