Evento

CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY

Lynn Nottage is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright whose coming-of age tale, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, follows an African-American familys move from the American South to Brooklyn in 1950. The narrator and protagonist, Ernestine, is a 17-year old African-American girl, whose journey from youth to adulthood will coincide with the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. Similar to Tennessee Williamss Glass Menagerie, Lynn Nottages Crumbs is a memory play, where the audience is invited to bear witness to a storys past, present and future. Through Ernestines eyes, we are able to explore: What would it be like to look back at our lives and realize we were at the beginning of something that would change a nation? How do the dreams and aspirations of our youth change as we are faced with reality? Do we stop reaching? Or do we strive further?

The production will take place on March 3rd5th and 10th12th at the Durham Arts Council PSI Theater. CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY includes scenic design by Amanda Warriner, costume design by Pamela Bond, and lighting and sound design by Stevan Dupor. Savannah Core serves as assistant director and Kate Gulden is stage managing the production.

LAKEISHA COFFEY (Ernestine Crump) Lakeisha is a Raleigh resident who made Durham debut in The Overwhelming at Manbites Dog Theatre. Other Manbites Dog appearances include The Best of Enemies, brownsville song: a b-side for Tray, and Spirits to Enforce. Some of her favorite roles include I Love My Hair... and I Love My Hair...the Remix (FORTY/AM), The Mountaintop (Justice Theater Project), For Colored Girls... (SheCow Productions/Burning Coal Theatre Second Stage), A Raisin in the Sun (Raleigh Little Theatre), The Waiting Room (Raleigh Little Theatre), and Boston Marriage (Ghost & Spice). As a Little Green Pig company member, she has performed in productions such as Night Beast, The Jade City Chronicles Vol. 1, Richie, Our Town and Tarantino's Yellow Speedo. She also served as stage manager for Black Ops Theatre company's production of The Typographer's Dream.

MORIAH WILLIAMS (Ermina Crump) Moriah Renee Williams is a native of Durham and a recent graduate of North Carolina Central University. Her theatrical appearances include Taylor in Stickfly (Raleigh Little Theatre), Penola in The Bluest Eye (NCCU), Tracy Ada in Steal Away (NCCU), and Nephi in By a Black Hand (NCCU). She received an ACTF nomination for her role in The Bluest Eye.

JADE ARNOLD (Godfrey Crump) Jade Arnold resides in Durham, N.C. and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he earned his BFA in Theatre. He is the Co-Founder of the Triangle Readers Theatre Ensemble, a company member of the Burning Coal Theatre, a member of the Artistic Committee for Justice Theatre Project. Some acting credits include Anthony in Sweeney Todd (Playmakers), Abraham Galloway in Fire of Freedom (Carrboro Arts Center's Redbird Festival), Marc Antony in Julius Caesar (Justice Theater Project). Jade also played Mozart in Leviathan Theatre Company's Amadeus and Hamlet in Little Green Pig's HMLT. With Theatre Raleigh, Carousel!, A Few Good Men, and Dreamgirls.
MELANIE MATTHEWS (Lily Ann Green) is a Greensboro native who attended North Carolina A&T and UNCG. She has performed in the Downtown Urban Theater Festival and the Planet Connections Theater Festival in New York City and with numerous theater companies in Philadelphia, PA.

EMILY RIEDER (Gerte Schulte) Emily Barrett Rieder is an actress and teaching artist originally from Raleigh, NC. She received her MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University and her BFA in Acting from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has also trained at The Moscow Art Theatre, The Barrow Group (NYC) and Upright Citizens Brigade (NYC). Some of her favorite roles include Kyra in Skylight ( Burning Coal Theatre Co.), Ruth in Blithe Spirit (Northern Illinois University), Beth in A Lie of the Mind (Northern Illinois University), Myrrhine in Lysistrata (Phare Play Productions NYC) and Brooke in Noises Off! (Triad Stage).

LYNN NOTTAGE (Playwright) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter whose plays have been produced widely in the U.S. and throughout the world. Most recently, her play Sweat (Susan Smith Blackburn Award) premiered at OSF and Arena Stage. Her other plays include, By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk nom.); Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lortel, NY Drama Critics Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and OCC Award); Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and NYDCC Awards); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Porknockers; and POOF!. She recently developed her play Intimate Apparel into a new opera with composer Ricky Ian Gordon commissioned by MET/LCT. She is co-founder of Market Road Films, whose recent projects include The Notorious Mr. Bout, First to Fall and American Warlord, in addition to original projects for HBO, Showtime, and Harpo. Nottage is the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Master Dramatist Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, MacArthur "Genius Grant Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize, Lilly Award, Helen Hayes Award, Lee Reynolds Award, and Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the National Black Theatre Fest's August Wilson Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant, PEN/Laura Pels Award, Lucille Lortel Fellowship and Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, and is an Associate Professor at Columbia School of the Arts. Member of the Dramatists Guild.

KAREN DACONS-BROCK (Director) is a former professor of theatre at North Carolina Central University where she taught performance courses, developed and promoted new plays, and directed numerous theatrical productions. During her tenure at NCCU, Dacons-Brock was a recipient of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Kennedy Center-American College Theatre Festivals Meritorious Achievement Award for Excellence in Theatre Direction. In the Triangle community, she has directed plays for Raleigh Little Theatre, Burning Coal Theatre, Walltown Childrens Theatre, and the former Durham Theatre Guild. She received the Hillside High School Drama Departments Phenomenal Woman in the Arts Award for her extensive work in theatre education. Dacons-Brock is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received her BFA and MFA degrees.

ABOUT BARTLETT THEATER
Bartlett Theater Dedicates itself to exploring and presenting the creative world of one playwright each season. As the only theater in the Southeast, and one of just a handful nationwide, with such an immersive focus, Bartlett Theater will produce bold works that challenge and empower its audience by finding the powerful connections between the words and stories of modern playwrights and the contemporary playwrights they inspired. With the goal of becoming a regional theater presence, Bartlett Theater intends to firmly plant itself in downtown Durham, further enriching a vibrant local culture.