Aunt Hagar's Children

Z SPACE & WORD FOR WORD PRESENT ALL AUNT HAGAR’S CHILDREN BY EDWARD P. JONES DIRECTED BY STEPHANIE HUNT | ASSISTANT DIRECTOR MARGO HALL NOV. 16 - DEC. 11 AT Z SPACE ARTISTIC DIRECTORS' STATEMENT In tough times we can go to the theater, sit down in the dark with others, and ALL AUNT HAGAR’S CHILDREN be carried away from our everyday woes. We see ourselves mirrored and we empathize with others. We are moved, thrilled, galvanized. And this is why we love stories. We love telling them, hearing them, reading them, watching them: BY EDWARD P. JONES around-the-fire stories, bedtime stories, stories in books, Netflix Original Series! Directed By Stephanie Hunt | Assistant Director Margo Hall Edward Jones has said he set out to write stories about the Washington, D.C. he NW Washington, D.C., and Choctaw, Alabama | Early 1950s, and the Past grew up in. “I wanted to write about the things which helped us to survive: the love, grace intelligence, and strength for us as a people.” He has created a world Associate Producers: Constance Bernstein, Mark & Elizabeth Friebel, of indelible characters and their daily lives through the large and small details, the Arlene M. Getz, Harold J., and Susan M. Speicher grand passions and small joys, the drudgery and delight of life. We chose “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” because of the power of EPJ’s storytelling. CAST In it we see ourselves, and our neighbors, coping, striving, compromising, and awakening. Sheila Balter* Miriam Sobel, Dvera Jaffe - Susan Harloe & JoAnne Winter Velina Brown* Miss Bertha, The Young Man's Mother Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe Miss Agatha, Harriet, Miss Hattie DIRECTOR'S NOTE Margo Hall* Aunt Penny, Minnie Parsons & others In this story, Mr. Jones gives us a world both intimate and vast. Stories and Kehinde Koyejo* Alona, Blondelle Steadman & others experiences from the past, ever-present, guide and haunt the characters, most particularly the young man at the center of the story. Khary L. Moye The Young Man Jones playfully uses noir conventions in this murder mystery: a law office, the Joel Mullennix* Alabama Man, Samuel Jaffe & others reluctant detective, the universally-disliked murder victim, the scorned girlfriend, Jia Taylor Sheila Larkin, Mary Saunders & others a femme fatale with a secret, and a man left with a troubled conscience and responsibility. Solving a mystery surrounding the murder of a childhood friend requires the PRODUCTION young man, a war veteran, to observe people and places familiar to him in the Karen Runk* Stage Manager Nadine Mozon Dramaturg neighborhood of 6th and M Streets NW. He is looking for where he belongs, and Sean Riley Scenic Design Dave Gardner Technical Director is eager to leave the city he thinks he knows so well. What is known becomes A. René Walker Costume Design Vola Ruben Scenic Painter surprising, what is strange becomes familiar. Jim Cave Lighting Design Keira Sullivan Master Electrician A mysterious woman, who dies in the young hero’s arms, speaks two phrases of Drew Yerys Sound Design Wolfgang Wachalovsky Z Production Manager Jacqueline Scott Props Design Camille Rohrlich AAHC Production Manager Yiddish -- one from a story and the other a lyric from the song, Ofyn Pripetshik, Andrea Weber Choreographer Celeste Jacobson-Ingram Asst. Stage Manager (Around the Stove), a well-known Yiddish folk song for children. According to Lynne Soffer Dialect Coach Asha Maxey Rehearsal Assistant author Michael Wex, in this song children are “being told to draw strength to endure the pains of exile from the letters of the alphabet that they’re being *AEA member taught." Press Agent David Hyry & Associates “Sometimes one moment sweeps aside everything you ever thought about a Art Design and Photography Julie Schuchard person,” the young man thinks near the end of the story. His mother, the person Photography Mel Solomon Marketing Andrew Burmester he knows best, surprises him as do all the other women in his life. As he begins to wonder and be curious about the others around him, he learns to see. Word for Word is a Program of Z Space All Aunt Hagar’s Children is performed by permission of the author c. 2006 by Edward P. Jones; - Stephanie Hunt published HarperCollins Publishers. First published The New Yorker, 12/22/03 ABOUT THE STORY All Aunt Hagar’s Children embraces 1950s Negro noir embedded in culturally authentic, diverse characters, expressed in an amalgam of African American vernacular, mother wit and mystery in Yiddish last words. Edward P. Jones weaves specificity in place and placement in downtown Washington D.C.’s landscape as a city, and a neighborhood that belongs to itself, its inhabitants and the stories they carry with them. The narrative takes place scarcely a decade beyond a post-Holocaust increasing Jewish presence in the US, and the continuing migration of Negroes from more rural