Washington Stage Guild to Return to the Stage With MY CHILDREN! MY AFRICA!

The Washington Stage Guild will return to the stage with a masterwork by one of the modern theatre's most important figures: My Children! My Africa!, the great South African playwright Athol Fugard's meditation on education and its role in the struggle for justice, along with its sad limits in a culture of oppression and bigotry. In an Eastern Cape Karoo town in South Africa in 1984, devoted teacher Mr. M seeks to provide a future for his prize pupil Thami by forming a debate team with a bright student from the local white school, Isabel. But Mr. M's hopes for Thami are challenged by their generational divide and the political violence brewing outside the classroom.

"The Stage Guild presented one of Fugard's early works, Blood Knot, in our second season" says Artistic Director Bill Largess. "We are so glad to mark our 35th anniversary by returning to his riveting characters and the vision of human nature and its failings that he brings to the stage."

Says director Gerrad Alex Taylor, "There are multiple facets of this play that speak to our time, I feel. The major influences of language on thought and society that are explored thematically throughout My Children! My Africa! are just one of the many complex and valuable conversations that this play brings to the forefront of our thinking. We are introduced to this teacher (Mr. M) who values the power of books and reading and language, but he is challenged to investigate the equity and inclusion of the written knowledge he so cherishes. What an incredibly complicated and human conundrum! As an educator myself, I can relate to the issues of what we purport to be of value in literature and language. Too often, because of colonialism and the systemic disenfranchisement of many people and cultures around the world, narratives of the human experience have been slanted towards one type of voice. It is long overdue for us to acknowledge this fault in our society and interrogate whose voices have been allowed in the narratives we tell and whose have been silenced. My Children! My Africa! takes place in 1984 but sheds a light on the complicated dialogues we have about equity and inclusion today and probably will continue to have long into the future. It is a play of then AND now and I can't wait to share the world of 1984 Camdeboo with DC audiences this Fall."

Making his Washington Stage Guild debut, DeJeanette Horne will play dedicated teacher, Mr. M. (Anela Myalatya). Among other credits, area audiences have seen

Mr. Horne in The Adventures of Pericles with The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company; West By God with The Keegan Theatre; in both Harvey and One Man Two Guvnors with 1st Stage; The Infinite Tales with 4615 Theatre Company; and in The Fire and the Rain with Constellation Theater Company.

Playing his prize pupil, Thami Mbikwana, will be Jordan Brown, whom Stage Guild audiences saw in WSG's online presentation of How He Lied to Her Husband in March of this year. Mr. Brown's other credits include She Kills Monsters with Rorschach Theatre; Henry VI Part I with Brave Spirits Theatre; and Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest at Stevenson University, where he earned his degree.

In her Washington Stage Guild debut, Libby Barnard* will play Isabel Dyson, a girl from the neighboring all-white academy. Ms. Barnard is a recent MFA graduate of the Academy for Classical Acting with Shakespeare Theatre Company at George Washington University. Her credits include two seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; a year-long national tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and A Tale of Two Cities with the National Players; and work with Seattle Public Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre and Wooden O: Seattle Shakespeare Company.

*Member, Actors' Equity Association

My Children! My Africa! is directed by Gerrad Alex Taylor, whom Stage Guild audiences will remember as Joshua Moore in Alabama Story in 2018. Mr. Taylor is an actor, director, and educator based out of the DMV region. He is the current Associate Artistic Director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore, MD, where he coordinates casting and community partnerships. He is a member of Chesapeake Shakespeare's Black Classical Acting Ensemble, an affinity space for black actors interested in training and exposure of the "classics" and what an expansion of the classical canon may look like today, where acknowledgement and exploration of an Afrocentric theatre has become globally important. Gerrad teaches in the theatre departments at University of Maryland, Baltimore County and George Washington University. He also serves as a full-time faculty member in the theatre department of his alma mater, The Johns Hopkins University. He holds a BA in Neuroscience from Hopkins and an MFA in Performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has worked with theatres and educational institutions across the country, including the Great River Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Pacific Conservatory Theatre-PCPA, The Children's Theatre of Annapolis, Everyman Theatre, Constellation Theatre Company, Mosaic Theatre Company, and Washington Stage Guild. In 2021 he was named one of Baltimore's "40 Under 40" by the Washington Business Journal. He is a member of the Actors' Equity Association and the Society of American Fight Directors.

The set will be designed by Tiffani I. Sydnor, a 2013 graduate of GWU with an MFA in Production Design, making her Stage Guild debut. Ms. Sydnor is currently assistant art directing We Own This City (HBO) and is designing Smart People at GWU.

Costumes will be designed by Cheryl Yancy, who designed Translations in the Stage Guild's very first season 35 years ago as a GWU graduate student, and more recently costumed our Candida in the Fall of 2019; she is an Associate Professor of Costume Design at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

Sound designer Kaydin Hamby is making their WSG debut with this production; they hold a BA in Theatre Design and Production and a minor in music from the University of Maryland Baltimore County; their designs include work with Chesapeake Theatre Company; Hangar Theatre Company, Ithaca NY; and D.C.'s Taffety Punk Theatre Company.

WSG's resident lighting designer and four-time Helen Hayes Award nominee Marianne Meadows will design the lighting. Her most recent designs away from the Stage Guild are for Solas Nua: The Smuggler, staged at the speakeasy bar of the Eaton Hotel, and In the Middle of a Field, staged at the P Street Beach outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tola Lawal will guide the actors as dialect coach. Ms. Lawal received her MFA at University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2019. She prides herself on being polyglot with a focus in Romance languages, Arabic and her native tongue, Yoruba. Her affinity with linguistics deepened in Graduate school where she was re-introduced to phonology with a concentration in accents and dialects.

All attendees at Washington Stage Guild performances of My Children! My Africa! must present a photo ID and show proof that they meet the CDC definition of being fully vaccinated at the time of entry into the theatre with a physical or digital copy of their vaccination card. Masks will also be required for all guests, regardless of vaccination status, at all times while attending this production.

For more information visit: https://stageguild.org/

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