SUGARCREEK The nomadic lifestyle of actors as they pursue their dreams on stage makes adjusting to life in Amish Country easier to take as they settle in for the summer production of The Best of Me.
Bobby Hall Jr., of Bluefield, West Virginia, Caroline Clay of Greenup, Kentucky, and Connor Murphy-White from Greenville, Alabama, all call Sugarcreek home this summer as they act and sing in several shows a week through Oct. 28.
The cast members are part of the production team of Blue Gate Musicals out of Nashville, Tennessee. Blue Gate is one of several companies that choose from a pool of around 500 actors to perform in venues like Ohio Star Theater across the country.
It is an indictment of our theater that a playwright who has inspired artists across generations is so little known to the average theatergoer. Sadly, Adrienne Kennedy, the 89-year-old African American dramatic poet, whose 1964 play “Funnyhouse of a Negro” is a touchstone of 20th century American drama, is more revered than she is produced.
Her name provokes rapturous tributes from other writers. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, one of the most talented dramatists to have emerged in the last 10 years, acknowledges the debt he and his contemporaries owe: “Every playwright writing today writes in Adrienne Kennedy’s shadow, full stop.” Years of teaching her plays has shown me how her work quickens the sensibilities of young artists.
Adrienne Kennedy s new play, Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side, is utterly unique
Peter Marks, The Washington Post
Jan. 14, 2021
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Caroline Clay as Ella in Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side. McCarter Theatre
The lyrical mosaic of Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side denotes a play-builder in her prime. That the puzzle master in question is 89 years young makes the dramatic results all the more remarkable.
Playwright Adrienne Kennedy has been the subject over the past few months of an intriguing online festival, curated by Round House Theatre and McCarter Theatre Center. It is culminating with the world premiere of Etta and Ella, a 30-minute work performed with mesmeric focus by Caroline Clay.
Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side Receives Online World Premiere; McCarter and Round House Theatre Honor The Work of Adrienne Kennedy towntopics.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from towntopics.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Timothy Doubleday, director, and Caroline Clay, actor, on the set filming ‘Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side. Photo courtesy of Round House Theatre.
“Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side,” part of the “Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration and Influence” festival on-going at Round House Theatre, had its world premier on Sunday. This is an elegant work.
Clay brings to life these fragments of two entwined lines with dignity and humor and fear.
Clocking in at only 37 minutes, it’s about two sisters and their bond over the years. There is a raw closeness and also a competition that frequently seems to have them at odds. Their bond informs their writing in many ways including an eerie tendency to name their characters the same. The sisters are professors of Western literature and writing at separate schools, and there is a very subtle irony in having female Black professors teaching a mostly white and male canon.