Fireflies Program
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SC 56th Season • 532nd Production JULIANNE ARGYROS STAGE / JANUARY 5-26, 2020 David Ivers Paula Tomei ARTISTIC DIRECTOR MANAGING DIRECTOR David Emmes & Martin Benson FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTORS presents FIREFLIES by Donja R. Love Vicki Smith David Kay Mickelsen Don Darnutzer Scott W. Edwards SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN SOUND DESIGN Jeffrey Elias Teeter Macelle Mahala Joanne DeNaut, CSa Alyssa Escalante PROJECTIONS DRAMATURG CASTING STAGE MANAGER Directed by Lou Bellamy World Premiere Presented By Atlantic Theater Company, New York City, 2018. Fireflies • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS Olivia ....................................................................................... Christiana Clark Charles ............................................................................................. Lester Purry SETTING Fall 1963. Somewhere down South, where the sky is on fire. LENGTH Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Production Assistant ...................................................................... Anna Klevit Costume Design Assistant ................................................................ Julie Carr Light Board Operator ...................................................................... Sean Deuel Sound Board Operator ................................................................ Jim Lupercio Video Programmer .................................................................. Abraham Lopez Dresser ............................................................................................... Raven Loc Additional Costume Staff ............................................................ Kaler Navazo The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons and the actors. Videotaping and/or recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited. Electronic devices should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. Photos may be taken before and after the show, and during intermission, but not during the performance. Show your appreciation for the play by using the hashtag #FirefliesSCR and tagging the designers listed on P1. Developed, in part, with the support of Rising Circle Theater Collective at the INKtank Play Development Lab for Emerging Artists of Color. P2 • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • Fireflies Freedom is Never Really Won by Macelle Mahala Fireflies is also part of a trilogy of For example, although I knew King was plays focused on queer love through assassinated, I didn’t know the extent lthough Fireflies is set in 1963, black history. Very few queer individuals of the violence that he and his fam- there are several parallel social active during the Civil Rights Movement ily lived with. His home was bombed problems and concerns facing were transparent about their identities while his wife and child were inside, Americans today. A huge surge because of the strong social stigma and he was stabbed in the chest and also in domestic terrorism by white legal repercussions they faced. For ex- struck in the head with a rock; and yet, Asupremacists, horrific racial violence ample, Bayard Rustin, one of the orga- he continued fighting for freedom and and hatred directed towards black and nizers of the March on Washington, was preaching non-violence. As Harry Bela- brown children, and illegal surveillance involuntarily outed by the police. Many fonte and Stanley Levison stated at his of private citizens are just a few issues members of the Southern Christian funeral, “In a nation tenaciously racist, germane to both 1963 and today. Like Leadership Council tried to conceal the a black man sensitized its somnolent Olivia and Charles, the two characters fact that he was a homosexual for fear conscience…In the luminescent glare in Fireflies, people today are also seek- that the public disparagement of Rustin of the open streets, he gave a lesson to ing ways to process and cope with the would extend, by association, to dispar- the nation revealing who was the op- trauma of our present political and so- agement of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pressed and who was the oppressor. Bayard Rustin Lorraine Hansberry Martin Luther King Jr. cial climate, a trauma disproportionally The celebrated playwright and activist He was incontestably one of history’s felt by people of color and the poor. Just Lorraine Hansberry also lived closeted, preeminent black leaders. Yet he was, as in 1963, many people today working but wrote anonymously for the first as well, a leader to millions of white for social justice are women, people subscription lesbian publication in the people who learned from him that in of color and members of the LGBTQI U.S., The Ladder. Because of social stig- degrading black men they degraded community. Fireflies playwright Donja ma and legal persecution, the historical themselves.” Studying first-person ac- R. Love recently pointed out that two record of the contributions of queer counts of this history has been an in- out of the three black women who individuals to social justice movements valuable education and has helped me founded the Black Lives Matter move- is shrouded and incomplete. Love’s to better understand the present. We ment are queer and that black women plays imagine stories of black life lost can learn a lot from people who, in have been at the forefront of every to history because of the ubiquity of many cases, sacrificed their lives for the major social movement in America. heteronormative patriarchal practices. unencumbered right to vote and for Despite this fact, these women are of- Although the characters in Fireflies are freedom from racial persecution. These ten eclipsed in the media by coverage fictional, they mark the presence of real rights are still under assault. As Coretta of their male colleagues. Olivia is one people whose stories we may never Scott King wrote in her autobiography, such woman. She is Charles’ wife, part- know. “the struggle is a never-ending process. ner and speech writer, but because of Like many Americans, I grew up Freedom is never really won.” While the social conventions of the time pe- learning about the Civil Rights Move- Fireflies acknowledges the heavy cost riod, she is expected to stand in the ment in school during Black History paid by the freedom fighters, it also re- shadows of Charles’ limelight. Part of Month. After delving into the research veals their courage and the tenacity of Olivia’s journey in this play involves materials for this play (as dramaturg for their spirit, a spirit that continues to ex- learning to step into her power and to the production), I realized how little I ist today among those seeking to honor push back against her own erasure. actually knew about this time period. their sacrifice and continue their work. Fireflies • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P3 Civil Rights Movement References in Fireflies August 28, 1955 September 15, 1963 Emmet Till, a 14-year- Addie Mae Collins, 14; old boy from Chi- Cynthia Wesley, 14; cago visiting relatives Carole Robertson, 14; near Money, Miss., and Carol Denise Mc- was kidnapped, tor- Nair, 11, four young tured and murdered. girls who were attend- His killers were not ing Sunday School, convicted, despite were killed when the the fact that they ac- 16th Street Baptist knowledged the kid- Church was bombed napping during their by white supremacist criminal trial and also terrorists. Martin Lu- admitted to the murder after their acquittal. The outrage ther King Jr. spoke at the girls’ memorial service, stating, over this event helped to fuel the Civil Rights Movement “These children, unoffending, innocent, and beautiful— and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In Fire- were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic flies, Olivia’s telephone conversation with Francine, the crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.” Although it mother of a 13-year old boy tortured and murdered by was known that four Ku Klux Klan members planted the white supremacists, bears several similarities to the mur- bomb, no prosecutions were conducted until 1977; one der of Emmet Till. In 2007, a memorial to Till was erected of the four men responsible died of old age without ever on the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where Till’s body being tried. The four child victims of this crime are men- was found. It has been defaced with white supremacist tioned by name in Fireflies, whose opening scene takes writings, destroyed by bullets and stolen four times since place the day after the bombing. its installation. The current memorial sign is made out of bullet-proof material and is monitored by a video secu- rity system in an effort to prevent further desecration. January 1964 Coretta Scott King January 30, 1956 (pictured right, 1964), discovered a package Martin Luther King sent from the FBI to Jr.’s home in Bir- the Southern Christian mingham, Ala., was Leadership Council of- bombed while his fice in Atlanta contain- wife Coretta Scott ing surveillance tapes King and their of her husband, pur- 7-month-old baby, portedly documenting Yolanda, were in the his extramarital affairs. residence. In her au- The FBI included an tobiography, Coretta anonymous note threatening to release the material to Scott King writes, “I the public and urging King to