Earth, Wind & Car Fire A storytelling joyride… at Upstairs @ El Centro

"Earth, Wind & Car Fire" is a dynamic storytelling journey exploring sexuality, race, and breaking free from life’s expectations. Join Janora in this evolving, heartfelt performance—part reflection, part TMI, all fire. 

Three Shows: SAT 6/ 21, 2PM, SUN 6/22, 7:45 PM, SUN 6/29, 3:15 PM

This 60-minute solo show is a celebration of life’s twists, turns, and triumphs. Come with Janora on this entertaining & soulful joyride and oversharing adventure.

Directed by Joseph Megel and produced by Jessica Lynn Johnson as part of Hollywood Fringe 2025.

Janora McDuffie is an actress, voiceover artist, speaker and host who brings authenticity and heart to every stage. Whether on screen, behind the mic, or in front of a live audience, she has built a dynamic and multifaceted career in entertainment.

Janora has appeared in hit television shows including NCIS, This Is Us, Truth Be Told, and Grey’s Anatomy.  Her voice has been featured in popular video games, ad campaigns and most notably, around the world as the Live Announcer for the 94th Academy Awards.

As a host, her most meaningful work was No More Down Low TV, an award-winning web series amplifying the voices of out and proud LGBTQ+ people of color.  Her passion for storytelling and advocacy extends to the podium where she has delivered multiple keynotes—including UNC-Chapel Hill’s 2023 Lavender Graduation as well as a TEDx talk.

Janora first performed “Earth, Wind and Car Fire” as a staged reading for the 25th Anniversary Black Queer Conference in April 2025.  She is honored to continue this in-progress work celebrating the intersections of Blackness, queerness, and art—bringing her voice, her story, and her full self to the stage.

Joseph Megel joined UNC’s faculty in Communication in 2004. He is artist in residence in Performance Studies and director of the Process Series: New Works in Development, continuously presenting public readings of new works since 2008. He is Artistic Director of StreetSigns and Co-Executive Director of Harland’s Creek Productions, producer of new plays, screenplays, and short films. 

He has a  B.S. Northwestern University, School of Speech, M.A. University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, M.F.A. University of Southern California, Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program, School of Cinema.

Recent direction for StreetSigns includes: Cascade, Temples of Lung and Air, The Talk, Closer Than They Appear, Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green, Trojan Barbie,Blood Knot, Poetic Portraits of a Revolution, Dream Boy, and White People.

Off-Broadway and New York: Howard L. Craft’s Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green, Guillermo Reyes’s Men on the Verge of a Hispanic Breakdown (Outer Critics Circle Award), Dean Gray’s The Pattern at Pendarvis, Jim Grimsley’s The Lizard of Tarsus, The Working Project for The Working Theater.

Regional: Howard Craft’s Orange Light (Bulldog Ensemble Theater), Kane Smego’s Temples of Lung and Air (Detroit Public Theatre & PlayMakers Repertory), Jennifer Maisel’s The Last Seder (EST West, Theatre J, The Organic Theatre); Elisabeth Lewis Corley’s adaptation of The Miser (Duke University); Derek Goldman’s adaptation of Will The Circle Be Unbroken (Chapel Hill); A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, Best of Enemies, The Brothers Size, The Goat, and Nixon’s Nixon (Manbites Dog Theater).

Producer Jessica Lynn Johnson is a published playwright, recipient of BEST NATIONAL SOLO ARTIST AWARD, Advisory Board Member of the LA Women's Theatre Festival, Co Executive Producer of the Joshua Tree Solo Theatre Festival, and Founder & CEO of Soaring Solo Studios International. Jessica has aided in the development, direction and producing of over 175 solo shows (and still going strong)! As a performer, Jessica has “edu-tained” international audiences touring her own one person shows ZE and OBLIVIOUS TO EVERYONE for over 15 years. Jessica's projects have taken home awards such as TOP OF FRINGE, HFF ENCORE PRODUCER AWARDS, TVOLUTION BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE, LARRY CORNWALL AWARD FOR MUSICAL EXCELLENCE & several other accolades! Jessica was also awarded the LAWTF Rainbow Award in 2024 and was nominated for the Female Director of Distinction in Theatre by Girl Trip LLC at the 2018 Hollywood Fringe Festival & Best Director of a Play by Broadway World 2023. http://www.SoaringSoloStudios.com