TOUGH TITTY Marks 3rd Play Of Magic Theater's 2008/9 Season

Loretta Greco has chosen Tough Titty to start off the new year, a dynamically theatrical and surprisingly funny odyssey through one woman's battle with breast cancer. Tough Titty, written by Oni Faida Lampley and directed by Robert O'Hara, marks the third play of Magic Theatre's 2008/09 season. In Tough Titty, when Angela's routine cannot keep breast cancer at bay, she must learn to face the disease, her family, and her community with equal doses of tenacity and humor. Richly emotional, Tough Titty is a boisterous exploration of one woman's willful search for grace.

Oni Faida Lampley lived for 13 years after a diagnosis of breast cancer. During those years she raised her two sons, auditioned and performed in a number of plays and television shows and continued to teach and write. Among the pieces she wrote during that period is Tough Titty, a play that puts a picture of a black woman with breast cancer in front of people as no one has ever done before. After looking at all the pamphlets of white women in her doctor's office, Oni said of her play: "Here is my pamphlet." Tough Titty is a story about the gift and limitations of family, of raising sons and living with uncertainty, and of claiming one's own life. It's a bold, honest play by a playwright whose experience of cancer fed her empathy and daring. Loretta Greco read the play during its development, and as incoming Artistic Director of Magic the first call she made was to Oni's agent, Beth Blickers: "This is the play," Greco said, "I haven't been able to forget." In 2006, Tough Titty was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize, given to women who deserve recognition for having written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

Tough Titty's large ensemble stars Bay Area favorites Jeri-Lynn Cohen and AdrIan Roberts and debuts Kimberly Gregory of New York and Michele Shay of Los Angeles. Obie-Award winning director Robert O'Hara makes his long awaited return to Magic Theatre.

The production team for Tough Titty features set designer Caleb Levengood, light designer Kurt Landisman, costume designer Jessica Jahn, and Magic's resident sound designer Sara Huddleston.

Tough Titty performs January 24 - February 22, 2009 at Magic's Northside Theatre (Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA - parking lot entrance at Marina Blvd. and Buchanan St.). Tickets are $25-$45 (with student rates at $15) and are available at (415) 441-8822 or www.magictheatre.org.

Oni Faida Lampley (playwright 1959-2008)'s plays were produced in New York and regionally. Her first play, Mixed Babies, (published by Dramatists Play Service) won a Helen Hayes award for Outstanding New Play for its Washington D.C. production. It was subsequently produced in New York City by Manhattan Class Company. Her second play, The Dark Kalamazoo, earned her another Helen Hayes nomination, premiered in New York at the Drama Department and was published in The Fire This Time, by TCG, along with plays by Pulitzer Prize winners August Wilson and Suzan Lori Parks. Her play, Tough Titty, about a family surviving the rigors of marriage and chronic illness received an extended workshop production at Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of Charles Randolph Wright. The play was commissioned by South Coast Repertory and made Lampley a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and a recipient of a 2006 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award. Her play Sons was commissioned by Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis. As a member of Juilliard's Playwrighting Program, Oni received the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nouy Award. Other grants and commissions include The Booomarang Fund for Artists Inc., the Smithsonian Institute, the William and Eva Fox Foundation grant, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and a NYSCA grant via Brooklyn Information and Culture (BRIC) which was a frequent supporter of her work. She was a member of New Dramatists, The Actors Center and a Playwright-In-Residence with Mud/Bone Theatre Company. In 2007 she participated in a three-week playwrighting residency at the National Theatre in London. Oni appeared in several films including Stay, Moneytrain, Jungle to Jungle and John Sayles' Lonestar. On television she appeared in Law and Order, Third Watch, The Sopranos, As the World Turns, NYPD Blue, and Oz. She was seen on Broadway in The Ride Down Mount Morgan, Two Trains Running, and Mule Bone. She was seen off-Broadway in Mud, River, Stone, Zooman and the Sign, The Destiny of Me and Boesman and Lena among others. Regionally she worked at Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Old Globe, Center Stage and The Acting Company. Oni is survived by her husband Tommy Abney and sons Olu and Ade.

