The Bluest Eye at Karamu - Fred Sternfeld website

Karamu Performing Arts Theatre
Terrence Spivey, Artistic Director
presents an Ohio premiere

by Toni Morrison

adaptation by Lydia R. Diamond

WCPN, 90.3 "Around Noon"
Dee Perry interviews director Fred Sternfeld and Toni Morrison scholar Dr. Marilyn Mobley on the Thursday, February 2, 2012 show. Also featured is a scene with Andrea Belser, CorLesia Smith, Rochelle Jones, Valerie Kilmer and Stephanie Stovall.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

PRODUCTION STAFF

DIRECTOR - Fred Sternfeld

SCENIC, LIGHTING, AND SOUND DESIGN - Richard Morris, Jr.

STAGE MANAGER - Geri Harris

February 3 - 26, 2012

TICKETS
Playing one more weekend, February 23-26

The Thursday 8:00pm and Sunday 3:00pm performances are SOLD OUT.

A few tickets remain for the Friday 8:00pm and Saturday 8:00pm performances.

AND, an additional performance has been added on Sunday, February 26 at 6:30pm.

Call 216-795-7070 or visit this link.

Previously, Fred Sternfeld has directed productions of
Yellowman and The Time of Your Life at Karamu.



Karamu Performing Arts Theatre Terrence Spivey, Artistic Director presents an Ohio premiere by Toni Morrison adaptation by Lydia R. Diamond WCPN, 90.3 "Around Noon" Dee Perry interviews director Fred Sternfeld and Toni Morrison scholar Dr. Marilyn Mobley on the Thursday, February 2, 2012 show. Also featured is a scene with Andrea Belser, CorLesia Smith, Rochelle Jones, Valerie Kilmer and Stephanie Stovall. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN PRODUCTION STAFF DIRECTOR - Fred Sternfeld SCENIC, LIGHTING, AND SOUND DESIGN - Richard Morris, Jr. STAGE MANAGER - Geri Harris February 3 - 26, 2012 TICKETS Playing one more weekend, February 23-26 The Thursday 8:00pm and Sunday 3:00pm performances are SOLD OUT. A few tickets remain for the Friday 8:00pm and Saturday 8:00pm performances. AND, an additional performance has been added on Sunday, February 26 at 6:30pm. Call 216-795-7070 or visit this link. Previously, Fred Sternfeld has directed productions of Yellowman and The Time of Your Life at Karamu.
Andrea Belser as "Pecola," India Burton as "Claudia," CorLesia Smith as "Frieda" and Valerie Kilmer as "Maureen Peal" photo by Richard Morris, Jr.
CAST OF CHARACTERS CLAUDIA - India Burton FRIEDA / DARLENE - CorLesia Smith PECOLA - Andrea Belser MAMA - Rochelle Jones MRS. BREEDLOVE - Stephanie J. Stovall DADDY / SOAPHEAD CHURCH - Gregory K. White CHOLLY - Jimmie Woody MAUREEN PEAL / WHITE GIRL - Valerie C. Kilmer
The Cleveland Jewish News review... By Fran Heller For those of a certain age, the Dick and Jane storybooks were our first introduction to reading. Once the hallmark of every American child's elementary school education from the 1930s-1960s, these now obsolete and politically incorrect primers painted a picture of the ideal American family as happy, middle-class and lily-white. For children and families forced to evaluate their identity through the lens of a white and largely racist society, such images had devastating consequences for African-Americans. This is the socio-cultural milieu Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison addresses in her first novel "The Bluest Eye," written in 1970 and adapted for the stage by Chicago playwright Lydia Diamond in 2005. The play is at Karamu House through Feb. 26. Written and staged as a memory play, the story is told through the eyes of two sisters who shift from childhood characters within the scenes to omniscient adult narrators describing events taking place in the play. The duality of roles is the drama's principal structural weakness. The 95-minute play, presented without intermission, hews closely to the novel, including much of Morrison's vivid and muscular language. Fred Sternfeld's strong direction creates sufficient dramatic tension, keeping the audience, including this reviewer, thoroughly engaged, despite the limitations of the storytelling format. The setting is Lorain, Ohio, 1940-41, where author Morrison grew up. While public schools were integrated, the population remained socially segregated by race and class, and the local park was off limits to blacks. Sisters Claudia and Frieda Macteer live with their parents as an intact family. Although the Macteers are poor, their household is filled with equal doses of discipline and love. In stark contrast, Pecola Breedlove grows up in a dysfunctional family bereft of affection and with warring parents. Starved for attention, Pecola yearns for blue eyes, like iconic child actress Shirley Temple, so that people will notice her and love her. When Pecola's alcoholic father burns their house down, the 11-year-old girl is placed in temporary