Buffalo Women a BLACK COWGIRL MUSICAL DRAMEDY
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Buffalo Women A BLACK COWGIRL MUSICAL DRAMEDY BOOK AND LYRICS BY BEAUFIELD BERRY MUSIC AND ADDITIONAL LYRICS BY J. ISAIAH SMITH DIGITAL PLAYBILL JUNE 2021 BLUEBARN | 32 | Season of the Unknown eason 32 marks a profound shift in perspective. This year we give focus to Sbuilding on BLUEBARN’s transformative programming and services, seeding the fires that will light our way for years to come. A different kind of season awaits us. A different kind of membership awaits you… In these extraordinary times, we invite you to become caretakers of BLUEBARN’s mission. We invite you to provoke thought, emotion, action, and change in our community. Your BLUEBARN membership is a commitment, not to a certain number of productions or nights of theatre, but to the BLUEBARN’s essential work on and off the stage, our values, our art, and our artists. Incomparable theatre and incandescent storytelling remain at the core of our work. For these wild times, we have imagined adventurous new ways to bring the power of story back into all our lives. We have also dreamed up better ways to harness your BLUEBARN membership to “The future is in disorder. extend the reach of our art and sustain A door like this the lives of artists. has cracked open BLUEBARN is proud to announce a host five or six times since we got up of programs and programming that we on our hind legs. It hope will ignite and inspire you. We is the best possible must acknowledge as we do so the very time to be alive, when real uncertainty of the coming year. almost everything you Our season accepts disruptions and thought you knew was adaptations to shifting circumstances as wrong.” givens. — Tom Stoppard, Arcadia The mission stands. The work continues. Join us in lighting the fires that will guide us through this Season of the Unknown and into the future. With gratitude, Susan Clement-Toberer Producing Artistic Director — 2 — TRUBLU MEMBERSHIP SEASON HAPPENINGS: Holiday Hootenanny | Music, song, Bonfire Series | Five Extraordinary dance, story. For the longest nights, Works of Theatre. Dozens of the warmest of fires… and joy to us Extraordinary Artists. all! | Dec 17th-20th The Shape of Things to Come. Marjorie Prime | The great pause ———————— began March 17th. Our set still stands R33 | Sarah Brown after ready on our stage. We’ll premiere as Shakespeare soon as it’s safe. Three actors. One monster. What Digital Access | Live-streamed would you sacrifice to overcome shows. Virtual Tours. Special events. tyranny? The best seats in the house. Your own. For Black Trans Girls… | Radical Hospitality | Arts access is Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi a human right. BLUEBARN will offer A choreopoem. A fantasia. Love and pay-what-you-wish attendance for justice for a new generation. those facing economic barriers. Escaped Alone | Caryl Churchill Artists Fund | BLUEBARN is the only One of the most revered living professional contemporary theatre in playwrights. A most deranged tea Omaha committed to a living wage party. for all its artists. Before After | Knapman & Price Out of the Blue | A new path. What if you had a second chance Education. Touring. On the road. to get it right the first time? A new Online. Only from the BLUEBARN musical. Buffalo Women | Beaufield Berry Juneteenth. Newfound freedom. New lives. A Black cowgirl musical comedy. Anti-Racist Ethos | BLUEBARN owns that systemic racism is real and must be fought against wherever and however it shows up–in our community, in our theatre, in ourselves. — 3 — Maybe it’s time for a change. If you’ve been home alone lately, you may be feeling a little less than yourself. At Immanuel Communities, you’re supported and empowered to live your best life. Here, we’re strong. And so are you. Schedule a visit today at Immanuel.com Serving the Omaha Area Signature Communities: Lakeside & Pacific Springs Arboretum Village, Immanuel Village, Trinity Village Arboretum Village, Immanuel Village, Trinity Village Affiliated with Nebraska Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Affiliated with Nebraska Synod, Evangelical Lutheran ChurchFY21_0037_003_IMMCO in America. — 4 — FY21_0037_003_IMMCO WELCOME FROM THE PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Welcome to the BLUEBARN! Hospitality has always been one of our core values. Welcoming you to this space, to embrace the transformative power of live theater, is our great joy and the most important part of our work in service to the community. You are invited to bring your full self to the experience. You are invited to sit back, lean in, laugh audibly (even if you are the only one laughing), cry if you need to. For some people theatre is church, for some a meditative space, for others an escape, and we invite you to respect that