Feature
September
09
Louisiana History Comes to Life
by Penny J. Miller
AlterEgo Productions presents Louisiana playwright Carolyn Woosley’s cycle of one-woman plays about remarkable women of Louisiana in ten cities throughout the state this fall. The Originals Company, which is performing three of Woosley’s plays, starts touring this month.
The Originals Company kicks off the tour of “Louisiana Women” this weekend with performances at the Bayou Playhouse in Lockport. Performances include shows on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The tour will continue around the state performing in different cities each weekend culminating at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art during the New Orleans Fringe Festival in November.
“Louisiana Women” includes a dozen one-woman plays that turn spotlights on the lives of women of importance to Louisiana’s history. The three plays that will be featured by the Originals Company explore the lives of pioneering African-American women and their influences on music, art, and the complicated history of race and family relations in Louisiana.
The selection of plays celebrates the lives of Clementine Hunter, Marie Thérèse Coincoin and Nellie Lutcher.
Angelique Feaster will play Clementine Hunter, a primitive painter and former Melrose Plantation cook. Marie Thérèse Coincoin, former plantation owner and matriarch of the Cane River Colony of Free People of Color, will be played by Kendra Cherie’ Gray and Sharon Penson on alternating weeks. Wilma Moore Young and Neverlyn Townsel will play Nellie Lutcher, a Lake Charles native jazz pianist, vocalist and composer, in their shared role.
The Originals Company is under the direction of Angelique Feaster, founder and artistic director of the Mahogany Ensemble Theater, the resident theatre of the Mahogany Expressions of Culture and Creative Arts Foundation. Feaster is the founding producer of the Southern Black Theatre Festival in Shreveport, which will take place this September 16 - 26.
For ticket information contact The Bayou Playhouse at 1-888-99-BAYOU. For further information about the tour including ticket sales, performance dates and venues, please contact Leslie Berman at 337-515-6479.
