The WHY of MY City

Tickets $10 available on MetroTix!

Saint Louis Story Stitchers has commissioned playwright Mario Farwell to write a new script for The WHY of MY City, centering on St. Louis’s Black neighborhoods and historic figures.

 

The play will include community members and will be staged at the .ZACK Theatre at Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

Story Stitchers is honored to work with Gregory S. Carr as director.

Synopsis of the play

Wanda, a young African American, considers moving away from St. Louis after graduating high school.  She wants to explore opportunities, but Zoot Suit, a well-known gangster, entices her to come work for him.   The community rallies to prevent Wanda from making a serious mistake and with the help of Scott Joplin, Madam CJ Walker, Cool Papa Bell and Tina Turner, they manage to save her from the clutches of Zoot Suit.

Performing artist compensation range is $250-$300

Also seeking:

Experienced stage manager: $1,000 honorarium

Experienced Costume Designer: $250 honorarium with a $1,250 costume budget

Register for an audition or interview: CLICK HERE

Important Casting and Rehearsal  Dates:

CASTING CALL

LOCATION: The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, 1A, St. Louis, MO 63108

Wednesday, May 10, 6:00-10:00 PM Auditions and Interviews

Saturday, May 13, 12:00-5:00 PM, Casting Call and Auditions

Wednesday, May 17,  6:00-10:00 PM Call Backs

REHEARSALS

Tuesday, May 30 and Wednesday, May 31: Rehearsals 6:00-10:00 PM at The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, Studio 1A, St. Louis, MO 63108

Thursday, June 1 and Friday, June 2: Rehearsals 6:00-10:00 PM at The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, Studio 1A, St. Louis, MO 63108

Saturday, June 3 and Saturday, June 10: Rehearsals 12:00-5:00 PM at The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, Studio 1A, St. Louis, MO 63108

Tuesday, June 13: Tech Set Up 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM at the .ZACK, 3224 Locust, St. Louis, MO 63103

Wednesday, June 14: Full Tech Rehearsal 6:00-10:00 PM at The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, Studio 1A, St. Louis, MO 63108

Thursday, June 15 and Friday, June 16: Public Performances 5:00 Dinner Call (pasta), 6:00 Final Call, 7:00 Performance, at the .ZACK, 3224 Locust, St. Louis, MO 63103

Seeking performers for the following roles:

SCOTT JOPLIN – African American, male, can play piano and act, 16 to 40 years old

COOL PAPA BELL – African American, male, 16-30 years old, athletic build, act 

ADULT FEMALE ONE, MADAM CJ WALKER – African American, female, shapely, 16-40 years old, act, sing

YOUNG FEMALE ONE 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG FEMALE TWO 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG FEMALE THREE, TINA TURNER – African American, female, 16-30 years old, athletic build, sing and dance

YOUNG FEMALE FOUR

YOUNG MALE ONE 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG MALE TWO 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG MALE THREE 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG MALE FOUR 16-40 years old, sing, dance, rap, act

YOUNG MALE FIVE, ZOOT SUIT – male, African American or Latino, sing and rap, dance

Storytellers and Artists on the Project

BlueBeatz, Story Stitchers full time audio producer and engineer, joined Story Stitchers in 2018 and is committed to the project. BlueBeatz is a musician, producer, audio engineer, and teaching artist specializing in beatmaking, songwriting, audio and multi media performing arts production with a focus on teens and young adults. Blue has been professionally recording, engineering and producing for over twelve years. He graduated from Extreme Institute with a degree in Recording Engineering, and Production with management. He lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.

K.P. Dennis, Story Stitchers Artist in Residence and co-founder, and serves as a lead rap artist. He is the multi-talented director of Save Our Sons, Urban League of St. Louis, with over 30 years of professional music recording and performance experience and 12 years as a teaching artist. Dennis has a background as a professional touring rap and recording artist. “Mr. K.P. (Killa Poet)” was the lead artist in the group Out of Order in the 1990’s, has served as an educator for the Missouri History Museum. Dennis has received awards including the United States Congressional Award Bronze Medal and the Outstanding American Youth Foundation Award. Dennis lives in St. Louis. Missouri.

