CAPA and OSU Present A SONG FOR CORETTA at Lincoln Theatre March 5-7

Produced by CAPA and the OSU Department of Theatre, Pearl Cleage's A Song for Coretta will play the Lincoln Theatre (21 E. Main St.) March 5-7. Inspired by the long line of mourners at Ebenezer Baptist Church paying their respects to Mrs. Coretta Scott King, this play introduces five fictional African-American women, aged 17 to 57, who find laughter and hope while waiting in the rain to say goodbye. A Song For Coretta explores the impact Mrs. King had on the lives of these women, and the connections they build with one another through her memory and legacy.

Helen is a righteous 56-year-old woman who met Coretta Scott King many years before and remembers the civil rights struggles Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King lead. Zora is a 22-year-old journalism student who hopes her interviews with people in line will be aired on National Public Radio. Their talk reveals Helen's concern with what she considers to be the decline of young peoples' values and their lack of interest in the history of the struggle for equal rights. They are joined by Mona Lisa, a 40-year-old artist who survived the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, but lost almost everything and has been living in her car. Later, Keisha, a pregnant teenager, and Gwen, a traumatized Iraq war veteran, join them and all find compassion and strength through their companionship and the inspiration they draw from Coretta Scott King's life.

Show times are Friday, March 5, 7:30 pm; Saturday, March 6, 3 pm and 7:30 pm; and Sunday, March 7, 3 pm. Tickets are $18 at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000. The Lincoln Theatre Ticket Office will open two hours prior to the performance. Students between the ages of 13-19 may purchase $5 High Five tickets while available. Presented in association with The King Arts Complex, this Spectrum Series presentation is made possible through the generous support of series sponsors David and Mo Meuse.

Directed by Lesley Ferris, the five main characters in this one-act, hour-long production will be played by Nakia Smith (Helen), Terita Parms (Mona Lisa), Sierra Hall (Zora), Jazzmen Harris (Keisha), and Tamika Thomas (Gwen).

The production will tour to several area schools prior to the engagement at the Lincoln Theatre. Schools on the tour include Baldwin Road Middle School, Dublin Scioto High School, Pickerington High School North, Ashton Middle School, Clinton Middle School, Johnson Park Middle School, and Linden-McKinley Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics High School.

Pearl Cleage is a fiction writer, playwright, poet, essayist, and journalist who has lived in Atlanta for more than 30 years. In her writing, Cleage draws on her experiences as an activist for AIDS and women's rights, and she cites the rhythms of black life as her muse. Cleage's first novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, was an Oprah Book Club selection in 1998 and appeared on the New York Times best-seller list for nine weeks.

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