Plays Out Loud 2017
Plays Out Loud! is a reader’s theatre series that gives directors, actors, and audiences an opportunity to experience live theater focusing solely on the words. All performances are done with script in hand followed by a talkback session with the director and cast.
Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage
By Aishah Rahman
Directed by Echelle Childers
- May 23, 2017
Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage deals with the events in a home for unwed mothers on the last day of jazz musician Charlie Parker’s life, March 12, 1955. The play digs beyond statistics and social theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teenage mothers.deals with the events in a home for unwed mothers on the last day of jazz musician Charlie Parker’s life, March 12, 1955. The play digs beyond statistics and social theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teenage mothers.
Cast
Alexander Bridgeman — Charlie Chan
Liza Barr — Wilma
Shanae Adams — Paulette
Marcey Gibson — Consuelo
Rusheaa Smith — Turner Mattie
Karlee Curin — Midge
Giovanni Jones — Head Nurse Jacobs
Anthony Dupree Holmes — Charlie Parker, Jr
Dani Smith — Pasha
Rammel Ruffin — Saxophonist
Lawd the CVS is Burning
Musical by Carla Stillwell
Directed by Denise Chapman
- April 18, 2017
Lawd the CVS is Burning takes place in the span of one 24-hour news cycle starting at 1pm on a Tuesday and ending at 1pm on a Wednesday. Maurice "Munchie" Taylor, 20-year-old Chicago native and Alvin Ailey dancer was arrested while buying milk for his grandmother in the Englewood neighborhood and dies in police custody. We follow along with young Meechie Jackson and his family as the coverage unfolds. There is singing and praying.
Cast
Alexander Bridgeman
Anthony Dupree Holmes
Rusheaa Turner-Smith
Eric Lawson
Tammy Ra
Doriette Jordan
Smart People
By Lydia R. Diamond
Directed by Nik Whitcomb
- March 21, 2017
It is the eve of Obama's first election. Four of Harvard University's brightest; a surgeon, an actress, a psychologist, and a neuropsychiatrist, are all interested in different aspects of the brain, particularly how it responds to race. But like all smart people, they are also searching for love, success, and identity in their own lives. Lydia Diamond brings these characters together in this sharp, witty play about social and sexual politics.