Marcus Gardley's

The House That Will Not Stand

Writer
Marcus Gardley

Director
Karen Tomlin

Location
The Linbury Theatre

Dates
Thursday 8 June at 7:45pm
Friday 9 June at 2:15pm
Saturday 10 June at 7:45pm
Monday 12 June at 2:15pm
Tuesday 13 June at 7:45pm

The running time is to be confirmed.

About the show

You may be the wealthiest colored woman in New Orleans, but you built this house on sand, lies and dead bodies. New Orleans, 1836. Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beatrice, a free woman of colour, has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man. However, when her lover mysteriously dies, Beatrice imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters. But, as the summer heat intensifies, the foundations of freedom she has built for herself and their three unwed daughters begin to crumble. Society is changing, racial divides are growing and, as the members of the household turn on each other in their fight for survival, it could cost them everything. 

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright. He was the 2012 James Baldwin Fellow and the 2011 PEN Laura Pels award winner for Mid-Career Playwright. The New Yorker describes Gardley as “the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams.” His play The House that Will Not Stand was commissioned and produced by Berkeley Rep and had subsequent productions at Yale Rep and the Tricycle Theater in London. He is an ensemble member playwright at Victory Gardens Theater where his play The Gospel of Loving Kindness was produced in March and where he won the 2015 BTAA award for best play. In 2014, his saga The Road Weepsthe Well Runs Dry about the migration of Black Seminoles (a tribe of African American and First Nation People) from Florida to Oklahoma had a national tour. He has had numerous productions some of which include: Every Tongue Confess at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Kenny Leon and On The Levee which, premiered in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theater 3. He is the recipient of the 2011 Aetna New Voice Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the Hellen Merrill Award, a Kellsering Honor and the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Gardley is a professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Brown University. 

Karen Tomlin has made work within professional and community settings for over twenty years. Her work is equally positioned between classical texts and new writing performed in conventional and unconventional performance spaces. She has made work for companies such as Paines Plough, The Gate, Ovalhouse and Theatre Royal Stratford East

Contains references to slavery, misogyny, classism and colourism.

Photos: SRTaylor Photography

Creative Team

* LAMDA staff member or visiting artist

Director
Karen Tomlin*

Designer
Charlotte Henery*

Assistant Director
Robert Elwood

Voice Director
Aundrea Fudge*

Fight Director
Sam Behan*

Lighting Designer
Abhinav Mishra

Sound Designer / Production Sound Engineer
Summer Collier

Costume Supervisor 
Caitlyn Keaney*

Wardrobe Assistant
Daniella B-G*

Movement Support
Elsabet Yonas*

Cast

Odette
Reba Ayi-Sobsa

Marie Josephine
Juliet G. James

Beartrice
Kiziana Jean-Louis

Agnes
Jazz Jenkins

Makeda
Peace Oseyenum

Maude
Taneetrah Porter

La Veuve
Jade Dharma Roberts

Lazare
Michael Tcherepashenets

Production Team

* LAMDA staff member or visiting artist

Stage Manager on the Book
India Mae

Technical Stage Manager
Peter Johnston

Production Manager
Nic Donithorn*

Chief LX
Ash Orhan-Pennell

Production Sound Engineer
Jacob Eckardt