Curtain Times

Thursdays & Fridays
8:30 P.M.

Saturdays
3 P.M. & 8:30 P.M.

Sundays
2 P.M. & 7:30 P.M.

A couple of con artists, Francesca and Bernardo, are down on their luck when they discover a dim-witted shoemaker, Calandino, received an inheritance. The swindlers move into action. Bernardo convinces Calandino that he doesn't look well and summons a renown doctor, Francesca in disguise, who determines the shoemaker is suffering from a condition usually reserved fo rwomen, namely he is pregnant. Calandrino begs to have his manhood restored. A request the doctor readily agrees to....for a fee.

But the raucous farce is just beginning as other swindlers jump into the fray. In the end, money changes hands, but it isn't clear who swindled whom. Only the audience knows for sure.

Alvin Moseby is a photographer. He lived in the south during the 1930s, in Shiloh, Tennessee to be exact. When times are tough we often do things for money we wish we hadn't. He was paid by Deputy Sheriff Reggie Kilmore to take photographs of racist deeds which were made into postcards.

Later Alvin leaves his wife, flees Shiloh and moves to New York city. There he finds his artistic calling taking pictures of legendary jazz musicians in sessions. He finds Hattie McLendon who becomes the love of his life. But, the infamous box of postcards follows his every step and haunts his every move. The photographs relentlessly attack his soul.

Earl Leighton, the family patriarch, an African American architect, self-made, proud, on the verge of realizing his life's ambition: to build a skyscraper. His family is gathering in anticipation of the big presentation to come. Caleb, his eldest son, a CFO in his father's architecture firm, Rebecca, his daughter, a journalist, a wanderer and Grey, his stepson, an architect at a small firm in New York. Liz, Earl's second wife of twenty years, a retired literature professor runs an efficient household among the trappings of wealth.

When Earl forgets how to tie his tie we realize foreboding ripples threaten the seemingly smooth waters.

Lacey Cubbard, a precocious African American young lady, new to the neighborhood, gently swings back and forth on the swing. Kate enters, sits on one of the lawn chairs, opens her shoulder bag, withdraws a stack of papers and begins to read. This seemingly precious and innocent beginning soon evolves into a gorgeous poem/play about mothers and daughters, race, suburbia, academia, identity and poetry.

Lacey, the English teacher, Kate, and eventually Lacey's mother are woven into a pattern that is both tangled and delicate, both tortuous and lovely.