Actress will 'jam' for Juneteenth
Louisvillian Nora Cole among expanded lineup

Sunday, May 20, 2007
By Judith Egerton

jegerton@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

This year's eighth annual Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays welcomes home Louisville native and Broadway actress Nora Cole, whose credits include a lead role in "Jelly's Last Jam" on Broadway. Joining Cole for the June 1-16 event will be a New York theater colleague, Imani, who is artistic director of the Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art, an Off-Broadway theater in New York.

The reading of new plays and the performance of inspirational music is presented by the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre, Kentucky's only professional African-American theater
company. The Jamboree has expanded in size and scope, drawing actors, playwrights and other theater artists to the event from around Kentucky and several states, said Lorna Littleway, a playwright and the Jamboree's producing director.

Last year's Jamboree attracted about 400 people. Littleway hopes audience numbers will double this year for the event, which is held at Actors Theatre of Louisville, 316 W. Main St. She invites the community to "Catch the Spirit" and participate in featured events, including a tribute to Nellie Conley, an early 20th century actress and Louisville native who is believed to have been the first African-American woman to secure a Hollywood studio contract.

The primary focus of the Juneteenth Jamboree is celebrating African-American
independence with staged readings of plays by emerging and established playwrights.
Other events include a concert celebrating civil rights, an exhibit of work by visual artists and "Creating Your Own One-Character Play" workshops on three consecutive
Saturdays.

The Jamboree opens with a one-woman autobiographical work by Cole based on research of her family history that goes back more than 200 years to the days of slavery. She also will perform a second one-woman show that she wrote about coming of age in Louisville during the 1950s and '60s.

The second weekend of the Jamboree features two plays about musicians: "Midnight Special," about legendary blues-guitarist Lead Belly, by J. Rufus Caleb; and "Snow" by Lena Charles, about jazz trumpeter Valaida Snow, who was in a Nazi concentration camp.

The final Jamboree weekend spotlights Kentucky writers, including Mike Moore of
Bowling Green, whose play concerns a 1938 racial incident involving Lexington high
school athletes. The Jamboree received about $7,000 from Metro Louisville, Metro Council members and the Dramatist Guild Fund of New York City.

Here's a program schedule:
RED PROGRAM (June 1-2)
Theme: Welcome Home, Nora Cole

8 p.m. June 1 -- "Voices of the Spirit in My Soul"
This one-woman work by Nora Cole is based largely on family letters and oral history.
After performing the work last year at the Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art in
New York, Cole was nominated for an Audelco Award, which recognizes contributions
to black theater by professionals.

9:30 p.m. June 1 -- The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights honors Louisville's
Nellie Conley (1873-1959), who had an uncredited role in D.W. Griffiths' 1915 movie,
"The Birth of a Nation," and appeared in about 40 other movies through 1958. She often played a slave, maid, cook, housekeeper or grandmother and frequently went by the stage name of Madame Wan or Madame Sul-Te-Wan. The commission will unveil a poster commemorating Conley.

5:30 p.m. June 2 -- A workshop, "Creating Your Own One-Character Play," will
encourage writers and performers to develop 10-minute plays. This class also will be
held at the same time on June 9 and June 16.

8 p.m. June 2 -- "Olivia's Opus"
Through a teenage character named Olivia and her alter ego, Farina, Nora Cole tells her story of growing up in Louisville during the 1950s and '60s. The play has been staged in New York at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the National Black Theatre Festival, the Negro Ensemble Company and Primary Stages.

BLACK PROGRAM
(June 8-9)Theme: African-American Indigenous Music

8 p.m. June 8 -- "DARASA: A Civil Rights Tribute in Song"
This fundraising show features inspirational music from past Jamboree productions.

9:15 p.m. June 8 -- "Midnight Special" by J. Rufus Caleb
This play recounts the relationship between blues guitarist-singer Huddie "Lead Belly"
Ledbetter and his patron, John Lomax. Caleb writes for theater, radio and TV. His play
"Benny's Place" was produced by ABC and starred Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett Jr.

8 p.m. June 9 -- "Snow" by Lena Charles
A look at the professional trumpet player Valaida Snow, known as "Little Louis" for her
Louis Armstrong playing style. The play recounts her arrest and imprisonment by Nazis in 1940-42. Playwright Charles has also written for television. Her credits include "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" and "In the House."

BLUE PROGRAM (June 15–16)
Theme: Kentucky writers

8 p.m. June 15 -- "Sweetwater" by Gertrude Eena Woods and "A Little Chat with
God" by Lorna Littleway
"A Little Chat with God" is an experimental dance work involving a woman who
negotiates with God over the time and conditions of her death. Littleway is founder of the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre and producer of the "Juneteenth Cotton Club Revue."
"Sweetwater" is a story of love, forgiveness and redemption written by Louisville native
Woods, who recently completed a master's in fine arts at the Actors Studio in New York.

8 p.m. June 16 -- "The Moon Sees Somebody" by Mike Moore
Based on an incident involving the playwright's father, this play, set in Lexington in
1938, recalls a time of segregation. The all-white Henry Clay High School football team in Lexington had won the state championship. Dunbar High School, also of Lexington, had won the state championship for black high schools. The teams wanted to find out which one was the best, but segregation would not allow them on the same field. Moore's play is about how two 16-year-olds, one white and one black, moved from a relationship of antagonism to one of mutual respect.

Reporter Judith Egerton can be reached at (502) 582-4503.