Welcome to our 2022-2023 Season! Representation Matters

Different Strokes’! 2022-2023 season was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Celebrate Juneteenth With A Trip to the Theatre

Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’First 100 Years

 

June 1-11, 2023

Written by Emily Mann

Adapted from the book by the Delany sisters and Amy Hill-Hearth

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

HAVING OUR SAY opens as 103-year-old Sadie Delany (Candace Taylor) and 101-year-old Bessie Delany (DonnaMarie McMillan) welcome us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. As they prepare a celebratory dinner in remembrance of their father’s birthday, they take us on a remarkable journey through the last hundred years of our nation’s history, recounting a fascinating series of events and anecdotes drawn from their rich family history and careers as pioneering African-American professionals. Their story is not simply African-American history or women’s history. It is our history, told through the eyes of two unforgettable women as they look not only into the past, but also ahead into the twenty-first century.

We are proud to be partnering with Professor Candace Taylor, Department Chair, and the Warren Wilson College Theatre program for this production!  Our mutually beneficial partnership optimizes resources through both organizations to offer Warren Wilson students opportunities that serve to enhance their theatrical education and experiences as they consider post-graduate careers in the performing arts.

Our Community Outreach Partner for this production is The YWCA of Asheville.

Blood at the Root

August 25-September 10, 2022

 

Written by Dominique Morisseau

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

Blood at The Root written by Dominique Morisseau – BLOOD AT THE ROOT is a striking ensemble drama based on the Jena Six; six Black students who were initially charged with attempted murder for a school fight after being provoked with nooses hanging from a tree on campus. This bold new play by Dominique Morisseau (Sunset BabyDetroit ’67Skeleton Crew) examines the miscarriage of justice, racial double standards, and the crises in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the shattering state of Black family life.

Bursting with youthful exuberance, critical race issues, emotional authenticity, and astonishing beauty.  It is powerfully auspicious“-DC Theater Arts

“Blood at the Root vividly illustrates the near impossibility of getting through one’s teenage years-fraught in the best-case scenario-unscathed when also having to tackle larger societal problems. It’s a necessary and evocative production all-around.” – Chicago Reader

Abe Lincoln and Uncle Tom in the White House

February 2-19, 2023

 

Written by Carlyle Brown

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

ABE LINCOLN AND UNCLE TOM IN THE WHITE HOUSE portrays a gripping re-imagination of the the events the night before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Alone in the Executive Office, President Abraham Lincoln is struggling with signing the Emancipation Proclamation when he is mysteriously visited by Uncle Tom, the fictional character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly. These two iconic characters from life and literature—one real, the other fiction—attempt to understand each other across a chasm of race in the midst of the Civil War. Throughout one late night and into the dawning day, they find themselves crossing over into each other’s world in a tale of suffering, self-discovery, and redemption.

“I hadn’t read the book [Uncle Tom’s Cabin], and I had fallen victim to the mentality that says when you hear the name Uncle Tom you get the picture of the worst individual you could imagine, In reading the book, I found a character of honor and dignity and I thought, maybe this character deserves to be looked at again.” – James A Williams.

Resources on Abe Lincoln, Uncle Tom, Slavery, Reconstruction and More

Performances are Thu-Sat at 7:30pm  and Sunday February 19th at 3pm, in the  Tina McGuire Theatre at  Wortham Center for The Performing Arts (18 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville NC 28801).

 

Three Six Nine Monologue

and Short Play Festival

April 6-22, 2022

Featuring Cooper Bates’ Black When I Was A Boy, and a curated selection of original work including work

by 11 emerging Playwrights of Color (See Titles and descriptions of selections here)

Directed by Various directors.

This project was supported by the Asheville Area Arts Council

The 369 Monologue and Short Play Festival features nine evenings filled with fifteen heart-warming, dramatic, funny, heartbreaking, and provocative theatrical pieces. 369 Monologue and Short Play Festival represents 3 weekends, 6 short plays, and 9 monologues. No two evenings will be the same, and neither will you. Join us as we mix and match 15 intriguing plays and monologues, including the work of Cooper Bates, award-winning writer of the one-man play Black When I Was a Boy– an honest, moving, and even humorous look at a complex, fascinating, and powerful autobiographical recollection of Cooper’s own coming of age in a small predominantly White community in Hill City, Kansas (population 1500),- and his newly released sequel, Black’d Out. Lateasa Bond, Kirby Gibson, Daniel Henry, Righteous Luster, Lauren Otis, Simone Roos Snook, Rodney Smith, Sharvis Smith, Alexandra McPherson, and Alexander McDonald Villarreal round out a talented cast of local actors.

We are excited to welcome  Youth Transformed for Life (YTL) as our community partner for this production.

YTL Training Programs support disenfranchised communities as they strive to succeed in an inequitable system. As educators, mentors, advocates, and neighbors we create bridges for children and families to overcome the current gaps of disparity. We are guardians of the rights of children and their families, and we will make sure all communities as educators, mentors, advocates, and neighbors will create bridges for children and families to overcome the current gaps of disparity. We will be guardians of the rights of children and their families, and we will make sure all community members are informed of those rights.  By meeting community members where they are, physically and emotionally, we will earn their trust and offer tools they can choose to employ as they work toward prosperity. Our ultimate goal is to cultivate a contagious community of compassion in which all human beings are guaranteed access to proper education, health services, safety, and economic stability.

This project was supported by the Asheville Area Arts Council (ArtsAVL), a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.