Woodie King Jr.'s New Federal Theatre Announces World Premiere of GONG LUM'S LEGACY

Woodie King Jr.'s New Federal Theatre in association with The Peccadillo Theater Company will present the World Premiere of Gong Lum's Legacy by Charles L. White (2021 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative winner; semifinalist in the 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award Competition), directed by Elizabeth Van Dyke (The Talk at EST; Great Men of Gospel at NFT) with Associate Director Dan Wackerman (Artistic Director of the Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Drama Desk Award-winning Peccadillo Theater Company).

Gong Lum's Legacy takes place in 1924 in the Mississippi Delta. Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South, we witness the unexpected romance that blooms between Joe Ting, a Chinese Immigrant and Lucy Sims, a Black school teacher.

Joe's father, Charlie, is adamantly opposed to their relationship. When Charlie's friend, Gong Lum, sues the local school board to permit his daughters to attend a white school. Charlie is confident that Lum will prevail and that Chinese people will soon have the same rights as whites. Charlie does not want those rights jeopardized by his son being romantically involved with a Black woman, and he does everything in his power to separate the young couple.

Lum v Rice, an actual civil rights case, eventually reached the Supreme Court which ruled that the exclusion on account of race of a child of Chinese ancestry from a public school did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision effectively approved the exclusion of any minority children from schools reserved for whites.

The production will run March 24-April 24 at Theatre @ St. Clements (423 West 46th Street New York, NY 10036) with performances on Thursday, March 24 at 7:30pm, Friday March 25 at 7:30pm, Saturday, March 26 at 7:30pm, Sunday, March 27 at 3pm, Thursday, March 31 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 1 at 7:30pm, Saturday, April 2 at 7:30pm, Sunday, April 3 at 3pm, Thursday, April 7 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 8 at 7:30pm, Saturday, April 9 at 7:30pm, Sunday, April 10 at 3pm, Thursday, April 14 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 15 at 7:30pm, Saturday, April 16 at 7:30pm, Sunday, April 17 at 3pm, Thursday, April 21 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 22 at 7:30pm, Saturday, April 23 at 7:30pm, and Sunday, April 24 at 3pm. Tickets ($39; $20 students/seniors) are available for advance purchase at https://www.instantseats.com/events/NewFederal. Audience members will be required to show proof of vaccination, and to remain masked while in the theater.

Charles L. White (Playwright) is a founding member of Harlem Playwrights 21, a not-for-profit playwriting workshop which has been operating since 2011. His play, Succession, is scheduled to be performed at North Carolina Black Repertory Company in Winston-Salem, NC in May 2022. Another play, The DePriest Incident, was the winner of the 2021 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative at Illinois State University as well as a semifinalist in the 2019 Blue Ink Playwriting Award Competition. His first full-length play, Unentitled, was a semifinalist in the 2019 ScreenCraft Play Competition. Charles developed his work in New Federal Theatre’s Playwriting Workshop under the tutelage of playwrights Michael D. Dinwiddie, Kermit Frazier, P.J. Gibson, Laurence Holder, Cassandra Medley and Richard Wesley. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he participated in the Creative Writing Program under the late author, Wilfrid Sheed, and NYU Law School.

Elizabeth Van Dyke (Director) is the Producing Artistic Director of New Federal Theatre and an award-winning actor and director. Her directorial credits include: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; What to Send Up, When It Goes Down; A Civil War Christmas; Blood; The Talk; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds; Radio Golf; Gem of the Ocean; Learning to Swim; From Sun to Sun; The Piano Lesson; Ti Jean and His Brothers; Sophisticated Ladies; A Raisin in the Sun; Waiting to Be Invited; Gee’s Bend; The Ballad of Emmett Till; The Old Settler; Great Men of Gospel; Sweet Mama Stringbean (The Ethel Waters Story); Remembering Weselves; The Black Renaissance. She has received an AUDELCO Nomination for Best Director for Great Men of Gospel, an ONYX Award for Best Director for Sophisticated Ladies at KUNTU Repertory Theatre, a Giorgee Award for Best Director for The Ballad of Emmett Till at the Ensemble Theatre, and a SUPERIOR Award for her direction and production of Gem of the Ocean at Seminole State University. Ms. Van Dyke is a member of EST, a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, the National Theatre Conference, the Actors’ Center, the Dramatist Guild, AEA, and SDC.

Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre Our Mission is to integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession, and by presenting plays by writers of color and women to integrated, multicultural audiences – plays which evoke the truth through beautiful and artistic re-creations of ourselves.

Several early successes brought NFT to national prominence: Black Girl by J.e. Franklin won a Drama Desk Award, The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins moved from NFT to Lincoln Center and won the Drama Critics Circle Award, For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange performed on Broadway for 10 months and was nominated for the Tony Award. Both plays were co-produced with the late Joseph Papp. Many performers benefited from early successes on NFT’s stage, including the late Chadwick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Issa Rae, and many more. https://newfederaltheatre.com/

The Peccadillo Theater Company (Associate Producer) Founded in 1994, the Peccadillo Theater Company is dedicated to the rediscovery of classic American comedy and drama, particularly those works, which despite their obvious literary and theatrical value, are not regularly revived. The mission of The Peccadillo Theater Company is to restore these buried gems to their rightful owner, the American theatergoer. www.thepeccadillo.com

 

 

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