Robert O'Hara (director) received an OBIE Award for his direction of In the Continuum at Primary Stage/Perry Street Theater. He wrote and directed the world premiere of Insurrection: Holding History at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater. Insurrection received the Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play and was subsequently published by both Theater Communications Group and Dramatists Play Service. Mr. O'Hara has directed at New York Shakespeare Festival, Primary Stages, Yale Rep, Wooly Mammoth, Kirk Douglas Theater (CTG), American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Edinburgh Fringe Fest, The Market Theater in Johannesburg, The Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, The Culture Project, The Flea, Athenaeum Theater, Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Goodman Theatre and The Perry Street Theatre. He has been an Artist in Residence at American Conservatory Theater, New York Shakespeare Festival, and Theater/Emory as well as a Visiting Professor at DePaul University School of the Arts. His most recent directing credits include Marcus Gardley's And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi (Sundance/Public Theater Workshop), Tarell McCraney's Trilogy Brother/Sister Plays (the McCarter Theater/Public Theater Workshop), world premieres of Chad Beckim's Light Rise on Grace (Fringe Award Best New Play and Best of Fest) and The Maine Play. His new play Antebellum will have its World Premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theater next season. His play Good Breeding will be produced by American Conservatory Theater next Season. His plays have been produced around the world and he has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, TCG Extended Collaboration Grant, NEA/TCG Fellowship, a Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists, Mark Taper Forum's Sherwood Award, and the TANNE Award for Exceptional Body of Work. He is currently under commission from LaJolla Playhouse and has been commissioned previously by Mark Taper Forum, National Endowment of the Arts, McCarter Theater, Theatres de Nimes, Le Theatre L'Odeon, Theatreworks/USA and Theater/Emory. He recently completed work on the revival of The Wiz directed by Des McAnuff. He has written for Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Avnet/Kerner, HBO, ABC, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, New Line/Fine Line Cinema and Artisan Entertainment. He is currently a member of the 2008 Obie Jury.

Kimberly Hebert Gregory (Angela)'s past theatrical credits include: Miss Sippi in Jesus Moonwalked the Mississippi at Sundance Theatre Institute, Portia in Julius Caesar at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Ida Jackson in The Amen Corner at The Goodman Theatre, multiple roles in Nickel and Dimed at Steppenwolf Theatre, Aunt Elegua in Brother/Sister play readings at the McCarter Theatre, and Shenzi in the National Tour of The Lion King. TV/Film credits include: I Think I love My Wife, Gossip Girls, New Amsterdam and The Black Donnelly's.

Michele Shay (Sheila) has appeared in San Francisco at ACT in Hecuba with Olympia Dukakis, and August Wilson's Seven Guitars and Gem of the Ocean. She has played Aunt Ester in Gem directed by Reuben Santiago-Hudson (ACT), Phylicia Rashad (Seattle Rep), herself (North Carolina School of the Arts) and by Kenny Leon in August Wilson's 20th Century at the Kennedy Center and the Alliance Theatre. She's appeared on Broadway in Seven Guitars (Tony nomination,NAACP Award), Samm Art Williams' Home and For Colored Girls ; off- Broadway in The Vagina Monologues,Titania in Midsummer Night's Dream opposite William Hurt, in Coriolanus opposite Morgan Freeman(NYSF), Mustapha Matura's Meetings (Obie Award) and the world premiere of Radio Golf at Yale. Television and film credits include ER, Another World, He Got Game, and One True Thing. A Fox Grant recipient, Ms Shay is a coach in NASA's acclaimed Leadership Alchemy Program at Goddard Space Center, a director and teacher interested in the magical power of energy, conscious acting, and communication.

Founded in 1967, Magic Theatre is one of the preeminent theatres in the nation solely dedicated to development and production of new plays. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Loretta Greco, Magic Theatre operates with a budget of $1.5 million in San Francisco's historic Fort Mason Center. Magic Theatre's plays and playwrights have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, Kennedy Center Award, NAACP Image Award, Obie Awards, Pen-West Awards, Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards, and Los Angeles Drama-Logue Awards. The list of playwrights whose works have premiered at the Magic reads like a "Who's Who of American Theatre": David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, Nilo Cruz, Charles Mee, Anne Bogart, and Rebecca Gilman among many others. For more information, visit the Magic Theatre website at www.magictheatre.org.

 

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