CSULB Theatre Arts Department to Stage A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK

CSULB Theatre Arts Department's University Players presents A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick by Kia Corthron, directed by Dr. Jaye Austin Williams. This dramatic work tackles the issues of loss, social injustice, religion, and race. A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick plays April 22nd through May 7th in the Players Theatre on the CSULB campus.

A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick explores the dynamics of a family in Maryland coping with loss, and the young Ethiopian man named Abebe who comes to live with them during his college studies. Through Abebe's aspirations to be both a preacher and a water ecologist, the play confronts such issues as race, drought and social injustice. Williams hopes that this play will inspire audiences to think about the current relevance of "water, its potential scarcity, the crisis of the potential scarcity, its tainting, and the crisis of that in terms other than merely environmental."

Dr. Jaye Austin Williams is a director, playwright, actor, teacher, writer and consultant. She has directed and appeared in numerous productions both regionally and in New York over the past thirty years, including the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre, Joe's Pub at the Public, and the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York. She has received numerous fellowships and commissions, including the Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT, the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, and commissions by the Joseph Papp Public Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum. She holds a Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from UCI; an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts; and a BS in Theatre from Skidmore College. She has several publications, and she is currently at work on a critical anthology of playwright Kia Corthron's selected works and on a monograph entitled, Staging Slavery, Postcoloniality and Modernity: Melding Theory and Practice, which renders a critical analysis of her three productions at UCI.

Kia Corthron is an American playwright who strives to affect the audience with her work. Most of her plays revolve around socio-political issues, including water pollution, prisons, capital punishment, youth violence, and disability. She has received many awards, including the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Mark Taper Forum's Fadiman Award, NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, the Callaway Award, a Van Lier Fellowship, and was Delaware Theatre Company's first Connections contest winner.

A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick opens Friday, April 22nd, and closes Saturday, May 7th. Performances run Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8pm, with additional matinees Saturdays at 2pm. This production will be presented in the Players Theatre on the CSULB Campus, accessible via East Campus Drive. Tickets are $17 for general admission and $14 for students, seniors, and military (with valid ID). Due to renovations near the Theatre Arts building, parking will be limited at the time of this production and we suggest attempting to park in Parking Lot 6. A symposium on the subject of water conservation, viewed through the lens of A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, will be held Friday, May 6th. Guest lecturers and CSULB students will present papers on the topic, with special guest playwright Kia Corthron joining us to share her perspective. For tickets and additional information please call (562) 985-5526 or visit calrep.org.

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