…and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi
A New Play by Marcus Gardley
Directed by Amy Mueller
A co-production with Playwrights Foundation
March 12 – April 11, 2010
Opening Night: March 19 at 8pm
“Jesus Moonwalks is in a lot of ways my signature play. It is based upon a story my great-grandmother used to tell about her father who fled the bonds of slavery and traveled the country in search of his family.”
-Marcus Gardley, playwright
Set on the banks of the Mississippi during the Civil War, …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is a poetic journey of forgiveness and redemption inspired by the myth of Demeter and Persephone. This thought-provoking play combines traditional storytelling, gospel music, and a wicked sense of humor to create a rich, imaginative world that allows trees to preach, rivers to waltz, and Jesus to moonwalk.
Artwork by Keba Armand Konte
www.kebakonte.com
Michael Locher’s set design for our upcoming production of… and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi: http://www.locherdesign.com/
The Cutting Ball Theater’s production of…and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is made possible in part by the Creative Work Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Marcus Gardley (playwright) is a multiple award-winning poet-playwright who recently won the prestigious 2008 Helen Merrill Award and a Kesselring honor. His two most recent plays, This World in a Woman’s Hands (October 2009), and Love is a Dream House in Lorin (March 2007), both received outstanding critical acclaim and sold-out runs in Berkeley, California. The latter was nominated for the National Critics Steinberg New Play Award. He has had six plays produced including: dance of the holy ghost at Yale Repertory Theatre (now under a commercial Broadway option), …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi at Brown University, Georgetown University, and Umass Amherst; (L)imitations of Life, at the Empty Space; and like sun fallin’ in the mouth at the National Black Theatre Festival. He is the recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Grant, a NEA/TCG Playwriting Participant Residency, the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of New Dramatists, The Dramatists Guild and the Lark Play Development Center. Gardley, a native of West Oakland, was recently chosen as one of 50 writers to watch by Dramatists Magazine. The premiere of his new play, On the Levee, will premiere at Lincoln Center in July. He teaches Playwriting and African-American studies at Umass Amherst.
Amy Mueller (director) has directed and produced original theater for the past twenty some years. She is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Foundation, co-producer of Jesus Moonwalks, and in nine years has transformed the organization into a year-round national center for playwrights and new play development, and continuously works on the development on new American Theater. Artistic credits include: director of the development of The Fourth Messenger, a new musical by Tanya Shaffer, with whom she developed and directed the award winning play Let My Enemy Live Long! at Berkeley Rep; other credits include: Between This Breath and You by Naomi Wallace, a world premiere; Voices Underwater by Abi Basch (director); 365 Plays/365Days Week Three by Suzann Lori Parks, One Big Lie by Liz Duffy Adams (dramaturg/producer); co-creator of The Mandala Olive Project; with Denmo Ibrahim; Coming Home by Motti Lerner, and Between The Eyes by Naomi Wallace (director), with Golden Thread Productions. She has also directed at Berkeley Rep, San Diego Rep, A.C.T. Seattle and Arizona Theatre Company.
Rami Margron (Choreographer) is working with Cutting Ball for the first time. Her recent choreography includes Learn to Be Latina with Impact Theater, Hair at The Willows and Drip with Crowded Fire. She is trained in roughly twenty styles of dance. She is a former member of Haitian dance company Group Petit la Croix and African Diaspora dance-theater troupe Reconnect. She is also a local actor and a member of Crowded Fire Theater Company.
Erica Richardson (Musical Director/Chorus) makes her Cutting Ball debut with …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Bay Area theater credits are Joanne in RENT (Golden State Theater Productions) Trash Can Sally in Rent Boy Avenue (Box Car Theater Company), and Dionne in Hair (Willows Theater company), for which she received a Shelly nomination. Born and raised in Connecticut, Erica is a recent graduate from the Actors Training Program at the University of Utah.
Aldo Billingslea* (Damascus/Demeter) makes his debut at The Cutting Ball Theater with …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. His credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Coriolanus at Shakespeare Santa Cruz; Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man, and Harmond Wilks in Radio Golf at TheatreWorks, Yank in The Hairy Ape, Frederick Douglas & Jim in Scott Kaiser’s Splittin’ the Raft at Marin Theatre Company, and Officer Simmons in The Rant at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia. Other regional theatres include: Renegade Theatre Experiment, The Magic, ACT, Playwrights Foundation, Center Repertory, Playground, Portland Center Stage, the Old Globe Theatre and Shakespeare Festivals of Marin, Dallas, Illinois, Utah and Oregon. Billingslea is a Playground company member, on the board of Renegade Theatre Experiment and teaches acting at Santa Clara University.
*The Actor appears through the courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Rebecca Frank (Chorus) is thrilled to be making her Cutting Ball debut with …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Past performances include The Shotgun Players Production of This World in a Woman’s Hands by Marcus Gardley, and Picasso at the Lapine Agile with The Mills Players. Rebecca is a recent graduate of Mills College where she studied vocal jazz improvisation and received a BA in creative writing.
Martin F. Grizzell, Jr. (Brer Bit) makes his debut with The Cutting Ball Theater and brings with him an international resume. Mr. Grizzell has worked with The Interdisciplinary Dance Theatre of Holland, performing throughout Europe and the U.S. including Nice, Cannes and New York City’s Lincoln Center. He has appeared on stage as El Gallo in The Fantasticks; as Deodatus Village in Jean Genet’s The Blacks; as Miss Roj in The Colored Museum and as a principal in the ensemble performance La Baker – A Musical Review of the Life of Josephine. Grizzell was most recently featured in the African-American Shakespeare Company production of Cinderella as Zonita, the evil stepsister. At present Grizzell may be seen in the internet drama, Noah’s Ark and the International 48-Hour Film Shoot-Out film, A Better Place. A veteran textile artist, Martin Grizzell’s quilts and tapestries are represented in the collection of the National Museum, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. A former radio personality, Martin has written for the San Francisco Examiner – Chronicle and is a contributor to the Pacific Newsletter, Monterey, California. A musician and vocal coach, Martin enjoys playing piano and the tenor saxophone.
