Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Hosts Post Show Discussion After THE GOOD NEGRO 4/11

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) announced that Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. will host a post-show discussion immediately following the Saturday, April 11 2 p.m. matinee of THE GOOD NEGRO by Tracey Scott Wilson. Directed by Liesl Tommy and presented in association with Dallas Theater Center, THE GOOD NEGRO opened to critical acclaim last month and will continue its extended run through Sunday, April 19.

Dr. Gates, one of the world's most respected public intellectuals and the Director of Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research, will moderate a discussion between THE GOOD NEGRO's playwright Tracey Scott Wilson and director Liesl Tommy, and Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home. The discussion will be open to all ticket holders for the April 11 matinee performance; no additional admission is required.

"On behalf of everyone at The Public, we are deeply honored to welcome Dr. Gates to our theater," said Associate Artistic Director Mandy Hackett. "We are very fortunate to have the chance to engage with such a visionary mind and share in a dialogue around the important issues raised in Tracey's play."

The cast for THE GOOD NEGRO features Joniece Abbott-Pratt (Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?), Francois Battiste (Prelude to a Kiss on Broadway), J. Bernard Calloway ("Rescue Me"), Quincy Dunn-Baker (Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare in the Park), Erik Jensen (Spain at MCC), LeRoy McClain (Cymbeline at Lincoln Center), Curtis McClarin (King Hedley II at Signature), Rachel Nicks (Life Support) and BrIan Wallace (A Christmas Carol at Trinity Rep).

THE GOOD NEGRO, recently nominated for three 2009 Lucille Lortel Awards including Outstanding Play, is a gripping new play that rips through the pages of history to uncover the human story at the heart of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. In the increasingly hostile South, tensions build as a trio of emerging black leaders attempts to conquer their individual demons amidst death threats from the Klan and wire taps by the FBI. Through personal and intimate stories inspired by the political upheavals of the era, THE GOOD NEGRO examines the human frailties behind the historic headlines.

THE GOOD NEGRO features scenic and costume design by Clint Ramos; lighting design by Lap Chi Chu; and sound design by Daniel Baker.

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Professor Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies, and of The Root, an online news magazine. He co-edited the African American National Biography (OUP, 2008), an 8-volume set containing more than 4,000 biographical entries on well-known and obscure African Americans, and Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (OUP, 2005). He has authored countless books (most recently Finding Oprah's Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007), a meditation on genetics, genealogy, and race) and works of literary criticism, and he has edited numerous influential anthologies and essay collections. In addition, Professor Gates is the publisher of Transition magazine and has written articles for Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Further, he has written and produced documentaries for PBS and the BBC. Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summa cum laude in History from Yale University. Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell, and Duke. His many honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" (1981). He has received nearly 50 honorary degrees and serves on the boards of several cultural, academic, and research institutions.
DIANE MCWHORTER is an American journalist and commentator who has written extensively about race and the history of civil rights. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and A Dream of Freedom, a young adult history of the civil rights movement (Scholastic, 2004). She is a long-time contributor to The New York Times and has written for the op-ed page of USA Today, Slate, and many other publications. She is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and now lives in New York City with her two children Isabel and Lucy. She graduated from Wellesley College after attending The Brooke Hill School in Birmingham and was a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, for Fall 2007.

Liesl Tommy (Director). Her directing credits include Angela's Mixtape by Eisa Davis; Flight by Charlayne Woodard; Small Tragedy by Craig Lucas; Camino Real; The Good Negro; Uncle Vanya; Split Ends; Our Lady of 121st Street; Bus and Family Ties by Cristian Panaite; Hydriotaphia by Tony Kushner; Misterioso 119 by Koffi Kwahule; Adventures of Barrio Grrrl by Quiara Hudes; and A Stone's Throw by Lynn Nottage. Awards: NEA/TCG Directors Grant, NYTW Casting/Directing Fellowship. A member of Soho Rep and Lincoln Center Director's Labs, Ms. Tommy teaches directing at Brown University and acting at NYU.

TRACEY Scott Wilson (Playwright). Her current work includes The Story, produced at The Public Theater. Additional productions include Order My Steps for Cornerstone Theater's Black Faith/AIDS project in Los Angeles; and Exhibit #9, which was produced in New York City by New Perspectives Theatre and Theatre Outrageous; Leader of the People, produced at New Georges Theatre; two ten-minute plays produced at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis; a ten minute play produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Tracey has had readings at the New York Theatre Workshop, New Georges Theatre, The Public Theatre and Soho Theatre Writers Centre in London. She earned two Van Lier Fellowships from the New York Theatre Workshop, a residency at Sundance Ucross and Sundance Theatre Laboratory is the winner of the 2001 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, the 2003 AT&T Onstage Award, the 2004 Whiting Award, the 2004 Kesserling Prize, the 2007 Weissberger Playwriting Award as well as the 2007 Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship. Ms. Wilson holds a Master's degree in English Literature from Temple University.

 

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