Photo Flash: NINA SIMONE: FOUR WOMEN Comes to People's Light

People's Light presents Nina Simone: Four Women, a new music-filled play featuring hits like "Sinnerman," "I Loves You Porgy," and "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black" performed by an all-star female cast. The play opens on legendary songstress Nina Simone in the moment she learns of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the event that shifted her career from nightclub singer to Civil Rights activist. Nina Simone: Four Women makes its regional premiere on the Leonard C. Haas Stage from February 27 through March 31. Tickets range from $30-$50. To purchase, call 610.644.3500 or visit www.peopleslight.org. People's Light is located at 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern, PA 19355.

On April 16, 1963, jazz singer Nina Simone receives news that four young Black girls - Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair - were killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Consumed by grief and rage, Nina turns to her piano and pours out her first protest anthem. As she writes, she imagines herself in the rubble of the 16th Street Baptist Church and conjures three women in her mind, personifications of Black female archetypes named in her song "Four Women." Aunt Sarah, Sephronia, Sweet Thing, and Nina herself wrestle with the call to activism, pain of colorism, and the power of Black womanhood in their musical journey through this pivotal moment of change.

Photo Credit: Mark Garvin