custody with the Macteers, where she passes through puberty. Upon returning to her own family, Pecola is brutally raped and impregnated by her father, driving her to madness. In the opening tableau, young Pecola reads from a Dick and Jane primer as the two families enter and assume their places on stage like a Norman Rockwell painting. As Pecola reads aloud, the others join in, chorus-like, talking faster and faster until the words become gibberish. With one inventive stroke, director Sternfeld illuminates the irony between the ideal and the real. Her sad eyes and a broad smile teetering on the edge of despair, Andrea Belser's magnetic portrayal of the insecure and emotionally vulnerable Pecola haunts me still. Believing she is ugly, Pecola equates beauty with "whiteness." With turned-in feet, hunched shoulders and gangly arms, Belser projects the awkward body language of the unhappy girl trying to make herself disappear. This stunning performance won my heart and broke it in the same moment. India Burton as the more introspective Claudia, and Corlesia Smith as the sassy Frieda, perfectly capture the sibling relationship, fighting one moment, loving the next. Rochelle Jones is effective as the sisters' sharp-tongued yet compassionate Mama. The scene in which Pecola discovers she is "ministratin" is humorous, tender and utterly believable as portrayed by this quartet of actors. Black versus white is not the only issue illuminated in the play. There is intra-racism between darker skinned blacks, like Pecola and the two sisters, and light-skinned blacks (deemed more attractive) like their schoolmate Maurine Peal, played with haughty superiority by Valerie Kilmer Jimmie D. Woody delivers an inflammatory performance as Pecola's abusive father Cholly. Woody's nuanced characterization creates sympathy as well as antipathy for Cholly, as much victim as perpetrator. The excellent Stephanie Stovall conveys the bitterness and defeatism of Pecola's mother, a woman broken down by life, unrealized dreams, and a marriage to a man that has turned sour and violent. Finding escape in the movies, Mrs. Breedlove tries to fix her hair like Jean Harlow; it's funny and pathetic. One of the saddest scenes is when Mrs. Breedlove, who works as a maid for a rich white family, comforts her spoiled white charge as Pecola watches, ashamed to even acknowledge that Pecola is her daughter. Gregory White is suitably glib as the local fortuneteller Soaphead Church, who tricks Pecola into believing he can grant her blue eyes at a horrific price. Muting some of the more shocking scenes makes them even more shocking. The action is structured around the four seasons. Award-winning scenic, lighting and sound designer Richard H. Morris Jr.'s targeted sound effects mimic the seasonal changes, while a tiered stage and pinpointed lighting advance the plot. Harold Crawford's costumes, from Pecola's torn dress and Claudia's and Frieda's simple skirts and cardigans, to the rich Maurine's more expensive togs, embellish character. Morrison was the first African-American to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. "The search for love and identity runs through most everything I write," she said. "The Bluest Eye" is a most absorbing evening of theater and one that illuminates a sad chapter in American history.
The Plain Dealer review... By Christine Howey, Special to The Plain Dealer Black, white and questions of beauty are at the heart of Karamu House adaptation of Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' Back in 1940, it wasn't unusual to find a little girl who idolized the pint-sized actress Shirley Temple, with her golden tresses and bright eyes. But when the adoring little girl is African-American, there are obvious issues in play involving identity and what makes a person truly beautiful. These conflicts are at the heart of "The Bluest Eye," now at Karamu House. This adaptation by Lydia Diamond of Toni Morrison's partly autobiographical novel remains faithful to the tone and structure of Morrison's work. And that's both good and bad news for this production. Set in Lorain (where Morrison was born and raised), the play focuses on 9-year-old Pecola Breedlove, mocked daily by other kids for being the ugliest member of an ugly family ("Each one had a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question."). Her story is narrated in part by a neighbor girl named Claudia Macteer, who, along with her sister Frieda, torments and befriends Pecola. India Burton as Claudia and CorLesia Smith as Frieda bring a sharp sense of sibling byplay as they fence and conspire with each other. But this is a play about contrasts. And the starkest contrast, other