the ways that others engage the experience based on their individual or cultural practices. Audible moments of reaction and response are absolutely welcome; the performers thrive on the energy of room, whether its rapt silence or explosive laughter and everything in between. No, of course don’t distract them or get in the way of the performance, and yes, please please silence your phones. Did you know that when an audience gathers at the theatre, their heartbeats synchronize? We may respond differently, but we join together as one. Let’s allow one another the grace to come as we are, to breathe together, celebrate together, and share our joy together, however we choose. Giddy-up! Susan We are indebted to the work of countless BIPOC artists who have labored to make our cultural spaces truly inclusive and welcoming to audiences all cultures and identities. By gathering at the BLUEBARN you have committed to a shared experience in community with others, free from etiquette shaming, microaggressions, and entitled behavior. WELCOME FROM THE BOARD PRESIDENT Greetings BLUEBARNers! Welcome BACK. Who knew that one year ago, it would be this long before I would have the pleasure, the relief, of saying that? The inimitable actress Lynn Redgrave once said “I think the theatre is as essential to civilization as safe, pure water.” I have to agree, but can also relate to this on a more personal note. Prior to the pandemic, I knew that theatre was a critical part of my life and my heart. But a few months in, it became clear that my need for live theatre - beauty, community, creativity, art - approximated my need for water. A basic need that could not quite be fulfilled by livestreams and podcasts. So, here we are dipping a toe in, and hoping this is the beginning of a path back to full scale production in this venue and all others where we can share community, love, emotion, and growth. Together, in person, once again. And here’s to the amazing minds that came together to design and construct the space that is the BLUEBARN. A space with such amazing adaptability that allows us to begin this journey back... around a bonfire. Enjoy this wonderful series - I really can’t wait to see you all again. Devin — 5 — PRESENTS A WORKSHOP PREVIEW OF NEXT SEASON’S WORLD PREMIERE EVENT Buffalo Women A BLACK COWGIRL MUSICAL DRAMEDY BOOK AND LYRICS BY BEAUFIELD BERRY MUSIC AND ADDITIONAL LYRICS BY J. ISAIAH SMITH — IN-PERSON — June 18th - 27th, 2021 — STREAMING — June 25th, 2021 This performance runs about 75 minutes, followed by a conversation with the audience about the creation of this epic adventure. The sound of gunfire will be used in this performance. PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND PAGERS. The use of video, still or sound recording devices is strictly prohibited. — 6 — The Promise of Juneteenth: Why We Can’t Wait1 “Juneteenth has always been touched with irony. Although it is the most popular Emancipa- tion Day holiday in the country, it marks neither the (de jure) nor the de facto end of slavery in the country… Juneteenth, rather, celebrates a belated liberation.” — Vann R. Newkirk II 2 “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun According to historian Eric Foner, the reality of freedom varies for Americans. He stated that, in general, “Most Black people in this country think that freedom is something they are aspiring to achieve. It’s a process. It’s something to be fully gained in the future.” 3 A question for Americans to ask might be, “For how long into the future must Black people wait?” Throughout American history, freedom is a constant theme, which is not surprising given the realities of enslavement. The U.S. Civil War had slavery as a primary or secondary cause, depending on whose version of our history you find most credible. During the war, President Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which only “freed” those in bondage in the Confederate states. Not surprisingly, leaders of those states ignored the order, given their rebellion from the U.S. government. Enslaved peoples did not ignore the Proclamation. More and more used their agency to claim their freedom by leaving the sites of their oppressive forced servitude and dehumanizing commodifica- tion. Vann Newkirk writes that, “(e)nslaved people in the Confederacy who didn’t manage to escape across Union lines … had to wait until the end of the Civil War to take their first free breaths. In isolated Texas, word of the official end of fighting…arrived late. Freedom finally came to Texas on June 19 of that year, after a proclamation by General Gordon Granger in Galveston solidified the emancipation of the quar- ter million enslaved people in the state. 4 On June 19, 1865, “Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that, ‘in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves5 are free.