AUDITIONS....AUDITIONS...AUDITIONS!! Check out the audition page on the metrolinatheatreassociation.net. And it's all about auditions in the Metrolina area (and a little surrounding the MTA area). On the page, we list the name of the show, dates of auditions and the link to the company to get additional information. Check it out! And here is what we have in June: Carolina Renaissance Festival with the Carolina Renaissance Festival June 7 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Fort Mill Community Playhouse June 7 and 8 Electricdad with Three Bone Theatre June 8 and 9 Songs for a New World with QC: Queen City Concerts June 8 The Foreigner with Old Courthouse Theatre June 8 and 9 Junk with The Green Room Community Theatre June 9 and 10 Lee Street Fall Auditions with Lee Street theatre June 22 and 23 Metrolina Theatre Association Unified Auditions June 21 If we missed anything, forgive us. Feel free to send MTA a message here or on our website if you have information about any upcoming auditions we can list. And while you are on the website, go ahead and sign up to be a member of MTA. Join the cool kids!! Do check back on this post, because we do update it when we become aware of additional auditions. (fb)

MTA JUNE SPOTLIGHT: BRIAN DAYE!! We love original works, don't we? We especially love original works created by one of our own magical spirits from the Metrolina family. In June, Anne Lambert and her Charlotte's Off Broadwaywill be bringing one of these home-grown gems to the stage. Our own multi-talented Brian Daye will be presenting his By Any Other Name: An Opus for James Baldwin. So, let's find out more about Brian. So Brian, tell us about Brian! I was born in Stamford, CT and graduated college from Southern CT State University i New Haven, CT. I'm proud and grateful to God to say my wife (Val Daye) and I have been in Mecklenburg County for 25 years (the last year we have finally resided in Charlotte, proper). Our son, Jared, is a proud resident of the state of California for the past eight years and he graduated college from UNCW. Any favorite roles you have played? How about directing? Some of my favorite performed roles were Lewis (along with Jeremy DeCarlos) in Blue Door with Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy with Lee Street Theatre, and Andre in Cuttin' Up with Actor's Theatre of Charlotte. My favorite plays I've directed include Memphis The Musical for Hickory Community Theatre, Samm-Art Williams' Home for OnQ Productions and August Wilson's Fences for Lee Street Theatre. Any funny or memorable moments to happen to you that you would like to share? A 20/20 hindsight funny moment happened WAY back in High School. I was portraying Henry, Dr. Frankenstein’s lab assistant and best friend in the play “Frankenstein”. I had to perform without my glasses and was literally performing “blind” every show. I carefully calculated every step I took, but one night I miscalculated where my exit was and ended up exiting near the audience exit versus the stage exit. Lesson learned. Two truly memorable experiences I had was when I directed “FENCES” for Lee Street. Not only directing one of August Wilson’s seminal works, not only having one of the best casts I’ve ever been blessed to work with, but the single greatest factor I gleaned from this experience was I Really Could direct a piece of this magnitude and gain an enormous level of learning, gravitas and gratitude I hadn’t had before. The other memorable experience was directing MEMPHIS The Musical for Hickory Theatre. It was my first musical I ever directed and it required an entirely different muscle of understanding I hadn’t experienced yet. Directing a musical is ENTIRELY different from directing a traditional play. So many elements come into play and there were a number of balls in the air that had to be juggled. But Eric Seale, an INCREDIBLE cast, administrative staff and THE Greatest Stage Manager/Assistant Director who ever lived (Dalton Isaac) provided an experience that was second to none. Any roles on your bucket list? How about for directing? My life acting dream is to portray “Othello” on Broadway (Hello, Denzel…) with (now) Carey Mulligan as Desdemona. (Tell Robert Lee Simmons he owes me an Iago!!) AND….I am and have been fascinated with portraying the Paladin character from “Have Gun Will Travel”. Who knows - we’ll see… My directing dream is - Wait for it….a musical, mostly African-American adaptation of the Bogdanovich film “Paper Moon”. I’ve always Loved that film! We’ll see… What inspired you to create By Any Other Name: An Opus for James Baldwin and how has the process been for you? The genesis of “BY ANY OTHER NAME - An Opus for James Baldwin” came from watching the Raoul Peck Oscar-nominated Baldwin documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro” at the old Manor Theatre nine years ago. I was blown away and immediately called my friend Gerard Hazelton (who’s in the show portraying BALDWIN) and told him he was the only human being alive who could play Mr. Baldwin on stage. Gerard tells me, “well, you’re gonna have to write it….” I said “Gee thanks”. Eight years later, I completed the play and now here we are. Mr. Baldwin’s voice is still Incredibly Relevant today. His writing, his connectivity to the African American community and his political stance(s) while being an openly Gay Black man was of course challenging, yet he was undeterred in moving forward personally and with a full sense of activism. The process, so far, has been smooth and orderly. Maybe I'm speaking too soon, but I'm staying ready in order to not having to Get ready... Anything about you that most people would not know? I am a HUGE (note the caps) Women's College Basketball fan, with the South Carolina Gamecocks as my number one team! Dawn Staley, their head coach is fantastic (even thought they lost to U Conn in the championship this year...). Let's say you have a really swanky dinner party. Describe that party and what six people would you invite. Living or no longer with us...famous or not so famous. In the dinner party scenario, it would be a velvet tuxedo jacket and jeans themed party, with the female guests wearing taffeta gowns with chucks and pearls. Barbecued Chicken, Brown-stewed Chicken, Jamaican Chicken Patties and Shrimp patties, rice and peas, Cole slaw and potato salad, and a huge fresh salad would be on the menu, with prosecco and passion fruit mimosas in champagne flutes to drink, and for dessert, there’d be the ubiquitous Hank West muffins laced with peanut butter drizzle (Hint Hint) and triple layered yellow cake with Salted Caramel Icing. Among the living guests would be You, Patti Austin, Sade, Barack Obama, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Gregory Porter, Rhiannon Giddens, Author Jill Nelson, Rissi Palmer, Kandace Springs and Branford Marsalis. The Honored Guests not among the living would be, of course, James Baldwin, Ella Fitzgerald, Malcolm, Martin and Medgar, Paul Robeson, Andre Braugher, Judy Garland, Quincy Delight Jones, Nancy Wilson, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Mayor David Dinkins, Diana Sands, and my late aunt from Brooklyn, NY Mrs. Cornelia Johnson. (Way more than six, but a helluva party…) Anything else you would like to share with your theater family? I can't wait for the Charlotte theater family and supporters to see this show! God Bless! Thank you Brian for sharing so much with your theater family. And do check out By Any Other Name: An Opus for James Baldwin, which is being produced through Charlotte's Off-Broadway June 5 through June 14! (fb)