Gregory S. Carr is a St. Louis storyteller, writer-director-actor and Living History Presenter. This is Greg’s first project with Saint Louis Story Stitchers.

Susan Colangelo, Story Stitchers Founding President & Executive Director, MFA, LSU ‘83. Susan brings 30+ years of social justice arts practice experience and work with six school districts as an artist and consultant to the organization. Specializing in large scale community-school-university programs, she developed WOW! World of Wonder for West Virginia University, bringing the arts to 20,000 school children, and coordinated the first contemporary African music and dance concert at the University of Georgia. She brings creative work in photography and videography to the project as a contributing artist (pro-bono). Colangelo lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.

Mario Farwell, playwright and director, is a native of St. Louis Missouri. Farwell will, along with Bobby Norfolk, work with youth to transform the recorded interviews into the outline for a new multidisciplinary performance work. He attended the University of MO at Kansas City and received a B.A in Theater. While in Kansas City, he founded The Black and Avant-Garde Theater. After graduating college, he moved to New York City and lived there for twenty-six years. His plays and musicals have been produced off-off Broadway in NYC, San Diego, CA, Minneapolis, MN, St. Louis, MO, Boston, and Africa. Mario Farwell is the founder and current director of the St. Louis Writers’ Group in St. Louis, MO. This is Mario’s first project with Saint Louis Story Stitchers.

Branden Lewis, Stitchers full time Youth Artistic Coordinator, is a leading performing and recording artist, poet and songwriter, and teaching artist specializing in multi media arts production with a focus on teens and young adults. Lewis is a graduate of Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and is a featured leading youth artist at Story Stitchers since 2017, creating and performing original work created at the Stitchers Studios at Washington University, Harris Stowe University, Annie B Casey National Conference at Union Station, Unity Summit in Seattle, Washington, .ZACK Theater, and 350 other venues throughout the city of St. Louis. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bobby Norfolk, a Story Stitchers featured artist in residence since 2017, three-time Emmy award winner and master storyteller; lives in St. Louis. Missouri and is committed to the project. In 1979, Bobby made his first appearance as a storyteller at the St. Louis Storytelling Festival. In television, Bobby won three Emmy awards as the host of the CBS TV show “Gator Tales”. Bobby was given the national Circle of Excellence Oracle Award, an honor presented by the National Storytelling Network, which recognizes the very best storytellers in the nation. Bobby has won the prestigious Parents Choice Gold Award. He has co-authored eight children’s books and is a featured artist in festivals world-wide.  He lives in St. Louis, Missouri and joined Story Stitchers as an Artist in Residence in 2017. In 2018,Bobby gave the commencement address to the College of Arts & Sciences at Univ. of MO-St.Louis and was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

John A. Wright, Sr, PhD is an author, educator, and historian. Dr. Wright will help youth identify and schedule interview candidates, prepare questions for the interviews, and himself take part in a two-part interview to be released as a special edition of our podcast, StitchCast Studios. A native of St. Louis, Missouri and a graduate of Sumner High School, John has authored fifteen books on regional history. John and his wife Sylvia are founding members of Saint Louis Story Stitchers and John has stayed engaged, working with youth on regional history projects. John and Sylvia’s book is Extraordinary Black Missourians: Pioneers, Leaders, Performers, Athletes, & Other Notables Who’ve Made History, was published in 2013 by Reedy Press. Dr. Wright has received numerous awards, some of which include: Harris-Stowe State University Distinguished Alumni Award, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Citizen of the Year, St. Louis NAACP St. Louis City Branch and St. Louis County Branch, Inspiring St. Louis Award and the African Heritage Association Legacy Award, St. Louis Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution- Excellence in Community Service Award, Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge-Top Honors in Communication Award and the St. Louis University Black Alumni Award.

John and his late wife, Sylvia Wright, are  founding members of Saint Louis Story Stitchers. Their son, John A Wright, Jr, is a current member of Story Stitchers Board of Directors.

Acknowledgements

Saint Louis Story Stitchers’ The WHY of MY City is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. On the web at arts dot gov.

Support for Story Stitchers creative youth development programs is provided in part by The Lewis Prize for Music 2021 Accelerator Award.

