The Bluest Eye at Aurora Theatre Company

Aurora Theatre Company will continue its 29th season with Toni Morrison's THE BLUEST EYE, adapted by Lydia R. Diamond. Associate Artistic Director Dawn Monique Williams (Bull In A China Shop) directs this poignant drama about Black girlhood, the poisonous effects of racism, and the heartbreak of shame.

THE BLUEST EYE will be presented as an audio drama, consistent with Aurora's reimagined digital 2020/2021 season due to the COVID-19 health crisis. The audio drama opens APRIL 9th, and will be available through Aurora's new membership program, and also for individual release.

"When Dawn introduced me to Lydia Diamond's adaptation of THE BLUEST EYE, I was blown away," said Artistic Director Josh Costello. "Diamond has translated Toni Morrison's story with such a sharp ear for making a scene spring off the page. And Morrison's story, exposing the ways racism can be internalized, feels as important now as when the novel was first published. We can't present THE BLUEST EYE on our stage during the pandemic, but I am so pleased that Aurora has received special permission to present Lydia Diamond's adaptation as an audio drama. Dawn is assembling a remarkable cast of local actors-it's going to be a captivating production."

THE BLUEST EYE runs APRIL 9 - MAY 21 (Opens: APRIL 9).

Pulitzer Prize Winner Toni Morrison's debut novel, The Bluest Eye (which turned fifty in 2020), comes to Aurora in a stunning adaptation by playwright Lydia R. Diamond (Stick Fly, Smart People). Pecola Breedlove is obsessed with Shirley Temple and a desire to have blue eyes. Claudia, another young girl and one of Pecola's only friends, guides us through this hauntingly lyrical memory play. Diamond expertly translates to the stage the emotional depths of Black girlhood, the poisonous effects of racism, and the heartbreak of shame in Morrison's work. Celebrated for a "profound and unrelenting vision," (The New Yorker) Morrison sets THE BLUEST EYE in her hometown of Lorain, Ohio, and places three young Black girls-Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda-center stage as they strive to make sense of love, sisterhood, abuse, and hate.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune called THE BLUEST EYE a "poignant and poetic drama."

The cast features Michael J. Asberry (Exit Strategy, Satellites), Sam Jackson (Exit Strategy, Splendour), Cathleen Riddley, Jeunee Simon, and Jasmine Milan Williams (Bull In A China Shop).