The Castillo Theatre Presents DR. DUBOIS AND MISS OVINGTON, 2/22-2/24

The National Black Touring Circuit's 2013 Black History Month Play Festival presents Dr. DuBois and Miss Ovington, a drama about the early years of the NAACP written by Clare Coss and co-starring Peter Jay Fernandez as W.E.B. DuBois and Kathleen Chalfant as Mary White Ovington from February 22 - 24 at the Castillo Theatre, 543 West 42rd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenue).

Dr. DuBois and Miss Ovington, directed by Gabrielle Kurlander, captures a moment of crisis between two esteemed founders of the NAACP in 1915 when DuBois submits his resignation. Du Bois is an educator, human rights activist, and founder of The Crisis magazine and Ovington is a white Unitarian, granddaughter of abolitionists, and outspoken justice advocate. Together, they spar, flirt, clash, reveal secrets, and compete to save their vital work.

Kathleen Chalfant has been nominated for Tony and Drama Desk awards for the Broadway production of Angels in America. For her role in Wit, she earned Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics awards. Her television credits include: Rescue Me, One Life to Live, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Beat, and Storm of the Century. Peter Jay Fernandez has been featured in the Broadway productions of Cyrano de Bergerac, Henry IV, Jelly's Last Jam, Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice and on television programs Deception, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods and Law and Order. He's earned two Audelco awards and a Helen Hayes award nomination.

On Sunday, February 24, following the 3:00pm matinee, there will be a special discussion on W.E.B. DuBois as the founding editor of The Crisis Magazine, the official publication of the NAACP by Laura D. Blackburne, chairman and publisher of The Crisis. A retired New York
Supreme Court judge, she has served over 50 years of public and community service and being an advisor to four New York City mayors and two New York State governors. She's operated as President of the Institute of Mediation and Conflict Resolution for 10 years and a law professor at St. John's University School of Law. In addition, she served for three years as a New York Civil Court judge and five years as a New York Supreme Court judge. Currently, Judge Blackburne hosts the radio talk show The Crisis Today on WTHE-AM in Mineola, New York.

The 2013 Black History Month Play Festival examines American history from anti-slavery Abolitionists to the emergence of the NAACP to the height of the civil rights movement through dramas on the lives of African American historic figures Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Adam Clayton Powell. The recent biographical production on Adam Clayton Powell starred Timothy Simonson in Adam and Ralph McCain starred as Frederick Douglass in He Who Endures.

The 2013 Black History Month Play Festival is produced by Woodie King, Jr., founder/producer/director of the National Black Touring Circuit and Kim Weston Moran, the associate producer. King is a winner of the Obie Award for Sustained Achievement and a member of the prestigious American Theater Hall of Fame.

The Black History Month Play Festival performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 3:00pm. Tickets are $20. For more information call (212) 279-4200 or ticketcentral.com

The National Black Touring Circuit was founded in 1974, by Woodie King, Jr. to make existing Black theatre productions available to a larger audience by presenting to the Black communities at large, to colleges, to Black art centers, and to resident professional theatres. The program is funded by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts and individual contributions.

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