Tonya Pinkins to Star in TURNING 15 ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM at IBTF

NEW HERITAGE THEATRE GROUP and LOIRE VALLEY THEATER FESTIVAL's Gospel musical, TURNING 15 ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM, will be performed, starring Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, and directed by Jackie Alexander, Artistic Director, at the INTERNATIONAL BLACK THEATRE FESTIVAL (IBTF) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Wednesday, July 31, at 5:30pm at The Benton Convention Center. Tonya Pinkins will lead the cast in a celebrity staged-reading featuring choirs from the “Big Four” historically Black high schools (Anderson, Atkins, Carver, and Paisley) in Winston- Salem. 

Producers Voza Rivers, Executive Producer of NHTG, Lynda Blackmon Lowery, social justice activist and author of the award-winning memoir on which the musical is based, Miranda Barry, Founder and Executive Director of LVTF, and Amy Sprecher, are partnering with Jackie Alexander, the International Black Theatre Festival, and DEMOCRACY NORTH CAROLINA, the state's leading grassroots voting rights organization, to present the moving, true story of Lynda Blackmon, the youngest person to march all 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery on the 1965 Voting Rights March led by Civil Rights icon, John Lewis.

Democracy North Carolina will be sponsoring a full day of voter-registration activities prior to the Turning 15 performance, which is free to the public. Mrs. Blackmon Lowery will be honored with the Festival's ARTS AND HUMANITARIAN AWARD at the Opening Night Gala on Monday, July 29th.   

 “We are proud to promote the power of the Arts to help bring about social justice,” says Voza Rivers. “Sarafina!, which New Heritage and I brought to Broadway in 1988 along with The Market Theatre and Lincoln Center Theatre, was a South African musical by Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela depicting students involved in the Soweto Riots, which helped to raise international awareness about conditions under apartheid and segregation. Now the gospel musical, Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom, brings to life the courage and determination of young Black people in Alabama who risked their lives to win the right to vote. It is inspiring for people of all backgrounds today, when books like Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom and the teaching of Black History are being banned, to experience Lynda Blackmon's true and heartfelt story.” 

Jackie Alexander says, “I am immensely proud that the great Tonya Pinkins is taking on the central role in the musical, adapted from Mrs. Lowery's memoir by Fracaswell Hyman, with original and classic Gospel songs written and arranged by Academy Award-nominated composer, Joshuah Brian Campbell. Working with Democracy North Carolina, we will create an unforgettable celebration of the power of the vote, which could not be more relevant in North Carolina today.“

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