Poet's Theatre to Present Workshop Production of BLUE FRONT, 10/24

Conversations about race in America are always difficult and painful, doubly so when the theme is lynching. Poet Martha Collins has confronted this communal crime head on in her moving book-length poem, BLUE FRONT, about the lynching of Froggy James by an inflamed white mob in 1909 Cairo, Illinois. Martha's father was only five at the time, but he always remembered what happened that day.
BLUE FRONT has been adapted for the stage by Poets' Theatre Literary Director, David Gullette, and we want to ask our friends to help us give this play its maximum dramatic and lyrical intensity. On October 24th and again on the 25th at the New Rep's Black Box at the Arsenal Center, we'll present a workshop performance of the play, followed by an honest and open discussion between the audience, the cast, the poet, the adapter, and the director, our President, Bob Scanlan.
A full production of BLUE FRONT is planned for April 2016 in the newly-renovated nave of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul opposite Park Street Station in Boston, but the Workshop this October gives lovers of drama a chance to participate in the shaping of what promises to be a major event in Boston theatre.
Briefly, the stage version of BLUE FRONT uses four actors to present Cairo (sometimes called "the northernmost city in the South") as it was on that fateful day in 1909, recreating the voices of the Black and White communities, depicting the cityscape (including the great steel arch over Main Street from which Froggy James was hanged), riffing somberly on the key words that haunt the events, sketching out the history of race relations in Illinois, as well as the arc of the poet's father's family. The four actors play the part of a chorus, in both the musical sense (like the chorus that sings of their pain and anxiety in Bach's St Matthew's Passion) and in the classic Greek sense, the voice of a community expressing its horror and fascination about what is on the verge of happening (or has already driven to its conclusion). Because of the power of Martha Collins' poetry, the effect of hearing these four voices playing off against each other will create an emotional momentum that most "realist" theatre simply can't reach.
The mission of the Poets' Theatre is to build bridges between the worlds of theatre and of poetry. This is your chance to help us make our way up the arch of that bridge, at the peak of which great poetry and skillful dramatic artistry will meet and merge.
Tickets are free, but a minimum donation is suggested.

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