FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!!!As of September 16, 2019Contact 202.328-0569press@theessentialtheatre.orgwww.theessentialtheatre.orgA NIGHT WITH JACKIE MOMS MABLEY FOR THEATRE WEEK AFTER PARTY!WASHINGTON, DC-NThe Essential Theatre continues its 30th anniversary year celebration by hosting a Theatre Week after party with pay-what-you-can performances of the 1996 Helen Hayes Award nominated comedy cabaret, A Night with Jackie Moms Mabley, written and performed by Charisma Wooten. The limited run performances, Oct 2nd through October 6th, Wednesday thru Saturday @ 7 PM and Sunday @ 3 PM, will take place at Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Road, SE, Washington, DC 20020. A happy hour begins one hour before each performance. Pay-what-you-can tickets are only available at the box office one hour before each performance. A limited number of $30 advance tickets can be purchased @ www.theessentialtheatre.org. October 2nd performance is a Founders Day performance. Celebrating the birthday of the founder/Artistic Director, persons can donate new items from the list at www.theessentialtheatre.org to hurricane Dorian relief and gain admission to that designated performance. All items will benefit affected residents in the Bahamas. for more information call (202) 328-0569 or email showtix@theessentialtheatre.org. for more on Theatre Week TheatreWeek.org."A Night With Jackie "Moms" Mabley," is an honorific evening of zingers abouteverything from sexuality to racism. Delivered with political correctness, Loretta Mary Aiken, better known as Jackie "Moms" Mabley endured sexual, racial and political oppression while paving the way for many of the women actors we enjoy today. A Night With Jackie Moms Mabley was a 1996 Helen Hayes Award nominated play for the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. About Moms MableyLoretta Mary Aiken (March 19, 1894 May 23, 1975), known by her stage name Jackie "Moms" Mabley, was an American standup comedian. A veteran of the Chitlin' circuit of African-American vaudeville, she later appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.She was born in Brevard, North Carolina on March 19, 1894 to James Aiken and Mary Smith, who married on May 21, 1891, in Transylvania County, North Carolina. She was one of a family of 16 children. Her father owned and operated several businesses, while her mother kept house and took in boarders. Her father, a volunteer fireman, died when a fire engine exploded when Loretta was eleven. In 1910, her mother took over their primary business, a general store. She was run over by a truck while coming home from church on Christmas Day.By age 14, Mabley had been raped twice and had two children who were given up for adoption. At age 14, Mabley ran away to Cleveland, Ohio, joining a traveling vaudeville show, where she sang and entertained.She took her stage name, Jackie Mabley, from an early boyfriend, commenting to Ebony Magazine in a 1970s interview that he had taken so much from her, it was the least she could do to take his name. Later she became known as "Moms" because she was indeed a "Mom" to many other comedians on the circuit in the 1950s and 1960s. She came out as a lesbian at the age of twenty-seven, becoming one of the first openly gay comedians.During the 1920s and 1930s she appeared in androgynous clothing (as she did in the film version of The Emperor Jones with Paul Robeson) and recorded several of her early "lesbian stand-up" routines. Mabley was one of the top women doing stand-up in her heyday, eventually recording more than 20 albums of comedy routines. She appeared in movies, on television, and in clubs.She was one of the most successful entertainers of the Chitlin' circuit, earning $10,000 a week at Harlem's Apollo Theater at the height of her career. She made her New York City debut at Connie's Inn in Harlem. In the 1960s, she became known to a broader audience, playing Carnegie Hall in 1962, and making a number of network TV appearances, particularly her multiple appearances on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour when that CBS show was number one on television in the late 1960s, which introduced her to a whole new Boomer audience."Moms:" Mabley was billed as "The Funniest Woman in the World". She tackled topics too edgy for many other comics of the time, including racism. One of her regular themes was a romantic interest in handsome young men rather than old "washed-up geezers", and she got away with it courtesy of her stage persona, where she appeared as a toothless, bedraggled woman in a house dress and floppy hat. She also added the occasional satirical song to her jokes, and her (completely serious and melancholy) cover version of "Abraham, Martin and John" hit #35 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 19 July 1969. At 75 years old, Moms Mabley became the oldest living person ever to have a US Top 40 hit (Louis Armstrong, who would have been 86 when "What a Wonderful World" became a hit in 1988, is the oldest overall, although Armstrong was younger than Mabley when the song was recorded).Mabley had six children: Bonnie, Christine, Charles, and Yvonne Ailey, and two given up for adoption when she was a teenager. She died from heart failure in White Plains, New York on May 23, 1975. She is interred at Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York.The Company:The Essential Theatre is a non-profit, professional theatre dedicated, but not limited to producing theatre reflective of the African-American experience that explores and celebrates America's rich, diverse cultural landscape. Paramount to the companys mission is the implementation of programs for youth in Washington, DC's metropolitan area that promotes interdisciplinary education and positive self-esteem. Founded in 1989, the company hosts a play development program, The Essential Theatres New Play Reading Series, the Childrens Program in Public Schools and the Womens Works Program. The company also maintains a relationship with area Social Services programs to provide job training opportunities. For tickets and more info visit www.theessentialtheatre.org or call (202) 328-0569. For more on Theatre Week TheatreWeek.org-END-
Ages: 16 and over
Ages: 16 and over
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