Jeanette Harrison (Cadence Verse) is delighted to make her Cutting Ball debut. A proponent of new work, she has participated in readings, workshops, or premieres with Theatre Rhino, Berkeley Rep, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Restless Minds, Playhouse West, Golden Thread, Aurora Theatre, Magic Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, and AlterTheater Ensemble, where she is a founding member, and will appear later this spring in Caryl Churchill’s Owners. Other credits include San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Cal Shakes, Sonoma County Rep, Golden Thread. Favorite roles include Olive Schreiner in Jessica Goldberg’s Sex Parasite, Rosalind is As You Like It, Trillian in Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (WHPK, Chicago), and Melody in the independent film Zingaroo, winner of multiple awards including Best Actress from the West Valley Film Festival. She recently filmed a supporting role in the feature film, Love On the Line.
Nicole C. Julien (Miss Ssippi) is pleased to be making her Cutting Ball debut in a play written by such a talented playwright. Since receiving her B.A. in Theatre Arts in 2000, she’s been performing all over the bay area. Past productions include: Hair City Lights Theater Co., Rust The Magic Theatre, Cabaret Shotgun Players, Aida Alameda Civic Light Opera, and Man of LaMancha SF Playhouse.
Halili Knox (Chorus) is thrilled to make her Cutting Ball debut with …And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. She most recently appeared in a staged reading of Makeover (Belle) as part of the New Works Festival at TheatreWorks, and worked as an understudy in A Civil War Christmas (Elizabeth Keckley, Hanna) and Caroline or Change (Radio 1). Halili has performed in The Story (Pat Johnson), co-produced by SF Playhouse and Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; Who Loves Ya, Baby?—a cabaret she wrote, produced and directed; and Theatre Q’s My Strange Nation: The Music of Susan Werner (Ensemble). HGTV (Home and Garden Television) enthusiasts may remember her as the deal-finding co-host of Double Take, a national interior design makeover show. Halili is a native of East Palo Alto and proud graduate of Howard University.
Erika A. McCrary (Free Girl) makes her San Francisco debut with …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. A Bay Area native, Erika has always cultivated a love of the arts. She recently appeared as Michelle Drysdale in the award-winning independent film Law & Disorder. She is a graduate of Howard University with a BFA in Musical Theater, and she looks forward to earning her Masters in Liberal Arts Management.
Sarah Mitchell (Blanche Verse) makes her Cutting Ball debut with …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi. Recent credits include The Norman Conquests and The Farm with Shotgun Players, Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party with SF Playhouse, and See How We Are with Impact Theatre. She is a company member with Killing My Lobster, San Francisco’s premier sketch comedy troupe, where she performed in the mainstage shows KML Faces the Music, KML For the Very First Time, KML Goes to the Polls, amongst several others. She is also KML’s Creative Director for New Plays. She received a BA from Rice University.
Zac Schuman (Yankee Pot Roast) returns to the Cutting Ball stage after appearing in Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Zac was most recently seen in History Boys at New Conservatory Theatre Center. He has studied with A.C.T.’s young conservatory, and the Marin School of the Arts.
David Sinaiko (Jean Verse) is proud to be a Cutting Ball Associate Artist, having appeared in their productions of The Bald Soprano, Krapp’s Last Tape, Victims of Duty, Endgame, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Sandalwood Box, Ajax for Instance, Macbeth, 365 Plays/365 Days, Woyzeck, Chain Reactions and The Hidden Classics Reading Series. He was a founding member of Chicago’s New Crime Productions where credits include Heart of a Dog, The Balcony, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Methusalem, and Alagazam! He was seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and A Flea in Her Ear at the Goodman Theatre, The Big Show with The Actor’s Gang, and during the holidays in a one-man production of The SantaLand Diaries. Film and television credits include The Grifters, Bob Roberts, Carnosaur and The Untouchables. David is analumnus of NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing and Stella Adler Conservatory. Other recent credits include Golden Thread’s Jihad Jones & the Kalashnikov Babes, Crowded Fire’s Wreckage and SF Playhouse’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
David Westley Skillman (Jesus/The Great Tree) is excited to be working with Cutting Ball again. David was in Risk is This . . .The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival, Alien Motel and Wet, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. David was last seen performing in Christina Anderson’s Drip as Jerome with Crowed Fire, and the Thick Description’s production of Suzan-Lori Parks The America Play as John Wilkes Booth. He was also in the Thick Description’s co-production with San Jose Stage Company of Octavio Solis’ Gilbraltar. David has also worked with Second Wind Productions, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Central Works, Theater First, The African American Shakespeare Company, SF Fringe Festival and FoolsFury. Some of David’s favorite roles include being a stepsister in Cinderella, “Booth” from Suzan-Lori Parks’ Top Dog Under Dog and the title role in Othello at AASC. Television credits include; Trauma – NBC, and Nash Bridges – CBS. Film credits include The Confessional, The Calling of Harvey Brewster, Deep End, Small Things, Ju Ju Love, The Last, Thomas Dailey, Live Intel, Hester Schell’s Just Under a Million, Thomas Puig’s Madoff’ Inferno!
