A Season in the Congo - Brought to Stage by NYC Youth March 6 - April 5

With daily articles on the war raging in the Congo and America electing it's first African American President, New York City youth from Youth Onstage! are mounting an epic production about the 1960's Congolese Independence leader Patrice Lumumba called A Season in the Congo written by the late Martinician poet and political leader Aimé Césaire. For five weekends only - from March 6 through April 5 at the All Stars Project's performing arts and development center at 543 West 42nd Street. The young performers hope the production will draw attention to the dire situation in central Africa. After each performance they will be raising funds for War Child, an organization working with children and young people around the world who have been impacted on by the trauma of war.

A Season in the Congo is an action-packed epic with environmental staging by director Brian Mullin that covers the first year of Congolese independence during which the popular independence leader Patrice Lumumba faced turmoil from within and sabotage from abroad. The tragic events depicted in the play set a pattern of neo-colonialist manipulation and internal warfare that continues in the Congo and throughout much of Africa to this day.

The 20 performers in A Season in the Congo are mostly graduates of the Youth Onstage! Community Performance School, the Castillo Theatre's free professional theatre training program.

The Martinique playwright Aimé Césaire was one of the leading surrealist poets of the 20th Century and a founder of the Negritude movement that laid the groundwork for the Black Power Movement in the United States in the 1960's. Césaire wrote A Season in the Congo within a few years of the events it depicts. The play, in which the influence of both Shakespeare and Brecht are evident, has only been produced three other times in the United States. Césaire died last year at the age of 94.

A Season in the Congo runs March 6 through April 5, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. TDF is accepted and group rates are available. For tickets call 212-941-1234 or order from www.TheatreMania.com. For more information on the production, for photos and for interviews with director Brian Mullin and/or the cast of A Season in the Congo, contact Gail Peck at 212-356-8449, gpeck@allstars.org.

 

 

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