Aspiring actors are being encouraged to head to St. Charles Community College.

The St. Charles Community College's Center Stage Theatre is hosting open auditions for the production of "A Piece of My Heart.” Director Hal Berry will oversew open auditions at 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15 and 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18.

The auditions will take place in Room 108 of the Donald D. Shook Fine Arts Building on the SCC campus in Cottleville. Callbacks will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19, in the same location.

The Central State Theater is looking to fill a variety of parts. The production needs six females, one male, singers and extras. The audition is open to SCC students and anyone in the community.

“A Piece of My Heart” is a play written by Sheryl Lauro.

According to St. Charles Community College the play is “based on the true stories of six American women who served in the Vietnam Warfour nurses, a Red Cross volunteer and a USO performer. When the women visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., 10 years after the war, they are forced to reevaluate their traumatic past. Through their lives, the play commemorates the courageous service of an estimated 11,000 women who were irrevocably transformed by that war.”

Interested thespians can take a look at the script on reserve at the library. Auditioning performers will be asked to read from the script.

Once the cast is chosen, rehearsals will begin Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 and will take place on evenings and weekends. The show will hit the stage for real in March. “A Piece of My Heart” is slated to run  at 8 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, March 2 to March 5, 2 p.m. Sunday, March 6, and 10 a.m. Thursday, March 3. All showings will be at the Fine Arts Building. 

For more information about auditions or the play, contact Hal Berry at (636) 922-8261 or hberry@stchas.edu or visit www.stchas.edu/calendar.