AUDITIONS: August Wilson’s GEM OF THE OCEAN

AUDITIONS: August Wilson’s GEM OF THE OCEAN

Playing in the Long Beach Playhouse’s Mainstage Theater

By August Wilson

Directed by Rovin Jay

AUDITION DATES:  Dec. 29 – 30, 2025, & Jan. 2, 2026

• Monday, Dec. 29, 2025 – 7pm – 9pm: Open Call
• Tuesday,  Dec. 30, 2025 – 7pm – 9pm: Open Call
• Friday,  Jan. 2, 2025 – 7pm – 10pm: Callbacks – By invitation only.

(Auditioners only need to come to one night of open call auditions.  We are only seeing in-person auditioners during audition times – no video submissions.)

PERFORMANCE DATES:  Feb. 21 – Mar. 21, 2026

Master playwright, August Wilson, blends naturalism, mysticism, and magical realism to explore the experience of a Black community at the turn of the 20th century. It’s 1904, and Citizen Barlow comes seeking asylum in the Pittsburgh Hill District home of matriarch and spiritual advisor Aunt Ester. She sets him off on a spiritual journey aboard the legendary slave ship Gem of the Ocean to visit the home of the ancestors, the City of Bones. Confronted with the plight of those who came before him, Citizen must come to terms with his own guilt in this unsettling but compelling story filled with humor and heart that is a touchstone for everything else that Wilson has written.

Check back closer to the audition dates for the official Audition Notice with the Beginning Rehearsal Schedule and Character Breakdown.