Black Rep to Stage Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye '

This February, The Black Rep will present The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison's acclaimed bestselling novel which has been adapted for the stage by Lydia Diamond. The Bluest Eye opens in previews February 2nd and runs through March 9th.

"The setting is Lorain, Ohio, 1941. 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove prays for the one thing she knows will change her life - eyes as blue as Shirley Temple's. The year the marigolds in Lorain do not bloom, Pecola's life does change - in unexpected and devastating ways. This vivid adaptation of Toni Morrison's debut novel is the heartrending story of three girls coming of age in a world that is equal parts beauty and ugliness, love and hate, triumph and tragedy." according to a recent press release.

The Bluest Eye is directed by Black Rep Affiliate Artist Don Mays (The Colored Museum, Yellowman).  The production will feature Raidge (Two Can Play, Black Maria), Keith Mascoll (The Colored Museum, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men), and Cilla Julia Bento (The Colored Museum, Jar the Floor) with Brown University students Alexandra Metz, Maggie Perkins, and Akela Marsh, as well as Boston-based actresses Jackie Davis and Jade Guerra.

Born in Lorain, Ohio in 1931, Toni Morrison is a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and acclaimed academic.  Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was written in 1970 while she was a single mother raising two children. In 1973, her second novel, Sula was nominated for the National Book Award. Her third novel, Song of Solomon, was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1977, the first novel by a Black writer to be so chosen since Richard Wright's Native Son in 1940. It also won the National Book Critics Circle Award.  In 1988, Beloved became a critical success and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The Providence Black Repertory Company is located at 276 Westminster St. Providence, RI.  Showtimes for The Bluest Eye are Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

General Audience tickets prices are $20.00 each, with senior and student tickets $10.00 each.  Every Sunday is Pay-What-You-Can.  Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.arttixri.com or by calling the Black Rep Box Office at 401-351-0353 x2.

For more information, visit www.blackrep.org.

Photo:  Maggie Perkins as Pecola.  Photo Credit:  John Deputy

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