south to northern cities. Mr. Jones’ community of characters move through their D.C. neighborhoods via his literary ‘geocoding,’ upheld by street coordinates, walking proximity, names and locations businesses, streetcar routes, schools and churches of actual record. And here I confess, confirmed by my mother’s shared timeline and memory of same D.C. neighborhood. The literary legacy of Hagar is prominent in traditional Christian biblical and Jewish rabbinical teachings. Both feature Hagar as an ex-slave woman sexually compromised, who cast out or abandoned, who bears a child and survives under harsh conditions. Hagar is steadfast in doing what’s best for her child’s survival. Ultimately, Hagar’s son, Ishmael, is acknowledged in high regard, and his father, Abraham, is referenced as the father of all nations. The women and children in All Aunt Hagar’s Children negotiate their distinct journeys with challenges thematically similar to Hagar. Their worlds cross in proximity, customs, and basic needs. Are they not tribes and nations in some way? Are they not all somehow descendants of diasporas with a Hagar story of survival at the helm? Providing dramaturgical support for this production has been a most rewarding opportunity. Coupled with research from institutionally archived and published sources, the timeline and traversing of neighborhood in downtown D.C. for Mr. Jones’ characters matches those of my family members, my mother’s living legacy. From my mother graduating from Dunbar High school, my father’s return from the Korean War, and stories about my great grandmother’s friendship with their Jewish next door neighbor and store owners on L Street, Mr. Jones has honored a richly accessible form of heritage storytelling America’s story. NADINE MOZON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward P. Jones, the New York Times bestselling WORD FOR WORD THANK YOU'S Belva Davis, Claire Dippel & Janklow & Nesbit Associates; MoAD & Elizabeth Gessel, author, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Noah’s Bagels, Ellen Sinaiko, Dr. Evie Groch, Eleanor Reissa, Judith Kunofsky & KlezCalifornia, the National Book Critics Circle award, the International Teresa Canion, Rose Plant, Lisa Claybough, Patty LaCava, Carmelita Harris, Shelah Moody, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Judith Cohen, Rhodessa Jones, Sierra Gonzales, Vivianne Payne Mozon of the Dunbar High School Class of 1947, Margarette Robinson, Margot Manburg, Tristan Cunningham, Lauren Award for The Known World; he also received a Spencer, Cathleen Riddley, Lenore Naxon & JCCSF, Dave Young, Randall Homan, Sara Felder, MacArthur Fellowship in 2004. His first collection of Devra Noily, Michael Wex, Joshua Ende, Michael Ende, Joshua Rose, Peggy White, Karen stories, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award MacLaughlin, Historical Society of Washington, D.C., Jessica Richardson Smith, Sienna Williams, LeNeac Weathersby, Allie Khori, University of San Francisco PASJ program, Scott Horstein, and was short listed for the National Book Award. His Adrian Elfenbaum, Ken Sonkin, Michelle Torres Maxson, Leslie Martinson, Elizabeth Brodersen, second collection, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, was a Nancy Benjamin, Esther Scott, Ryan Tasker, SF Mime Troupe, Zahra Jangbar, Wilhelmina finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award. He has been an Koyejo, Bolaji Tijani-Qudus, Lolade Celeste Tijani-Qudus, Anna Shneiderman (The Flight Deck), Towanna Turner, Taiwo Franklin, Rachel Bolden-Kramer, Melorra Green, Emmanuel Blackwell, instructor of fiction writing at a range of universities, Chabot College & Dov Hassan, Linda Amayo Hassan, Rachel LePell, Gladston Taylor, including Princeton. He lives in Washington, D.C. Jiyon Taylor Barbara Middlebrooks, Michelle Middlebrooks, Tai Bo & Sisters, John F. Mello, Edge Gymnastics & Kristin Sawler, Jessy Pietraszkiewicz, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Podesta Baldocchi Flowers. ABOUT WORD FOR WORD "Simply one of the great theatrical endeavors." –Chad Jones, Theater Dogs Word for Word Performing Arts Company is an ensemble whose mission is to SPACE tell great stories with elegant theatricality, staging performances of classic and contemporary fiction. Founded in 1993 by Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter, Word for Word believes in the power of the short story to provide solace, compassion, and “Best Performance Space” 2016 Best of The Bay insight into our daily lives. Word for Word is a program of Z Space. To learn more about Word for Word and to see a list of all stories ever produced, Under Artistic Director Lisa Steindler, Z Space empowers artistic risk, collaboration, please visit: www.zspace.org/AboutWordForWord and camaraderie amongst artists, audience and staff in the service of creating, developing

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