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Staged Readings 2006
Excerpts
from plays-in-progress written by Playwrights mentored by
Award-Winning Playwright Lydia Diamond
Playwright Mentorship sponsored by ACT Roxbury
May
9 and 10
7pm
Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall
182-186 Dudley Street (near Harrison Ave.)
FREE! (donations welcome)
Wheelchair Accessible
MAY
9, 2006 at 7PM
The Gotten of the Misbegotten
by Ken Gordon
When the motion of an elevator is stilled, its occupants review the
dynamics that circumscribe their lives, and conclude some legacies take
more than they give.
Ken Gordon is a husband, father and Boston Public Schools employee.
He's My Brother
by Denise Washington
Rameen
Johnson, a high-school basketball star senior on the edge of success
finds himself doing time for a crime he didn’t commit. His twin
sister Rasheeda finds herself struggling to keep a dark secret she may
have to eventually admit
Denise Washington is a graduate of Emerson College and a recent recipient
of the Tom McCann/Commonwealth Films Playwriting fellowship 2006 of
The Writer’s Room Inc. She has written numerous plays. Several
of her plays have been crafted in the ACT Roxbury’s Playwright
Mentorship Program: Back, Baby Love, Profiling, Isis in the
Middle and her most recent play He’s My Brother,
which she respectfully dedicates to her sister Geraldine Paschal-Conward
and family. Denise is currently an educator in the Boston Public School
System.
Hurry Tomorrow
by Frank Shefton
Three lifelong friends face the prospect of dealing with prostate cancer
after one of them, Archie, has been diagnosed with it. After he has
been treated and cured he goes on a nationwide crusade urging men to
get tested. A fourth friend who died from the disease several years
earlier tries to warn one of them from the grave to have himself tested.
Frank A Shefton is a playwright, actor, and sound designer. A member
of Our Place Theatre Project, his plays include The Father Hat,
Wounds, Don’t Let the Joneses Get You Down, and the Charlie
Award winning You. His play, The Place We Met,
was performed at the 2006 New Works Winter Festival where he made his
directorial debut. It was also performed in the 2005 African American
Theatre Festival, and Boston Theater Marathon. His most recent stage
roles were various characters in Our Place Theatre’s Rhythm
Of The People, Orlando, in The Huntington’s
Theater ‘s Hinges: Keeps A Neighborhood, Seth,
in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
He has designed sound for Twilight: Los Angeles 1992,
for Eastern Nazarene College, the last several African American Theatre
Festivals, and was nominated for an IRNE award for best sound design
for 103: Within the Veil. He spends most of his week
as a project technician at MIT. On Sundays as his alter ego Captain
Al, he hosts the classic soul radio program on WMBR “R&B Jukebox.”
MAY
10, 2006 at 7PM
A Fine and Dangerous Country
by Mary M. McCullough
A black family and a town are forced to confront issues of race, gender,
and bigotry when a white woman alleges she was raped by a group of black
men. While white members of the justice system try to maintain the status-quo
of race relations and apply justice for all, a black family is propelled
to examine their status in the bible belt of the Jim Crow south of 1949.
Mary Millner McCullough writes short stories and plays. She is a member
of the Streetfeet Women’s Writing and Performing Company. Her
work has been published in local literary magazines and in the Streetfeet
anthology Laughing in the Kitchen. Her plays have been featured in Our
Place Theater’s annual African American Theater Festival and the
new play development workshop at Theatre Cooperative in Somerville,
Massachusetts. McCullough, a former METCO Director, grew up in the south
under Jim Crow laws and no books; the bible was everyone’s book.
A quality life for her is a diverse neighborhood with book stores and
the arts. McCullough has participated in ACT Roxbury playwriting workshops
with Ed Bullins, Kate Snodgrass, and Lydia Diamond.
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Lydia
Diamond is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists
where she has developed recent works including: “Stage Black”
(2003 Going To The River Festival at Ensemble Studio Theatre,
NY, 3rd place Theodore Ward Playwriting Award 2001, and premiered at
the Cincinnati Arts Consortium), and “The Gift
Horse” (Goodman premier 2002, Women at the Door
Festival, Theodore Ward Award 1st place, Kesselring Prize –
2nd prize, Going To The River Festival at Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY,
BTAA Best New Play nomination), and “Stick Fly”(premiering
at Congo Square Theatre Ensemble, Chicago, this coming
spring). “The Gift Horse” is anthologized in 7 Black Plays,
edited by Chuck Smith. Ms. Diamond’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s
The Bluest Eye, premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre last
February. Her first Steppenwolf commission, “Voyeurs de Venus,”
will premier at Chicago Dramatists in March. Ms. Diamond is a contributing
editor at TriQuarterly, where “The Inside”
was recently published, and is a recent recipient of an Illinois
Arts Council Grant. Ms. Diamond holds a B.S. in Theatre &
Performance Studies from Northeastern University.
Sponsored
in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council, Mayors Office of
Arts, Tourism and Special Events
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