PLAY TITLE:

THE FIRST WOMAN

BLURB:

A collage of poetry and monologues of the African-American experience, laced with original music, renditions of African and African-American music, with a very lose storytelling element of a family’s search for peace.

NUMBER OF ACTORS:

4F

LENGTH:

One Act

GENRE:

Choreo poem

DEVELOPMENT STATUS/PRODUCTIONS:

World Premiere, The Road Theatre, produced by Imagine, Los Angeles, 2001

Lincoln Center, East Coast Premiere, Director’s Lab, directed by Ilesa Duncan, 2002

SPECIAL AUDIENCE APPEAL:

African-American, peace groups, poetry groups

SYNOPSIS:

THE FIRST WOMAN is the journey of every man, woman, and child’s search for inner and outer peace in a world where peace is the hardest of challenges.  The piece focuses on Naki and Nana, a mother and daughter, and their struggles for peace.  From monologues about the loss of God to poems about a woman who has sold her child in order to feed her family, this choreopoem is a collection of stories that tell of the African-American experience in America, but transcend that genre to speak to the larger community of the world.

SPECIAL ARTISTS:

Richard Brooks (LAW AND ORDER), Chicago Dramatists, 2002

Suzanne Douglass (PARENTHOOD, JASON’S LYRIC) Chicago Dramatists, 2002