Virginia Stage Company Will Get Raucous With Pearl Cleage's ANGRY, RAUCOUS, AND SHAMELESSLY GORGEOUS

Virginia Stage Company (VSC) presents Pearl Cleage's Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous, sponsored by Capital Group. This production will run from March 1 -19, 2023 at the Wells Theatre in Downtown Norfolk.

When actress Anna Campbell is invited to restage her radical performance piece of re-imagined scenes from August Wilson's play, she is surprised to learn she will not be taking center stage. A much younger entertainer will be stealing the spotlight at a new women's theatre festival. Will they be able to build a bridge between their generations, or will the curtain close on Anna's career?

"Remember this name," said Tom Quaintance during the Season 44 announcement event, "Pearl Cleage is one of the premier American Playwrights. Period."

Dr.Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, the director, explains, "The women are the center of this story, and we are treated to all the passion, boldness, truth and joyful smackdowns that are a part of the sisterhood of Black women and girls. The multi-generational banter throughout the play, exposes serious differences of opinion, beliefs, and the distinct ways of being and knowing that are unique to the sistas who boldly embrace their truth and authenticity as angry, raucous, gorgeous, and unapologetically Black!"

She continues, "As a playwright, Cleage has always been committed to unpacking historic legacy and how identity and race significantly impacts that legacy... This play, "Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous" looks more intimately at the lives and relationships of four distinctively different Black women who are of different generations, career paths, and locations on their life's journey."

Tickets are currently on sale and can be purchased online at www.vastage.org, over the phone at (757) 627-1234 or in person at the box office located at the Wells Theatre at 108 E. Tazewell Street, Norfolk. Box office hours are Monday through Friday from 10am-5pm.

Patricia Alli (Anna Campbell) is honored to be performing on VSC's stage for the first time. She most recently played the role of Mom in Passing Strange which received the Richmond Artsie Award for Best Ensemble, with Firehouse Theatre. Some of her other credits include: Jacosta in Oedipus, with Firehouse Theatre, Hillary in Hillary and Clinton and Ann in Bill W. and Dr. Bob with HATTheatre, Player Queen, Marcellus and Gravedigger 2, in Hamlet, with Quill Theatre and for WCVE, Nurse in 5th Wall's production of The Lyons, Queen Eleanor in Richmond Shakespear's King John and Alma in Henley Street Theatre's production of Yellowman. Patricia has also lent her talents to HATTheatre as costume designer for Popcorn Falls and Jewtopia, choreographer for Why do Fools Fall in Love and as an instructor for several youth and theatre classes.

Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew (Precious "Pete" Watson) Is a Norfolk native and a Tony Award winning advocate & award winning stage/film actor & activist based in LA & NYC. In addition to starring as Tunde Price, the eldest of five and well loved sister to Venus and Serena Williams, in the Academy Award winning film King Richard (Warner Bros). Mikayla is a two time NAACP Image Award Nominee. She is among those in the Broadway Advocacy Coalition honored with a Special Tony Award in 2020 for their work combating racism within and beyond the theatre industry. Other credits/upcoming projects include Grace (2023), The Bottoms with Jon Bernthal, Dear Mama (Film Independent, SXSW, NAACP Image Award Nominee, Best Actress CFF), The Niceties (RTCC Award Winner), Pure (HBOMax), The Great Khan (World Premiere), WET (Playwrights Realms) Bayano (National Black Theatre), A Doll's House: Part 2 (Maltz Jupiter Theatre) and much more. As a long-standing artist, facilitator, and organizer at BAC and Columbia Law, Mikayla has worked with Broadway companies such as Tina, The Lion King, & Girl from North Country. She is also a long standing Artist Ambassador for the NYCLU. This in addition to working with carceral systems to prioritize community restoration, fight education inequity, aid in voting rights, immigration and more. Inspired by her parents, little sister Mya, and the generations of women that helped to raise her, Mikayla considers it a great privilege to be a Black woman afforded the opportunity to use storytelling as a means for social good. It is an honor to come home to Norfolk to give back to the community that built her (shoutout Tanners Creek Elementary, Ruffner Middle, and Granby High). This VCU alum holds a BFA in Theatre, minors in pre-nursing and GSEX, and is repped by Barney Slobodin, Matt DelPiano, and Jessica Coleman of Calvary Management. www.mikaylabartholomew.com

Terri Brown (Betty Samson) - Honored to make her Virginia Stage Company debut! Regional theatre credits include: The African Company Presents Richard III (Sarah) with The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Minnesota, Doubt (Mrs. Miller) with The Public Theatre in Maine, Dutch Kings (Jocelyn) with Brave New World Rep in Brooklyn, NY, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream (Juliet, Titania) with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Joe Turner's Come and Gone (Mattie) with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. The themes and truths explored Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous are particularly meaningful to me as I navigate a return to the theater world after a 20-year absence! As I do so, I am upheld and sustained by the love of my husband and children, who offer me undying encouragement and support on this journey. I am thankful!

Bethany Mayo (Kate Hughes) is an actor and teaching artist from Des Moines, IA. She has come to Norfolk by way of Kansas City, Pensacola, and Baltimore. Her favorite acting credits include Elise in The Miser/Classic Theater of Maryland, The Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at Fells Point Corner Theater, and The Narrator in Virginia Stage Company's touring production of Every Brilliant Thing. She holds a BA in Musical Theater from William Woods University and a MA in Theater Education from The Catholic University of America. She is a founding member of the Black Classical Acting Ensemble at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. She is a Teaching Artist at Governor's School for the Arts and the sitting Director of Education at Virginia Stage Company. When not teaching or acting, she sews and takes ballroom dancing lessons.

Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, PH.D. (Director) Professor of Acting and Directing Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Co-Artistic Director & Founder of The Conciliation Lab, a non-profit social justice theatre company www.theconciliationlab.org. Dr.T is a playwright, director, actor, poet, and writer. She has appeared in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Broadway production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the rainbow is enuf performing in both the 1st national and international touring companies. Her television, film, industrial, voice over and commercial credits are extensive. Favorite directing projects include uncle tom:deconstructed for The Conciliation Project www.theconciliationproject.org, Passing Strange for Firehouse Theatre, The Niceties for The Conciliation LAB, and Fences for the Virginia Rep all to critical acclaim. Favorite academic directing projects include: Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry for the University of Richmond at the Modlin Center, Eclipsed by Danai Gurira and Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage both for Theatre VCU. Fun fact: She's featured voice talent for the video game HALO. She's a featured scholar in Black Acting Methods: critical approaches, a best seller on Amazon. Her chapter "The Conciliation Project as a Social Experiment: Behind the Mask of Uncle Tom-ism and the Performance of Blackness" was featured in an anthology titled, African American Arts, Activism, Aesthetics and Futurity, edited by Dr. Sharrell D. Luckett. Dr.T has been a columnist for Urban Views Weekly for the past decade, her column and other articles, presentations and workshops can be found at www.coveringtheground.com.

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Virginia Stage Company is Southeastern Virginia's leading theatre destination, serving an audience of over 58,000 annually, both at the Wells Theatre and throughout the community. Virginia Stage Company's mission is to "enrich, educate, and entertain the region by creating and producing theatrical art of the highest quality."

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