JUNETEENTH FESTIVALS

BY JUDITH EGERTON  The Courier-Journal
Theater groups put on performances reflecting black life in America

Unsung African-American inventors and the troubled life of singer Billie Holiday are among the many stories to be presented in this year's Juneteenth festivals at Actors Theatre of Louisville . . .

The . . . festivals . . . celebrate freedom from slavery and promote awareness of African-American history and culture.

At ATL, the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre will present Lorna Littleway's Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays in the Victor Jory Theatre over three consecutive weekends, beginning Friday. In all, 12 plays will be given staged readings at ATL, which means that actors will rely on scripts and props will be minimal.

Two movie actors, Marcella Lowery and John Henry Redwood (who is also a prize-winning playwright who contributed a new work to the jamboree), will read several roles in the festival at ATL.

Redwood appeared in ``Mr. Holland's Opus'' and ``Passion Fish,'' and Lowery was in ``The Preacher's Wife.'' The two chose to participate in the Louisville festival at their own expense as a way to support the development of African-American theater, said Littleway, producing director of the Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays. . .

Here's a guide to . . . Lorna Littleway's Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays

Tickets are $5 per show a festival pass is $30. To order tickets, call the ATL box office at (502) 584-1205.

Friday at 8 p.m. - ``No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs'' by John Henry Redwood. Set in North Carolina in the 1940s, this play examines sexual abuse of black women by white men and concerns the relationship between a black family and a Jewish writer. Redwood won an American Theatre Critics Award for his previous ``Old Settler.''

Saturday at 8 p.m. - ``Stonethrower'' by James Graham Bronson, founder of the Los Angeles Black Playwrights and author of ``Frog Eyes,'' a commission for the Mark Taper Forum. ``Stonethrower'' follows Buffalo soldiers who travel to Apache country after retaliating for the lynching of a friend.

Sunday at 7 p.m. - Three short plays by local playwrights. ``And the Next Day They Changed the Water'' by Antoinette Oglesby Taylor tells the inspiring story of African Americans who invented the fountain pen, traffic light and other everyday items. Taylor created the play for the Green Castle Baptist Church's Black History Celebration, and young people from the church will perform it. The other two works are ``Park'' by Joshua Lane Brown, which concerns date rape, and ``How Long Have I Been Dead Anyway?'' by Carridder Jones, a comedy about an elderly couple's struggle to prove to Social Security that the wife isn't dead.

June 15 at 8 p.m. - ``Defending the Light'' by Detroit playwright Ron Milner, whose earlier work ``Checkmates'' was performed on Broadway by Denzel Washington, Ruby Dee and Paul Winfield. ``Defending the Light'' is based on a true story about William Freeman, who went on a murderous rampage in upstate New York in the 1830s. His case became a political battle between the state attorney general, John Van Buren, and the abolitionist former governor, William Henry Seward, who defended the accused.

June 16 at 8 p.m. - ``Bringing Up Odessa'' by New Jersey playwright Jean Hill takes a satiric look at feminism, while ``Malinda'' by Nancy Gall-Clayton of Louisville tells the story of a slave woman who, after emancipation, asks the white father of her child to marry her and move north.

June 17 at 7 p.m. - ``Living in the Wind'' by Connecticut poet and teacher Michael Bradford follows a reunited slave couple who search for their scattered kin.

June 22 at 8 p.m. - ``Honey, Hush!: An Uprising Over Some Greens'' by Shirlene Holmes, an associate professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, concerns three black women cooks who go on strike.

June 23 at 8 p.m. - ``If You Love Me,'' by Lorna Littleway, looks at a relationship in its first bloom of love. The play will be presented along with a second reading of Carridder Jones' short, ``How Long Have I Been Dead Anyway?'' but this time the aged couple are the same gender.

June 24 at 7 p.m. - ``An Alphabet of Flowers'' by New York writer Elyse Nass concerns the reconciliation of two college lovers 30 years after their breakup.

Marcella Lowery will appear at Actors.

John Henry Redwood contributed a play and will act.

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