One is a Crowd by Beah Richards
Join us for an On Her Shoulders reading of
One is a Crowd by Beah Richards!
Admission to OHS Readings is by donation - a $10 minimum is suggested.
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June 18, 2024 @ 7 pM
NEW PERSPECTIVES STUDIO: 458 W 37TH STREET @ 10TH AVENUE
Doors open at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start with The Play in Context introduction by Arminda Thomas, who situates the script in its historical time and place. The reading will be followed by a post-performance Q&A with refreshments.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:
Beah Richards was best known as an award-winning actor. Among other accolades, she received a Theater World Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and a Tony Nomination in 1965 for her role in James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner. Most notably, she played the mother of Sidney Poitier’s character in the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. This performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In addition to her impressive acting career, Richards was a profound poet, director, playwright. and social activist. Born in July 1920, she wrote three plays during her lifetime, all of which explored the topics of segregation and individuality. She published A Black Woman Speaks in 1974, a collection of 14 poems that discuss her views on the impact of segregation and the blatant prejudice against women. Richards died in 2000 and, at her request, her ashes were scattered across a Confederate cemetery. Three years after her death, she was the subject of the award-winning documentary Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, inspired by her poetry collection of the same title. The documentary was created using over 70 hours of conversation between Richards and actor Lisa Gay Hamilton. The film went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival.
About the director & Dramaturg:
Adrienne D. Williams (Director). Credits include FISH World Premiere (Keen Company/Working Theatre), The Gospel Woman(National Black Theatre),A Limbo Large and Broad ((New Circle Rep), She Kills Monsters (Yale Repertory Theatre), Crumbs From The Table Of Joy , Angela's Mixtape (Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse), Nora (Juilliard Drama Theater), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Zooman and the Sign (The Paul Walker Theatre) Luck of the Irish (Atlas Theatre NYU), Dancing at Lughnasa (The Acting Company at AADA). Member: SDC, AEA, SAG-AFTRA ,League of Professional Theatre Women.
Arminda Thomas (Dramaturg). Arminda Thomas (she/her) is a dramaturg, director, and archivist. She currently serves as resident dramaturg and producing member of CLASSIX, and as a curator for New Perspectives Theatre’s On Her Shoulders reading series, where she has led explorations into the works of Marita Bonner, Eulalie Spence, Georgia Douglass Johnson, and Alice Childress. Selected dramaturgy credits include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (Jones Theatre/Brooklyn Academy of Music), Death of a Salesman (Hudson Theatre), Renaissance Mix Tape (Apollo Victoria), Trouble in Mind (Hartford Stage), Wedding Band (Theatre for a New Audience), Black Picture Show (Artists Space), Mirrors (Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop), Black History Museum...According to the United States of America (HERE Arts Center), Jazz (Baltimore Center Stage), and June and Jean in Concert (Signature). She previously served as archivist and dramaturg for Dee-Davis Enterprises, where she was an executive producer for the Grammy-awarded audiobook, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together, and consultant for the film Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee.
Cast
Celeste Sena, Richarda Abrams, Spencer Barros, Patrice Johnson, John Lenartz, Chase Pittman
This program is made possible, in part, with funds from the NYS Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of the Governor and the NYS Legislature and with public funds provided by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.