than Pecola's plaintive wish to have blond hair and blue eyes, is embedded in the two families. While the Macteer parents (played convincingly by Rochelle Jones and Gregory White) are strict but loving, the Breedloves are a breed apart, displaying the complex shadings of character that Morrison achieved in her book. Pauline Breedlove is cold and distant to her daughter Pecola, even to the point where the child refers to her as "Mrs. Breedlove." But Pauline is also a secret romantic, dreaming of movie stars herself and lavishing love on the little white girl in the home where Pauline works as a maid. Her husband, Cholly, is a sometimes good-natured drunk but also the agent of a horrific event that changes his daughter's life forever. But his heinous action is clearly a product of his own tortured background. Stephanie Stovall uses her immense stage presence to make Pauline a fearsome familial entity, and Jimmie D. Woody is often affecting as Cholly. And that makes his ultimate betrayal of his daughter even more brutal. The role of Pecola is absolutely critical to the story, but hers is an oddly passive and almost symbolic presence in the play. Andrea Belser plays this conflicted young woman with compassion, looking appropriately sad and delighted at the right times. But Diamond's choppy scene flow, mirroring the novel's deliberately fragmented structure, never allows us to actually climb inside Pecola's skin and feel her hurts in real time and in their actual dimensions. Director Fred Sternfeld has a firm hand on the many disparate elements in this 90-minute piece. But given the tragic denouement, it's a shame this adaptation couldn't bring us a little closer to an identity cataclysm that is both specifically racial and remarkably universal.
The Times Newspaper review... by Roy Berko Morrison play highlights Black History month at Karamu At the start of the Karamu production of THE BLUEST EYE we hear the voice of Shirley Temple singing. Yes, Shirley Temple, the cute Caucasian child movie star with the curly blond hair and bright blue eyes. That song harbors what is to come. Toni Morrison, the author of the book, THE BLUEST EYE, which was the basis of the play by the same name, is a Nobel Prize winner. She was brought up in Lorain, Ohio, a blue collar city to the west of Cleveland, a city mainly population by African Americans, Puerto Ricans and Hispanics who worked, for many years, in the steel mills, ship building yards, and auto plants. A city which in 1940, the year of the play, was still segregated. Where Lakeview Park, a city facility on the shores of Lake Erie, banned blacks. THE BLUEST EYE was Morrison’s first book. It was written in 1970 while Morrison was teaching at Howard University. Ironically, because the novel deals with racism, incest and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it from schools and libraries. In the 1980s, when I served on the Board of Education in Elyria, a neighboring community to Lorain, a group of ministers had this title on the list of books it wanted to be eliminated from the school curriculum. The story centers on one tragic year in the life of a young black girl. We find eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove verbally abused and the victim of childhood incest. She is continually being told and reminded by her mother of what an “ugly” girl she is. She blames her horrible existence on her dark skin and brown eyes. If only she could have blue eyes, like Shirley Temple, love would follow. For part of that year she lives with a neighborhood family whose two daughters, Claudia and Frieda, tried to make a difference in her life, but the scars were just too deep. In the afterword to a 1994 edition of the novel, Morrison said, “The book, doesn't effectively handle the silence at its center: the void that is Pecola's 'unbeing.'” Lydia Diamond, who adapted the novel into a play format, has helped flesh out some of the void by adding monologues for Pecola that make it clear how desperate she is for a warm and kind touch, a voice of encouragement. To a degree, this makes Pecola’s final flight into insanity much clearer. Karamu’s production, under the understanding direction of Fred Sternfeld, basically gets all it can out of the script. While the play is filled with compassion, because it is mainly a spoken book, and not a play with visual elements of physical action and conflict, it’s difficult to get immersed. The silence Morrison talked about is still present. We are observers, not participants. The cast is generally fine. Andrea Belser is compelling as Pecola. She rings all the right notes out of a scene in which she is unknowingly cajoled into poisoning a dog, a dog, much like her, who is the victim of fate. Corlesia Smith gives a textured performance as Frieda. Stephanie Stovall is properly obnoxious as the heartless mother. CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: THE BLUEST EYE is a good selection as a Black History month presentation by Karamu. It is the work of one of the country’s finest African American women writers and a local celebrity. It gets a credible production.
