Huntington Theatre Company Announces MILK LIKE SUGAR Events

In conjunction with its current production of Milk Like Sugar, the Huntington Theatre Company will host a number of special events and post-show conversations. Admission to onsite post-show events is free with a ticket to Milk Like Sugar, available at huntingtontheatre.org/milk-like-sugar, by phone at 617 266 0800, or in person at the BU Theatre (264 Huntington Avenue) and Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (527 Tremont Street) box offices. Tickets start at $25. Performances begin Friday, January 29, 2016 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

In Milk Like Sugar, Annie and her teenage friends want the same things: the hottest new phones, cute boys, designer bags. But when they enter into a pregnancy pact, she wonders if there might be a different path and a brighter future. Kirsten Greenidge (Luck of the Irish) finds raw humor and gritty poetry in this provocative, ripped-from-the-headlines new play that explores what it means to acquire the status the world says you deserve when the opportunity and means to attain it are not afforded to you.

COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP RECEPTION

Tuesday, February 2 before the 7:30pm performance

A pre-show reception with refreshments for members of the Huntington Community Membership program. Community Membership is an initiative designed to reduce the cost barrier of attending live theatre for those with limited income and to diversify the Huntington's audience to better reflect the city of Boston. Members can purchase best-available tickets to any performance without restriction for just $20. Membership is free and available through partnerships with agencies and organizations that serve limited-income populations.

URBAN PROFESSIONALS NIGHT
Friday, February 5 after the 8pm performance

A special post-show reception with playwright Kirsten Greenidge and members of the cast immediately following the 8pm performance in Deane Hall. Urban Professionals Night is a private event, by invitation only.

BOSTON GLOBE EVENT WITH REPORTER KATHY McCABE AND MILK LIKE SUGAR DIRECTOR M. BEVIN O'GARA

Sunday, February 7 after the 2pm performance
Boston Globe reporter Kathy McCabe will lead a post-show talkback about the events that inspired the play with Milk Like Sugar director M. Bevin O'Gara. Tickets to the February 7 performance are $45 for Boston Globe subscribers who use the discount code BGEVENT.

Kathy McCabe is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe North. She joined the staff in 2002, after working as a Globe correspondent. She writes on a variety of subjects, including local government, community development, religion, and small businesses, and covered the Gloucester pregnancy pact story in 2008. She has been a weekend assistant Metro editor at the Globe since 2015.

M. Bevin O'Gara is the director of Milk Like Sugar. She is the associate producer at the Huntington Theatre Company where she has also directed Melinda Lopez's Becoming Cuba. Other directing credits include Appropriate, A Future Perfect, Tribes, and Clybourne Park (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Brahman/i, Chronicles of Kalki, You for Me for You, Love Person, and The Pain and the Itch (Company One Theatre); Phedre (Actors' Shakespeare Project); Translations (Bad Habit Productions); Matt and Ben (Central Square Theater); Two Wives in India and Gary (Boston Playwrights' Theatre); 2.5 Minute Ride (New Repertory Theatre); Othello and The Crucible (New Rep On Tour); Melancholy Play (Holland Productions); Tattoo Girl, Painting You, and Artifacts (Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop); and ANTI-KISS (3 Monkeys Theatrical Productions). She has also worked with New Repertory Theatre, the Gaiety Theatre of Dublin, and the Actors Centre of Australia, and is the recipient of the Lois Roach Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Boston Theatre Community from Company One Theatre. She has a BFA from Boston University in theatre studies. mbevinogara.com.

STUDENT MATINEE

Thursday, February 11 at 10am
Friday, February 26 at 10am

For students in grades 9-12. Tickets: $15. Includes pre-show in-school visit, curriculum guide, post-show Actors Forum, and Dramatic Returns card for each student. Call 617 273 1558 for more information.

ACTORS FORUMS
Thursday, February 11 after the 10am performance (student matinee)

Thursday, February 18 after the 7:30pm performance

Wednesday, February 24 after the 2pm performance
Friday, February 26 after the 10am performance (student matinee)

Meet participating members of the cast of Milk Like Sugar and ask them your questions at the Actors Forum following the performance.

STAGESOURCE NIGHT/PARITY PARTY WITH PLAYWRIGHT KIRSTEN GREENIDGE AND STAGESOURCE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JULIE HENNRIKUS

Wednesday, February 17 after the 7:30pm performance

Join Huntington playwright Kirsten Greenidge and StageSource Executive Director Julie Hennrikus for a post-show discussion about the development and inspiration for Milk Like Sugar following the 7:30pm performance as part of StageSource's 30th anniversary celebration. Parity Parties are held in honor of productions in Boston that center on women's stories, create access for women artists, and spread the word and work of creative women in Boston theatre.

Kirsten Greenidge is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of Luck of the Irish (premiered at the Huntington in 2012) and The View from Here (commission from the Huntington's Education Department). A Village Voice/Obie Award winner and a recent PEN/America Laura Pels Award recipient, she is also the author of Splendor, Bossa Nova, Rust, Sans - Culottes in the Promised Land, 103 Within the Veil, and The Gibson Girl. She has developed her work at Sundance (Utah and Ucross), Magic Theatre, National New Play Network, Page 73 Productions, Bay Area Playwrights, Playwrights Horizons, New Dramatists, ASK, McCarter Theatre Center, and New Georges. She is a recipient of an NEA/TCG residency at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and was playwright-in-residence at Company One Theatre. She has also received Sundance's Time Warner Award for Bossa Nova. Ms. Greenidge attended Wesleyan University and the University of Iowa's Playwrights Workshop. A member of Rhombus and an alumna member of New Dramatists, she is currently working on commissions from the Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Big Ten, The Kennedy Center, and Playwrights Horizons.

