BWW Previews: Compelling new Plays in the HUMAN RIGHTS NEW WORKS FESTIVAL at Red Mountain Theatre Company

Red Mountain Theatre Company is offering an exciting weekend of compelling original works in a Human Rights New Works Festival. This collection of inspiring stories will run March 15 -18 at various locations throughout Birmingham. The festival is a showcase of mostly staged readings of original material and musical performances.

Explorative Q&A sessions with the writers and actors will follow each performance.

For a full schedule and tickets visit here

Below is a rundown of each of festival's offerings.

FULL PRODUCTION

ALABAMA STORY

By Kenneth Jones

This humor-laced social-justice dramatic play tells the little-known true story of a librarian persecuted for protecting books in the Jim Crow South. A gentle children's book with an apparent hidden message stirs the passions of a segregationist State Senator and a no-nonsense State Librarian in 1959 Montgomery, Alabama, just as the civil rights movement is flowering. In a parallel story, childhood friends - an African-American man and a woman of white privilege, reunite as adults in Montgomery that same year - providing private counterpoint to the public events of the play. Alabama Story is inspired by real events that touch on Civil Rights and censorship issues in "the Deep South of the imagination."

Henry Scott - Director Jennifer Price - Emily Wheelock Reed Ron Dauphinee - Garth Williams Kyle Holman - Senator E.W. Higgins Chelsea Reynolds - Lily Whitfield Brandon McCall -Joshua Moore David Strickland - Thomas Franklin

STAGED READINGS

EVERYTHING THAT'S BEAUTIFUL

By Elyzabeth Wilder (Alabama playwright)

When Luke and his wife Jess decide to allow their 8-year-old child, a biological boy, to live as a girl, they relocate in order to give the family a clean start. Luke takes a job at the local waterpark, where he meets Gaby, the girl in the mermaid tank. With money tight, Jess starts working at a local coffee shop where she meets Will. Luke and Jess each become seduced by the escape that both relationships provide, leaving their marriage strained. But when an accident threatens to expose the secret about Morgan, tensions run high. Luke finally admits the real reason they moved, a confession that could potentially destroy their family. Faced with losing his child and his family, Luke must decide what's worth fighting for.

Parental Advisory: Strong language

Director - Becca Yeager Luke - Stephen Mangina Jess - Holly Dikeman Morgan - Cooper Snoodsmith Theo - Ross Cooley . Gaby - Kynnedi Porter Will / Dr. Miller - Nic Crawford

THE BALLAD OF KLOOK AND VINETTE

Musical by Anoushka Lucas, Omar Lyefook, and Ché Walker

Klook is a drifter who's gotten too old to drift. Vinette is on the run but she doesn't know what's chasing her. Together, they make a tentative stab at love and reach for hope until the past catches up to the future and smacks it in the face.

Tough, tender, funny, poignant, Klook's Last Stand explores the humanity that so often is overlooked when considering mass incarceration and its relationship to racial discrimination. Soulful music combined with a witty, moving story make this a mesmerizing and emotional theater experience.

Parental Advisory: Strong language and adult situations

Director - Quinton Cockrell Music Director - Regi Yarbrough . Klook - Cecil Washington, Jr. Vinette - Kyra Faith

MOTHER EMANUEL: An American Musical Inspired by the Lives of the Emanuel Nine

Musical by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, Adam Mace, and Christian Lee

Conceived by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj

Mother Emanuel presents an interpretation of the events that transpired at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015. On that evening at around 8pm, a young white male entered the Bible Study, which was occurring at the time and sat there until around 9:05pm when he then shot nine members of the Bible Study group. Because we were not in the church that evening, this imagining of their Bible Study is homage to a specific religious experience. In the storytelling, the piece travels through the past and present lives of these nine men and women. Through the sharing of testimony, flashbacks, and song, the ensemble of performers usher in the spirits of those lost during this tragedy, putting a human face on the tragic loss. Through Mother Emanuel, the audience gets to know the lives and personal histories behind the names they've heard listed in the media, bringing to light a whole new level of understanding of the pain of loss as well as the importance of celebrating each and every moment of our own lives.

Parental Advisory: Adult Situations

Director - Rajendra Maharaj . Music Director - Joycelyn Whatley Charlestonian 1 - Cameron White Charlestonian 2 - Jeremy Jefferson Charlestonian 3 - Christi Toyer Charlestonian 4 - Joycelyn Whatley

SAM'S ROOM

Book by Dale Sampson with Trey Coates-Mitchell

Music and Lyrics by Caitlin Bell, Marc Campbell, and Dale Sampson

Sam's Room is a pop concert dramedy that follows Sam, a teenager in 1998 with nonverbal special needs, on his path to find a way to communicate. Shifting between cruel reality and pop star fantasy, Sam's Room powerfully reveals the universal struggle with communication by giving a voice to someone who's never had one.

Parental Advisory: Strong language

Director - David Callaghan Music Director - Laurie Middaugh Sam - Davis Haines Girl 1 - Natalie Collins Girl 2 - Alie B. Gorrie

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