Heads Up Productions Artistic Director Benjamin Rexroad review... Actors Make Adaptation of ‘Bluest Eye’ Sizzle by Benjamin Rexroad Until I saw The Bluest Eye, directed by Fred Sternfeld at Karamu House in Cleveland, I don’t think I had ever watched a production that inspired two contradictory trains of thought. Before I explain those divergent trains, a background of the play is necessary. The Bluest Eye is adapted from Noble Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s novel of the same name. The story centers on young Pecola Breedlove, a black girl living in Ohio in the years immediately following the Great Depression. Pecola yearns to have blue eyes, like little white girls. Throughout the story she faces racism, incest and child molestation and, consequently, the book is banned from schools and libraries across the country. Needless to say, this play isn’t for the faint of heart. Although I’ve never encountered Toni Morrison beyond the mandatory reading of Sula during my junior year of high school, I felt this production was soft-shoeing around the grittiness of the reality of being poor, black, and living during the 1940s. (Not to mention incest and child molestation.) I remember having a gut-wrenching reaction to Sula. I walked out of this production saying, “that’s too bad” but otherwise being unmoved. For this, I feel the responsibility lies mostly with the script. Lydia R. Diamond, the woman who adapted the novel for the stage, did just that– adapt a novel for the stage. The play had the dynamics of a book on tape. Fortunately for her, she picked a majestic/compelling/insert-positive-adjective-here piece of literature. Morrison’s lyrical poetry was ever-present throughout the play. Many of my “reviewer” notes included quotes, which turned out to be appropriated from the novel. After doing research to write this review, Diamond could have picked better events from the story to ensure the play had the emotional impact of the novel. Or– and I don’t say this often– I would have gladly sat through something longer than the 90-minute one act that was The Bluest Eye. I left wanting more. Which brings me back to the divergent thoughts. Seeing the play, I felt I had enough of an understanding of the book that I didn’t need to read it. On the flip side, I wanted to devour everything Toni Morrison has ever written. The actors deftly handled Morrison’s poetry; it flowed from their lips as natural as everyday speech and infinitely more beautiful. Their talents turned a lackluster script into an enjoyable evening of theatre. This group of actors was a well-oiled ensemble, whose interactions made the family dynamics and intricate relationships sizzle. A special mention goes to Andrea Belser, who plays Pecola. Her ability to exude a deep, deep sadness is limitless and made me want to run onstage and carry her far away from the pain. Karamu made a wonderful decision putting The Bluest Eye in their black box theatre. The intimate space– which couldn’t fit more than 50 people– places you in direct confrontation with the characters and their terrible situations. The only problem is that more audience members won’t get to experience this engaging production.
A few audience comments about The Bluest Eye... -- emailed, on "comment cards" and/or copied and pasted from Facebook -- if you see your quote here and want it removed, write to me at fsternfeld@gmail.com -- if you saw the show and want to contribute a "review," send it to fsternfeld@gmail.com I saw preview night and I must say the cast seemed like they had been performing for an audience and working together for weeks! An amazing and entertaining evening! Wonderful work from all the cast members! Thank you all for an amazing evening with of some of Cleveland's finest talented actresses and actors! Irma McQueen I thoroughly enjoyed the production. It really brought Toni Morrison's novel to life!! A great ensemble! Stephanie Grair Ashford
