BMDS - THE STORY

AUDITIONS: 10^TH & 11^TH December 2005. (Audition material now available at Daylesford Theatre.)

Tracey Scott Wilson is the winner of the 2004 Kesselring Prize for playwriting and the 2004 Whiting Award, both for “The Story” as well as the Van Lier Fellowship and the 2001 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award. Her other work includes I Don't Know Why That Caged Bird Won't Shut Up, Exhibit #9, and Leader of the People. “The Story” was first produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York in December 2003.

In the play, a white teacher working in an urban school is murdered. A black newspaper reporter breaks the story. When her editor starts to question her credentials, the story comes up for question also.

Wilson's play is inspired by a low moment in American journalism. In 1980, Janet Cooke wrote an article for the Washington Post about a third-generation, 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy. The gripping story generated much sympathy and concern. The mayor of Washington, D.C., organized a police search for the boy.

The problem with this story about Jimmy, for which Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981, was that it was fiction.

"I remember my father saying when she won the Pulitzer that it was a shame that she won that award for writing such a negative story, a story that just played into the worst stereotypes," Wilson said. "Then when they took the award away two days later, he had a sense of double shame -- not only had she told this horrible stereotype, but she lied about it."

That episode stayed in Wilson's subconscious for nearly two decades, through her undergraduate and graduate education at Rutgers and Temple Universities, respectively. It surfaced, to her surprise, one day when she was at her desk in the University of Minnesota's alumni publications office, where she worked for four years.

"I probably shouldn't say this, because it makes me look like I wasn't working, but I just typed her name into LexisNexis and all these articles came up," Wilson recalled. "It sort of just took over."

Wilson, who began her career writing fiction, won the Kesselring Prize for "The Story." Winning this award established her as an important presence on the American theatre scene

Wilson said that when she began to write "The Story," she gained some insight into Cooke's deceit.

"I think it comes out of fear and desperation," said Wilson. "The problem is once you start lying, especially on a large scale, it becomes addictive and second nature, but you have to maintain it. And when you lie about your core being, you cause a lot of damage to yourself. When I was younger, I went through a period where I lied to myself because I wanted to be somebody else.".

For Wilson, finishing "The Story" has meant a way to analyze ambition and to come to some realizations. "I empathize with Janet's need to be successful at any cost," Wilson said. "When you go through a lying phase, if you're lucky, you can grow out of it to live an authentic life. Too bad she didn't."

Character Breakdown - Main Characters

Yvonne - a black woman in her twenties
Jeff - Yvonne’s white boyfriend maybe a bit older
Pat - a woman, the black editor of a black-community section in a big metropolitan daily newspaper
Neil - Pat’s chief reporter - black - mid twenties or a little older
Latisha - late teens, very smart, street-wise
Tim Dunn - White Man - Twenties
Jessica Dunn - White Woman - Twenties

Character Breakdown - Ensemble

The Story incorporates several roles for actors who play several parts as an ensemble. These require concentration as the actor on stage shifts from one character to another. They are crucial to the flow of the play. We will require several black women and possibly a man of either race.

For more information regarding this production, contact the producer.