WBTT celebrates Stevie Wonder, one of the most creative musical icons of the late 20th Century. He recorded more than 30 U.S. top 10 hits and received 22 Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Nate Jacobs presents a creative musical revue featuring all your favorite Stevie tunes spanning over 40 years of his musical career, such as: “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” “Living for the City,” “Ribbon in the Sky,” “Higher Ground” and many more.

Cast

Nate Jacobs – Creator, Director

James (Jay) E. Dodge, II - Music Director/Production Manager

Ariel Blue

Naarai Jacobs

Michael Mendez

Kenessa “Nisi” Pierre

Tsadok Porter

Sheldon Roden

Henry Washington

Jitney was the first play August Wilson wrote in a series of ten plays called The Pittsburgh Cycle. Set in different decades, each depicts the experiences of African-Americans throughout the 20th century. Jitney won several awards when it was produced in NYC and London years after he first wrote it: 2000 Drama Critics' Circle Award for best new play, 2001 Outer Critics Circle Award for outstanding off-Broadway play, and the 2002 Laurence Olivier Award for best new play. In total, Mr. Wilson earned seven New York Drama Critics' Circle awards, a 1987 Tony Award, and two 1990 Pulitzer Prizes for drama (Fences and The Piano Lesson).

Jitney is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.

Created and performed by Nate Jacobs

May 16 – May 19, 2013

Hilarious one-man show written and staring Nate Jacobs as Aunt Rudele, the relative who knows no boundaries, but always knows best. Attending the Stevens Family reunion, Aunt Rudele introduces her kinfolks through songs, dances, prayers, sermons, and verbal duels. Her observations are searing and laugh-out loud funny. In the Southern tradition, this show serves up a main dish of laughter with a side order of down-home wisdom.

By Lorraine Hansberry

January 25 – February 19, 2012

In this highly acclaimed drama, conflict arises when an insurance check for $10,000 provides the means to fulfill conflicting dreams for a mother and her two children. Hope, racism, feminism and pride are some of the themes in this play about a poor black family's struggle to gain middle-class acceptance in 1950s Chicago. Named the best play of 1959 by the NY Drama Critics’ Circle, and nominated for four Tony Awards, the effects of dreams deferred remain relevant today.

"A play that changed American theater forever" -- The New York Times

A Raisin in the Sun is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Articles

NPR's Morning Edition highlights Hansberry

Wikipedia on Hansberry

Women's History

Wikipedia on A Raisin in the Sun

Internet Broadway Database

NY Times original review

African American Literature

Interesting facts about A Raisin in the Sun:

• Opened March 10, 1959, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, and closed June 25, 1960 after 530 performances
• Noted as first Broadway play written by an African-American woman and directed by an African-American man (Lloyd Richards)
• Inspired by her family's legal battle against the racially segregated housing law in Chicago’s south side
• Considered a turning point in American drama, as it was the first honest depiction of a black family on stage
• Made into a 1961 film starring most of the original Broadway cast, adapted into a Tony award winning musical in 1973, and produced for television in 1989
• The title for A Raisin in the Sun comes from the poem “Harlem” written by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?