Meet the company of The Bluest Eye... The biographies below are written as they will appear in the playbill in February of 2012, so some of the credits that are listed as if they are in the past, are in fact, still to happen. Andrea Belser (Pecola) is a native of Cleveland with a Bachelor's degree in Theater Studies and Vocal Music. She was last seen on the Karamu stage as Salima in Ruined. Andrea has also performed in various shows at various theaters in the area including Outside the Lines with MegLouise Dance and *Things of Dry Hours* at Cleveland Public Theater; The Pearl Fisher with Opera Cleveland; and her Roy Berko "Times Theater Tribute 2008" award winning performance as best actress in a drama in Cleveland as Juliette in I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda. Her love of the arts keeps her alive and she owes homage to her God given talent not only to God, but to her biggest fan: her mother. India Burton (Claudia) is a native of Akron and a graduate of The University of Akron where she received a B.A in Theater Arts. While there, she worked with many directors receiving training in method acting, Meisner and other techniques. She also appeared in many shows there, including favorites The Fifth of July, The Taming of the Shrew (Directed by Dr.Susan Speers), *The Three Sisters, A Mouthful of Birds* (Directed By James Slowiak, Artistic Director of New World Performance Lab NWLP) and *Dog Sees God* (Directed by Benjamin Rexroad, Artistic Director of Heads Up Productions). India is a founding member and resident playwright of the new and hip theater company Heads Up Productions. In 2009, India wrote 1,000 Hills. It was first performed at First Grace CC in Akron, Ohio and will be a part of Cleveland Public Theatre's 2012 Black Box series. In 2009 she made her directing debut at Heads Up Productions with the critically acclaimed choreopeom by Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf! Other directing credits are *The Laramie Project* and DayBreaks Children, an original play by Akron native and brother John Dayo Aliya. India is excited about the opportunity to work with Karamu and Fred Sternfeld. THE SKY IS THE LIMIT! Rochelle Jones (Mama) is a native of Cleveland and a graduate of Case Western Reserve University where she minored in theater. She also received theater training at Cleveland School of the Arts where her focus was on theater and dance. She also participated in 4Real Players a triple threat troupe at 4Real Empowerment Center and won a summer scholarship to attend Cleveland Play House summer theater program. She is currently taking voice lessons with 4Real Arts Factory. Her theater credits include *Open Admissions, Oak and Ivy, Inside the Mind of a Madman, From Breast Cancer to Broadway* and was last seen playing Josephine in Ruined at Karamu. She is excited to be part of this dynamic cast! Valerie C. Kilmer (Maureen Peal/White Girl) is originally from Ithaca, New York and moved to Cleveland in 2006. She attended Shaker Heights High School where she received valuable training in theatre and movement as a member of the school's Ensemble Program. Shaker Heights also provided her with the opportunity to enter and win the English Speaking Union's National Shakespeare Competition at the regional level (with Fred Sternfeld as a judge)! Most recently she has been seen as Little Red Ridinghood in Loyola University Chicago's Into the Woods, Simplina in Dover Players' *Two Pails of Water, and Gloria Nance in Western Reserve Playhouse's Be My Baby. Many thanks to Fred Sternfeld for this opportunity to make her Karamu debut! Richard H. Morris Jr.* (Scenic / Lighting Designer) Mr. Morris is a native of Cleveland Ohio, and holds a B.A. in Scenic and Lighting Design from Kent State University. Mr. Morris was recently the recipient of the 2011 National Black Theatre Festival award for “Outstanding Achievements in Scenic Design.” He is currently Technical Director for Karamu House Performing Arts Theatre in Cleveland Ohio. Since his return to Karamu in 1997, he has designed scenery and lighting for over 104 Productions. Some of Richard’s recent design credits include: Ruined, God’s Trombones, Yellowman, Caroline or Change, The Great White Hope, Purlie Victorious, Holes, King Headly II, The Odd Couple, Split Second, For Colored Girls..., Jar the Floor, Bee Luther Hatchee, Raisin, The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Riff Raff, Treemonisha, Steal Away, Jelly’s Last Jam, Coming of the Hurricane, One mo Time, Just Passin Through, Five Guys Named Mo, Four Queens, No Trump, August Wilson’s Jitney, Duke Ellington’s *Sophisticated Ladies, and Crumbs from the Table of Joy, other productions include, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Indahomey, The Tap Dance Kid, and The Colored Museum. Mr. Morris has also been guest designer for several theatres throughout Ohio. For the Jabar Productions set design: Once on this Island, and Trouble in Mind. The Cleveland Public Theatre set design: The Bacchae* and *Mo Pas Connin. Ensemble Theatre:The Rabbit Foot, Later Life, and Meetings on the Porch. Weathervane Playhouse set design: Seven Guitar’s* and Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting. Oberlin College Theatre set design: *Blade to the Heat* and *Omnium Gatherum, his Oberlin lighting design credits include: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Macbeth, and Death of a Salesman* starring Avery Brooks. Rabbit Run Theatre: Enchanted April, Ragtime, and *Cemetery Club. Mr Morris has also been Production Designer for a number of independent film projects throughout the Cleveland area. CorLesia Smith* (Frieda, Darlene) is a sophomore at John Carroll and is a former student of the Chagrin Falls Performing Arts Academy. She most recently appeared at FPAC in Big, the musical and *Eat (It's Not About Food)* and at Karamu in Ruined. Some of her favorite roles have been Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, The Cat in the Hat in Seussical, Angel in *Celebration, Mother Miriam in Agnes of God* and Julia Sullivan in *The Wedding Singer. Fred Sternfeld* (Director) is pleased to return to Karamu, after directing the award winning production of *Yellowman* in 2009. He most recently directed The Fantasticks, Steel Magnolias and Baby at TrueNorth Cultural Arts and A Little Night Music, Company and Les Miserables: School Edition at FPAC. Fred is widely represented on Northeast Ohio stages through diverse projects, garnering numerous honors and awards. Recently he directed the award-winning productions of Baby at TrueNorth, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast & at Beck Center and Ragtime, the musical at the JCC. He previously served as Artistic Director at Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory, Lakewood Little Theatre - Beck Center for the Arts and the Cleveland, Seattle & Dallas Jewish Community Centers. Other selected credits: Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver! & The Sound of Music at Cain Park; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife & The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek at Dobama Theatre; *Children of Eden, Into the Woods, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Eat (It's Not About Food)* and The Odd Couple at FPAC; A Shayna Maidel, Jolson and Company, Man of La Mancha, Modern Orthodox, Rags, From Door to Door, South Pacific, The God of Isaac, Beau Jest, Crossing Delancey, The Twilight of the Golds, The Immigrant & Conversations With My Father for the Cleveland JCC; Bad Seed at Ensemble Theatre; Amadeus at Willoughby Fine Arts; Table Settings, Isn’t It Romantic, The Diary of Anne Frank & Broadway Bound at JCC Center Stage in Seattle; Peter Pan (1987 & 2008), On the Town, Of Mice and Men, La Cage aux Folles, Saturday Night, Foxfire, Noises Off, Children of a Lesser God & The Importance of Being Earnest at Beck Center; Proof at GLTG and All My Sons & Enter Laughing at the Dallas JCC. Upcoming: Gruesome Playground Injuries for Ensemble Theatre in April of 2012. For pictures and reviews for any of the shows listed here you can go to this link. Stephanie Stovall (Mrs. Breedlove) has been acting since the sixth grade. Stovall's most recent performances includes From Breast Cancer to Broadway (2010) directed by Terrence Spivey at Karamu. Steal Away (2009) directed by Jean "Granny" Hawkins also at Karamu. Bourbon at the Border (2008) at Ensemble Theatre at the Cleveland Play House. Stovall was also featured in independent films written and directed by Konnie Perone entitled "Silver Rain" (2007) and "Drag Bottle Dreams" (2008), which was accepted at the Burbank CA film festival. Venturing out into comedy under the studies of Mike Veneman in 2006 allowed her to land a gig as opening act for Louis Ramey at Marymount College in Maryland, VA in 2006. Other performances include: Purlie Victorious (2007), Clevelands Art and Technology Ingenuity Festival, Hip Hop Aesop, George Wolfe's Colored Museum directed by Caroline Jackson Smith (2006) and Peter Lawson Jones's Family Line directed by Desmond "Storm E" Jones (2005). Growing up in the church, Stovall has developing her talents by playing the piano for various churches and performances as Tina Turner for Christmas socials for the church. Native of Warrensville Hts., Ohio has studied tap and modern dance, the piano for 12 years and the trumpet for 5 years. Earning a degree in Public Relations, Communications from Cleveland State University in 2007, has allowed her to work with a non profit organization My Fairy Godmother, that provides affordable new and gently worn prom dresses to young high school ladies in Cleveland and surrounding areas . Stovall enjoys