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 Weeps, the 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