Up next at Plays & Players theatre in Philadelphia, from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks comes a remarkable story of an African-American man who looks just like Abraham Lincoln and can be shot by would-be John Wilkes Booths for a small fee as a carnival attraction.
When the black Lincoln impersonator disappears into the Great Hole of History his wife and son go to find him. Questions of race, family, legacy, and the act of theatre itself play out in a surprising and emotionally stunning journey.
Leave it to artistic director Daniel Student and Plays & Players’ unique vision and desire not to do the expected with any play: as a timely opening act to The America Play every night several world premiere shorts commissioned from local playwrights collectively entitled “Other American Cousins“ (named for the play President Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated, Our American Cousin) will examine “other” Americans’ places in today’s world.
This surrealist depiction of American history lands in Plays & Players’ third floor Skinner Studio as the season’s final production April 4th-21st.
As a former PDC @Plays&Players playwright-in-residence and current board member I’m thrilled that P&P keeps bringing it on.
See you in the sixth borough. Tickets.
It takes a village…
THE AMERICA PLAY
Directed by Suzana Berger
Starring Lindsay J. Daniels, Langston Darby, Tanya O’Neill, Kirschen Wolford and Steven Wright
OTHER AMERICAN COUSINS
Directed by Malika Oyetimein, written by Quinn D. Eli and Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon
Set Design by Colin McIlvaine
Light Design by Andrew Cowles
Costume Design by Erica Hoelscher
Sound Design by Toby Pettit
Prop Design by Alyssa Velazquez
Dialect Coaching by Melanie Julien
Assistant Direction by Jeffrey Hyman
Dramaturgy by Lena Barnard