acting, listening to live music, traveling with friends and family, gardening, decorating, cooking and hanging out with "son" Kingston her faithful Shitzu. "My family & friends are constant motivators in my life in all that I do, always there to support me. Thank's ya'll, and I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me!" Stovall currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Gregory White (Daddy / Soaphead Church) is an alumni of Ohio University's School of Theater. He was last seen in Karamu's production of *The Shadow Box, as Joe, the hard working family man, coping with terminal illness. Greg has displayed a wide range of characters, including the crafty diamond merchant, Mr Harari in last season's Ruined. Greg showed off his dancing abilities as Noah in the 2011 Karamu House version of God's Trombones. For Ensemble Theater he was a 92 year-old in Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. He was awarded the best overall actor trophy by the Indie Gathering Film Industry in 2010. Greg also performed in the Beck Center's Peter Pan* and as Mr J. Robinson in Truenorth's production of To Kill A Mockingbird, in Karamu House's *Bow-Wow Club* and in Waiting 2End Hell. Greg is ecstatic to be working with such a talented cast and would like to thank them all for their dedication and hard work. Jimmy Woody (Cholly) has appeared in numerous productions in Cleveland and New York. Some of his most recent Cleveland credits include: William in *Lobby Hero, Booth in Top Dog/Underdog* at The Beck Center for the Arts, Hamlet in Hamlet at Cuyahoga Community College, Tigre in *Dream On Monkey Mountain, portrayed multiple characters in The Colored Museum* at Karamu House directed by Terrence Spivey and Caroline Jackson-Smith, and he appeared in Cleveland Public Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape directed by David Herskovitz. Jimmie directed and performed the role of Dionysus in Cleveland Public Theatre’s production of The Bacchae of Euripedes a Communion Rite written by Wole Soyinka. Some of Jimmie’s New York credits include Waiting for Godot, *Hollis Mugley’s Only Wish* and The Caucasian Chalk Circle staged by The New York Shakespeare Festival and LaMama E.T.C. respectively directed by Andrei Serban. Jimmie received his M.F.A. in acting from Columbia University.
About the play Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is a story about the tragic life of a young black girl in 1940's Ohio. Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove wants nothing more than to be loved by her family and schoolmates. Instead, she faces constant ridicule and abuse. She blames her dark skin and prays for blue eyes, sure that love will follow. With rich language and bold vision, this powerful adaptation of an American classic explores the crippling toll that a legacy of racism has taken on a community, a family, and an innocent girl. "A must-see production … an altogether superb (and harrowing) world premiere stage adaptation." Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times "Diamond's sharp, wrenching, deeply humane adaptation … helps us discover how an innocent like Pecola can be undone so thoroughly by a racist world that, if it sees her at all, does so only long enough to kick the pins out from under her." Chicago Reader "A spare and haunting play … The playwright displays a delicate touch that seems right for the theme spiraling through the piece: that of the invidious influence of a white-majority nation not yet mature enough to validate beauty in all its forms." Washington Post "Diamond even addresses the lack that Morrison herself found in the novel. In the afterword to a 1994 edition, she says the book doesn't effectively handle the silence at its center: the void that is Pecola's 'unbeing.' Making up for that silence, Diamond creates new monologues for the child that make clear just how desperate she is for a warm and kind touch … At the same time Diamond, like Morrison, largely avoids cheap sentimentality and keeps intact the novel's rich humor, much of it rooted in children's attempts to decipher adults' confusing coded language." Chicago Reader "Poignant, provocative." Backstage "This is a powerful coming-of-age story that should be seen by all young girls." Chicagocritic.com "This is bittersweet, moving drama that preserves the vigor and the disquiet of Ms. Morrison's novel … for theatergoers of any age, it is not to be missed." The New York Sun "[Toni Morrison's] complex narrative is faithfully translated to the stage … rich language … supple eloquence." New York Times AATE Distinguished Play Award (2008, Adaptation)
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