Juneteeth Jamboree to fill three weekends
Judith Egerton
jegerton@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
A tribute to the stars of Harlem's famed Cotton Club. The reading of a new play written by well-known actor Ossie Davis and a work about the black townships of Kentucky's Bluegrass country.
Those are among the highlights of this year's Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays presented at Actors Theatre of Louisville by the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre of Louisville.
The jamboree, created to commemorate emancipation, features staged readings of new works about the lives of African Americans. It will take place during three consecutive weekends.
The Jamboree kicks off at 8 p.m. Friday with ``Watermelon!!! Git it While it's Hot, III,'' a comedy created and performed by actress and comedienne Cecelia Antoinette, who has appeared in TV's ``Sex and the City'' and ``The Chris Rock Show'' and in the film ``Hurricane,'' which starred Denzel Washington.
The weekend activities will include ``Cotton Club Rhapsody'' by Michael Dinwiddie, which pays tribute to musical legends Josephine Baker and Duke Ellington, among others. That show will be presented at 8 p.m. Saturday.
The weekend will conclude with a participatory program led by Antoinette, called ``The Making of a Cabaret,'' at 7 p.m. next Sunday.
Here's a look at the rest of the jamboree schedule:
June 14, 8 p.m. - ``Curtain Call! Mr. Aldridge, Sir,'' a tribute to a legendary black actor by Ossie Davis, will be read along with ``Faith, Hope and Charity,'' a biographical work about Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women. The latter play was written by New York playwright Samuel Kelley, whose play ``DWB: Driving While Black'' was part of a previous Juneteenth Legacy Theatre jamboree.
June 15, 8 p.m. - ``Black Hamlets in the Kentucky Bluegrass,'' a finalist in the New York Drama League's New Works Project, is the latest play by Jeffersonville, Ind., playwright Carridder Jones. It tells the story of three elderly African-American women who fight to preserve the history of black townships that surround Kentucky horse farms.
June 16, 7 p.m. - ``Can You Hear It?/This Land Is Your Land'' is the story of slavery as told by the trees, barns and shackles of a North Carolina plantation. Playwright Antoinette Oglesby Taylor collaborated with members of the Greencastle Baptist Church Youth Ministry, who will perform the play.
Two other plays also will be read: ``The Promise,'' by Erma Bush of Louisville, which concerns a black woman who awaits a bequest from a white woman, and ``Shade of Blue,'' by Louisvillian John Howell, which is about fame.
June 21, 8 p.m. - ``Dancing With Demons'' by Don Evans, who heads black studies at the College of New Jersey, tells of a homeless boy's frightening encounter with a man posing as a good Samaritan.
June 22, 8 p.m. - ``What'd Ya Do Today, Billy Joe?'' by Eleanor Hardy of Los Angeles, involves a black child's first day at an allwhite school. ``Holiday Diary,'' by New York playwright Edgar Chisholm, is about a father's misguided efforts to make his son a man.
June 23, 7 p.m. - ``FU2,'' by prize-winning playwright Anne Hanley of Alaska, was written in response to President Clinton's call for a national dialogue about racial issues. In the play, a black teen-ager and an old white man find common ground in their action against two Mormon elders.
If you go . . .
All readings in the Juneteenth Jamboree of New Plays will take place at Actors Theatre of Louisville, 316 W. Main St. Tickets are $5 per show or $35 for a jamboree pass. To order tickets, call the ATL box office at (502) 584-1205.
