In Gypsy & The Bully Door, Sara Josephine James – hairstylist, fortune teller, aspiring rock star and member of the “We Bomb Truth Over Lies” graffiti rebel movement – is haunted in the nation’s capital. The City eats its residents and exiles their spirits to her apartment. When her childhood friend Nate Bledsoe gets killed by the police after returning from the war in the Middle East, his spirit demands that she create a response that the local authorities cannot ignore. But when she gets her comrades, Roy Peoples and Khadija Freeman, to rebel with her, they are forced to disband, escaping capture by the same authorities who took the life of their friend. They set off on their own individual journeys to freedom in a country where democracy seems to be falling apart at every turn. And what they once thought was their rightful destiny becomes a dangerously perilous journey through exile, poverty, and the loss of love, funk and rhythm. It is a battle for the one truth they thought could never be lost in America – their voices and the solidarity that made them believe they had any power at all. While Sara sets up shop in NYC, using her fortune telling and hair styling expertise to pay the bills & manipulate clients for her own entertainment, Roy travels the world in search of the ever-elusive and sublime perfect beauty, and Khadija dares to continue the wandering rebel movement alive in DC alone. All hope to forget what they lost together, only to realize some doors to freedom are more difficult to pass through than they ever knew.
Gypsy & The Bully Door is fueled by the live music of the GoGo band, “The Pocket Roll Call,” and its leader, The Mayor; the often conflicting truths of the unofficial super stars of daily life – the folk who keep it poppin’, no matter what; and the spirits of our ancestors, who push and pull us, even when we doubt their meaning in our lives. It is a story of race, class, sex, dreams, and the magic we conjure to make it in America, and the world.
Dates for Gypsy & The Bully Door:
-May 28, 2011: Stage Reading at The Classical Theatre of Harlem's "Future Classics Reading Series"
-July 2011: Workshop Production for DC's Capital Fringe Festival at The Warehouse Theatre
-January 14, 2012: Stage Reading at Howard University's Ira Aldridge Theatre for HU Theatre Arts Department's "Roxie's Swagg List Reading Series"
1 comment:
Nina Angela Mercer has a voice, colored with depth and a humane relevance for self-discovery . She has a strong sense of compassion which is articulated in the form of power,infinitive pride and a willful- feminist view... Her works within literature will definitely rise to be characterized in the future as a unique blend of artistic-word play.
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