McCree Theatre Awarded National Endowment Of The Arts (NEA) Grant

The New McCree Theatre was award a $10,000 Access to Artistic Excellence grant for Musical Theater by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This grant is being used to support McCree’s  Traveling Theatre Experience (TTE)program.  TTE is presenting the hit Broadway musical, Purlie, based on the play, Purlie Victorious by Ossie Davis, June 12 and 13, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. at the beautiful Malcolm Field Theatre on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University, 7400 Bay Road, 3 miles north of the Fashion Square Mall.

Purlie, the musical, takes us back in time, when cotton was king and sharecropping—that new form of involuntary servitude—was the order of the day for many African Americans in the south.

Along comes Purlie Victorious Judson, a new fangled preacher with new ideas about reigning supreme over those old bastions of chattel slavery.  Purlie sets out to free the masses of Stonewall Jackson Cotchipee’s plantation at any cost and by any means necessary—so what if it takes some lying, trickery, and conniving to do so?

Purlie is dead set on getting the $500.00 inheritance his Aunt Henrietta left to Cousin Bee that Ol’ Cap’n is holding for safekeeping so that he can re-open Big Bethel, the colored church on the Plantation. He  plans to use the church as a forum to free the sharecroppers.  Purlie’s scheme is to convince Ol’ Cap’n that Luttiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, a young lady he met in Alabama, is, in fact, Cousin Bee, back home to claim her rightful inheritance.

The fun and the frolic, begins there.  Buttressed by an excellent musical score and outstanding vocalists, the play deftly pokes fun at a bygone era in American History.

During its Broadway run, Purlie was nominated for seven Tony Awards.  Melba Moore and Clevon Little received Tony’s for best actress and actor, respectively, in a musical.  It played to rave reviews during its first Michigan run in Flint in February and March 2009.  Purlie is a musical comedy Suitable for the entire family. Tickets are $20.00 per person and can be purchased at the Malcolm Field theatre box office in the Saginaw Valley area, or at the “New” McCree Theatre, 322 E. Hamilton in Flint.  Call (810) 232-9243 or (989) 964-4261 for information.

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