Additional support is provided by Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and Missouri Humanities Council, a state agency, and Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

StitchCast Studio Special Edition

In conjunction with The WHY of MY City, Story Stitchers artists are creating StitchCast Studio Special Edition podcast recordings focused on Black historic sites in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Emeara Burns, heading up The WHY of MY City Special Edition podcasts, has been Story Stitchers youth leader since 2016 and served as Story Stitchers Program Director 2019-21. Burns is a performing and recording artist, poet and songwriter. She is a graduate of Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and is a featured leading youth artist at Story Stitchers since 2015, performing original work created at the Stitchers Storefront Studio at Washington University, Harris Stowe University, Annie B Casey National Conference at Union Station, Unity Summit in Seattle, Washington, Sheldon Concert Hall, .ZACK Theater, and 300 other venues throughout the City of St. Louis.  She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Podcasts and related research for these discussions is supported in part by Missouri Humanities Council, a state agency.

Additional support is provided by The Divided City. The Divided City is an urban humanities initiative, a joint project of the Center for the Humanities and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis. The Divided City is funded by the Mellon Foundation.

StitchCast Studio Special Edition podcast recordings for The WHY of MY City will be released in May-June.

 

 

Story Stitchers artists work in multi-year projects, allowing the work to be engage residents and additional storytellers as it moves forward in its development.

Below are past iterations of The WHY of MY City.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers presents StitchCast Studio Special Edition: The WHY of MY City Series with conversations exploring Ferguson, The Ville, the West Side, University City and the Delmar Loop, and the Richness of Music in St. Louis.

To learn more about the podcasts visit StitchCast Studio Special Edition: The WHY of MY City.

This program is a Special Edition of StitchCast Studio, called The WHY of MY City and is funded by Missouri Humanities Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Funding for this grant is provided by the CARES Act and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed in the product are not necessarily those of MHC or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Special thanks to Kranzberg Arts Foundation for providing the .ZACK Rooftop and Ballroom for our recording sessions.

StitchCast Studio is sponsored by City of St. Louis’ Youth at Risk Crime Prevention Grant of 2020, Steward Family Foundation, Spirit of St. Louis Women’s Fund’s three year grant 2020-22, Arts and Education Council PNC Grant, and Missouri Foundation for Health.

The WHY of MY City Album

Now available on major music platforms.

Story Stitchers collected stories from residents and encouraging them to share what their community means to them as part of The WHY of MY City. Story Stitchers capture and document black history through written word and art by archiving oral history, story collection and storytelling. Audiences will gain insight into neighbors’ lives. The WHY of MY City seeks to collect positive stories of local heroes in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods that are struggling with decline.The WHY of MY City captures and documents pieces of black history through written word and art while training the next generation to become active, engaged citizens. Our goal is that programs become a force multiplier, rippling into families, schools, and neighborhoods, offering solutions to common urban problems. 

The premiere of the new work of art was streamed online, having moved from Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s new facility, The High Low due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Friday, May 1st, 2020 at 7:00 PM

The WHY of MY City was also streamed at:

Saint Louis Story Stitchers Youtube

Saint Louis Story Stitchers facebook

Q&A with humanities scholars John A. Wright and Bobby Norfolk followed the presentation in a Zoom Room.

The WHY of MY City is presented with support from Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts, Missouri Humanities Council, a state agency, National Endowment for the Humanities, Missouri Foundation for Health, and Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

Talkin’ Bout the Ville

Bobby Norfolk, Master Storyteller

Download The WHY of MY City. Community Story Collection. docx

About Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective

STORYSTITCHERS.ORG

The Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective is a non-profit organization engaged in urban storytelling. The mission of Saint Louis Story Stitchers is to document St. Louis through art and word to promote understanding, civic pride, intergenerational relationships and literacy.

Collective artists work alongside twenty 16-24-year-old urban youth to collect stories, reframe and retell them using the arts to promote a better educated, more peaceful and caring society. Saint Louis Story Stitchers are a resident organization at Kranzberg Arts Foundation where members rehearse, present and perform in the Foundation’s first-class spaces. The Collective also maintains the Stitchers Storefront Studio in the historic Loop District for recording, editing and publishing. Current projects focus on public health issues including gun violence.