June 24, 2001 – School's out for the summer, but "School's Out" is about to go into rehearsal. It's a play scheduled for performance the first three weekends of August at the University of the Virgin Islands.
Tryouts are Monday and Tuesday evening starting at 6 p.m. for the "fictional comedy based on a corrupt Caribbean educational system," as Reichhold Center for the Arts publicity describes the work by Jamaican playwright Trevor Rhone.
The play is being presented by the Reichhold's Caribbean Repertory Theater.
Casting is for six male actors who can portray characters from 24 to 64 years of age and one female actor who can play in the age range of 3- to 60. Auditions will be held in the theater's lower level lobby.
"School's Out" is the lone production on the repertory theater schedule this summer. A second play, which was to have been performed in June, was canceled. Performances are scheduled in the UVI Little Theater on Aug. 3-6, 10-13 and 17-20.
The play will be directed by Alvin Hippolyte, a St. Lucia native who made his own debut on the Reichhold stage last September in the two-character play "Smile, Natives, Smile" by Reichhold director David Edgecombe. Hippolyte, who teaches theater courses at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., portrayed a fictional UVI professor who engineered his own entanglement in a sexual harassment suit so as to win notoriety as a means of getting his writing published.
Hippolyte is already on St. Thomas and will be present for the auditions Monday and Tuesday. Reichhold publicist Dionne Carty said Hippolyte will set the rehearsal schedule, but those auditioning should be prepared to commit to the time needed for production and the 12 scheduled performances.
Rhone is best known as the author of "Smile Orange," a 1980s comedy/drama about the impact of tourism on a Jamaican community that was made into a successful film. Another of his works is "Two Can Play."
For further information, call Denise Humphrey at 693-1550.
