About Face Theatre & Ellen Stone Belic Institute Announce SWEET TEA, Through 5/29

Jane M. Saks, Executive Director of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute, and About Face Theatre Artistic Director, Bonnie Metzgar, announce the world premiere of a new one-person play, SWEET TEA: Black Gay Men of the South, written and performed by E. Patrick Johnson, and directed by award-winning artist Daniel Alexander Jones. Based on Johnson's popular book, SWEET TEA: Black Gay Men of the South, the play brings to life the many interviewees who comprise his fascinating oral history about black, gay southern life.

SWEET TEA is co-produced by Jane M. Saks, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago, and About Face Theatre. Major funding for SWEET TEA is provided by The Boeing Company, the Leadership Donors of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute, and lead supporters of About Face Theatre.

The press performances for SWEET TEA will be Friday, May 7th and Saturday, May 8th at 7:30pm. SWEET TEA runs from April 29 through May 29, 2010 at the Viaduct Theater, located at 3111 N. Western. Shows are Wednesday - Saturday at 7:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 3pm. For tickets, visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call (773) 296-6024.

«It is a privilege and an honor to have worked with E. Patrick Johnson over several years to introduce into the theatrical canon the lives and stories of individuals who have often been invisible,»says Saks, Co-Producer and Executive Director of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute. «What E. Patrick does is bring oxygen and audiences to stories we really cannot live without knowing. The men in Sweet Tea as well as E. Patrick himself bring depth, poignancy and poetry to their individual stories, as well as great power and
impact to the narrative landscape of gay black men of the South." »

«The journey E. Patrick Johnson takes as a star academic, anthropologist and gay man returning to his roots is truly inspiring,» says About Face Theatre Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar. «Through him Chicago audiences will see how black gay men over several generations have wrestled with what's important to them: everything from the church and family to their mothers' recipe for sweet tea. »

Chair of the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Johnson brings his expertise as a cultural anthropologist to his work for the stage. Johnson says, «To be able to allow an audience to witness our communion on stage is such a gift-to me, to the men, and to the audience. It is my hope that Chicago audiences, myriad as they are, will find unity and solidarity in my portrayal of such a wide spectrum of lives. I look forward to welcoming everyone to my corner of the South and to drink some sweet tea with me!»

«E. Patrick becomes, himself, a beautiful prism through whom we can see refracted the infinite possibilities of each life he chronicles and the power of the choices made and circumstances transformed by every man in Sweet Tea, » says director David Alexander Jones.

This production of SWEET TEA was developed and supported in part through E. Patrick Johnson's Fellowship at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, which creates valuable opportunities for new voices, original artistic work and innovative research.

E. Patrick Johnson (Writer and Performer) has published widely in the areas of race, class and gender, and performance. His first book, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, published by Duke University Press in 2003, which deals with cultural, social, and political battles over origin, ownership, and the circulation of blackness, won several awards. In addition to his published work, Johnson is also a performing artist. He toured his one-man show, "Strange Fruit," around the country between 1999 and 2004. He is currently touring, "Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales," a solo performance based on the narratives in his book Sweet Tea, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2008. He is co-editing with Ramon Rivera-Servera an anthology of black and Latina/o queer performance texts and researching queer sexuality and performance in the black church. He is a Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University.

Daniel Alexander Jones(Director) makes live art. He integrates writing, performance, design, and direction through dynamic collaboration. Jones' work has met with audience and critical acclaim for more than fifteen years. His theater pieces include: Phantasmatron; Hera Bright; The Book of Daniel; Bel Canto; Earthbirths, Blood:Shock:Boogie; and Cab and Lena. His most recent project, Jomama Jones: Lone Star, is a multi-phase performance collaboration with Bobby Halvorson and Kym Moore-the first CD of the project Lone Star, was released in 2010 by Aries Records and is available for purchase on CD Baby and iTunes. Jones has received numerous awards and fellowships including the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts in Theatre in 2006, the Playwrights' Center McKnight National Artist Commission and Residency Award in 2007, and grants from the MAP Fund and the Creative Capital Foundation. Jones is a resident playwright with New Dramatists in Manhattan and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Visual Arts at Fordham University.

The Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, at Columbia College Chicago (Co-Producer) was established in March 2005 as one of twelve research centers at Columbia College Chicago. The first of its kind in the nation, the Institute is dedicated to the creation of new works, scholarship, education and programming about women and gender in the arts and media. As a public think tank, the Institute offers a dynamic and innovative approach that merges applied arts and cultural production with critical theory and academic research. Since 2005, it has created and co-presented more than 75 programs and initiatives, and produced and supported more than 9 original works in film, documentary, theatre, photography, research and publications. With more than 100 national and international partners in cultural, civic and academic sectors, the Institute has established itself as a cross-disciplinary educational nexus that engages wide and diverse audiences.

Its Fellowship Program has supported more than 28 artists and scholars, who have gone on to create original productions and garner critical acclaim and awards, including: Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright of Ruined, Lynn Nottage; Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer, Lynsey Addario; scholar and filmmaker focusing on burlesque culture, Red Tremmel; playwright, producer and conceptual artist, Ifa Bayeza; reporter and journalist, Natalie Y. Moore; and hip-hop artist and activist, Invincible, to name a few.

Among its recent major initiatives is Congo/Women Portraits of War: The Democratic Republic of Congo, an internationally traveling photography exhibition aimed to raise awareness about gender-based violence in Congo. Originally produced by the Institute and Art Works Projects, the exhibition is on tour through 2012 and currently on view at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. For more information about the Institute, visit www.colum.edu/institutewomengender.

About Face Theatre (Co-Producer) is one of Chicago's most acclaimed theatre companies, and is a national leader in the development of new work exploring gender and sexual identity. Since its founding by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen in 1995, the company has premiered more than 30 new plays by writers and directors who have been recognized with several Tony Awards, The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The MacArthur Fellowship and dozens of Joseph Jefferson Awards.

Landmark world premieres include Doug Wright's Pulitzer and Tony-winning I Am My Own Wife; Moisés Kaufman's production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm (a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project); Mary Zimmerman's M. Proust, and, with Lookingglass Theatre, the famed Eleven Rooms of Proust; Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty's Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein (a co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Original Cast Album recorded by Jay Records); the multi-award winning musical Winesburg, Ohio by Eric Rosen, Andre Pluess, Ben Sussman and Jessica Thebus; and the cult hit Pulp by Patricia Kane.

In addition to its award-winning mainstage performances, About Face is known nationally for its ground-breaking Youth Theatre, which creates critically acclaimed new work by and about LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Youth Theatre has performed on major stages across the country, and, through its outreach tour, changes the lives of thousands of young people each year. Building on the success of The Youth Theatre model, About Face recently launched its corporate outreach program to provide diversity training and onsite workshops to the corporate community. About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world.

$25 Tickets/$15 Students
www.aboutfacetheatre.com or 773-296-6024 for tickets

 

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