Julie Hennrikus is the Executive Director of StageSource and an adjunct faculty member who teaches classes in arts management at Emerson College. She began her arts management career in small commercial theatres in Boston - as a box office assistant and house manager for Little Shop of Horrors and Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare at the Charles Playhouse, company manager of A..My Name is Alice at the Next Move Theater, and box office manager and company manager of Nunsense at the Charles Playhouse. She worked in several exhibition box offices at the Museum of Fine Arts (including "Renoir," "Mummies," and "Magic and Helga"). In 1990 she oversaw the box office set up and operations for Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment at the ICA. In 1991 she was hired by Harvard University to create a box office for the Sanders Theatre, a 1,166 seat concert hall in Memorial Hall. After a renovation of Memorial Hall she was promoted to program manager, scheduling Sanders Theatre, Annenberg Hall, Lowell Hall, and 16 other spaces. She continued to oversee the box office operations, which was renamed the Harvard Box Office. Ms. Hennrikus is a published mystery writer and was the 2013 president of Sisters in Crime New England, the communications liaison on the board of Sisters in Crime, and a member of Mystery Writers of America. She has a BS from Boston University in mass communication, a graduate certificate in management from Radcliffe College, and a master's of liberal arts in the area of English and American literature and language from Harvard University.

POST-SHOW CONVERSATION WITH CIARA MEJIA FROM MASSACHUSETTS ALLIANCE ON TEEN PREGNANCY

Saturday, February 20 after the 2pm performance
Join Ciara Mejia, Social Media Coordinator & Young Parent Policy Fellow from the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, and Huntington Literary Apprentice Phaedra Scott for a post-show discussion about teen pregnancy and the themes in Milk Like Sugar following the 2pm performance.

Ciara Mejia joined the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy as a young parent policy fellow in September 2013 and transitioned into the role of social media coordinator, while still working with the Fellows. Ms. Mejia works directly with the digital communications manager to maintain the Alliance's social media platforms and to advance the mission and goals of the organization by engaging with collaborative organizations and youth via social media. She assists in developing strategic communication plans for projects and identifying opportunities of improvement for social media strategies and platforms. Ms. Mejia has previously worked at ABCD Health services as a health educator using social media platforms to educate, empower, and engage with young women on HIV/STI prevention and awareness. She is working towards a degree in public health and is a blog contributor for thepushback.org.

HUMANITIES FORUM WITH HARVARD PROFESSOR ROBIN BERNSTEIN

Sunday, February 21 after the 2pm performance

Join Huntington dramaturg Charles Haugland and Robin Bernstein, professor of studies of women, gender, and sexuality and of African and African American studies at Harvard University, for an in-depth discussion about the themes in Milk Like Sugar following the 2pm performance.

Robin Bernstein is a professor of studies of women, gender, and sexuality and of African and African American studies at Harvard University. Her books include Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, which won five awards, the edited anthology Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater, and a Jewish feminist children's book titled Terrible, Terrible! She is currently writing a book titled White Angels, Black Threats: How Stories about Childhood Innocence Influence What We See, Think, and Feel about Race in America.

POST-SHOW CONVERSATION WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATRE SCHOLAR ADRIENNE MACKI BRACONI

Saturday, February 27 after the 2pm performance
Join African American theatre scholar Adrienne Macki Braconi and Huntington dramaturg Charles Haugland for a post-show discussion about the themes in Milk Like Sugar following the 2pm performance.

Dr. Adrienne Macki Braconi is the assistant professor in dramatic arts and the faculty affiliate for the Institute for Africana studies and American studies program at the University of Connecticut. She teaches courses in gender and performance, African American theatre, African American women playwrights, sports and performance, and introduction to theatre. She is an award-winning scholar, artist, educator, and author of numerous articles and essays. Her first book, Harlem's Theaters: A Staging Ground for Community, Class, and Contradiction, 1923-1939 (Northwestern UP, 2015) examines the political and social importance of Harlem's community theatres in the 1920s and 1930s. It studies three important community-based theatres in Harlem to show how their work was essential to the formation of a public identity for African Americans. It argues that both theatre practitioners and theatre audiences worked together not only to redefine the meaning of blackness, but also to create the foundation for the subsequent civil rights movement. Ms. Braconi has also worked as a director and a dramaturg. Her artistic collaborations include dramaturgy projects with the Connecticut Repertory Theatre and the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. She has served on the boards of the American Theatre and Drama Society, the Black Theatre Network, and on the executive committee of the American Society for Theatre Research. She received her BA in theatre from Middlebury College, masters in theatre education from Emerson College, and PhD in drama from Tufts University. She is delighted to be back at the Huntington; it became her first artistic home as she attended performances, and participated in seminars, talks, and workshops through its after-school program for high school students.

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