On Monday, June 20, 2011, 17 African-American theatre companies across the country will take part in the first annual celebration of African-American Theatre by producing benefit staged readings of Alice Childress’ Obie Award winning Trouble in Mind.
Trouble in Mind is described as ” a powerfully incendiary and satiric drama based on the conflict of not compromising one’s artistic integrity. This play within a play follows the journey of an integrated cast in 1957 as they embark upon rehearsal for a racially-charged play. Childress shows the actors’ complaints, directors’ frustration and even with the well-meaning efforts of theater professionals to overcome their racial feelings. As each character is revealed, along with their cavalier approach to the scripts they hold, there is so much humor that the playwright’s theme within the theme will leave the audience shocked, if not surprised, at what was before them all along.”
The African Continuum Theatre Company will stage the DC portion of the national event in partnership with the Howard University Dept of Theatre Arts at Howard University’s Ira Aldridge Theater starting at 8pm.
Featured will be Jewell Robinson, David Berkenbit, Nicholas Vaughan, Lolita Clayton, Thomas Howell, Laura Godfrey Dunlop, Michael Kramer, Joshua Morgan and Jim Epstein.
Reading on the same evening around the country will be luminaries such as Andre DeShields, Peter Coyote, Roger Robinson, Leslie Uggams, LaChanze, John Mahoney, Bill Irwin, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Irma P. Hall, Tonea Stewart, Petronia Paley and Charles Randolph-Wright.
The African The June 20 annual celebration is a project of Project 1 Voice, a national grassroots movement designed to support and cultivate artistic excellence, creativity and innovation among African-American theatre organizations and to preserve the legacies of those theaters and African-American playwrights.Continuum Theatre Company’s staged reading: June 20 at 8pm at the Ira Aldridge Theater, 2455 Sixth St NW, Washington. DC. 202 806-7700. Tickets are $15. Click here.
More information about the national event is at Project 1 Day.
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