Opening Tuesday, March 4 at Yulman
Theater, The African Company Presents
Richard III is based on the real
story in 1821 of the first black theatrical group in America
as it battles racial prejudice with violent interpretations of white theater.
The troupe's motto: “Say ya Shakespeare like ya want.”
African Company runs through March 8 at 8 p.m., and March 9 at 2
p.m.
Written by Carlyle Brown, the play
is directed by Joanne Yarrow.
The seven member cast includes Phil
Chorba, Jamera Simmons, Ijeoma Mbamalu, Charles Holiday, Jhulian Newell-Little,
Andre Lake and Vanya Konn.
“The play is not about the black
experience,” said Yarrow. “It's about the perseverance of the human spirit.”
In 1821, the first black
theatrical troupe in the country, the African Company of New
York, was putting on plays in a downtown Manhattan
theater to which both black and white audiences flocked, according to the
playwright's notes. Shakespeare is the chosen cultural battleground in this
retelling of a little known, yet pivotal event in American history. Knowing
they are always under prejudicial pressures from white society, and facing
their own internal shakeups, the African Company battles for time, space, and
audiences and togetherness. Their competition, Stephen Price, an uptown,
Broadway-type impresario, is producing Richard
III at the same time as the African Company's production is in full swing.
Price has promised a famous English actor overflowing audiences if he plays
Richard in Price's theater. Fearing his large white audiences will be lost to
the African Company, Price manipulates the law and closes down their theater.
For more information on the Yulman production, visit:http://idol.union.edu/~simmonsj/theater/africanco.html
For tickets and information, call
the Yulman Theater box office at (518) 388-6545.