On Sunday February 24 at 4:00 pm, the Mainstay will present “Unveiling Shadows: I Will Speak for Myself,” a one-woman play for Black History Month. Admission is $15. For information and reservations call the Mainstay at 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
“Unveiling Shadows: I Will Speak for Myself” is a stirring one-woman play that blends historical interpretation with performance and breathes life into slave narratives, personal letters and memoirs, diary entries, court records, poems, public addresses, and newspaper advertisements creating real identities that share these African-American women’s experiences, struggles, and journeys in their own voices from Colonial times through the Civil War.
The play was written and is directed by Valerie Joyce, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. Based on extensive research, the performance features characters who lived in slavery and fought for freedom.
Joyce’s professional credits include work with the Arden Theatre Company, Opera Delaware, Lantern Theatre Co., Venture Theatre, NYC Fringe Festival, and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
The play features Barrymore-nominated actress Kimberly S. Fairbanks, who can be seen and heard in numerous voice-overs, commercials, and independent films. Fairbanks, earned her Master’s Degree in Theatre from Villanova University in May 2011. In 2011, she was the KC/ACTF Irene Ryan National Finalist and was awarded the National Partners Theatre Classical Acting Award. She has performed with many regional theatres including Delaware Theater Company, InterAct Theatre Company, The Mint Theatre (off Broadway); NJ Repertory Company; and the Walnut Street Theatre.
In writing “Unveiling Shadows: I Will Speak for Myself,” Joyce explained that her goal was to expose real black women of the time period and to fully recognize the way in which these women’s stories nonviolently shaped the American experience in what was a considerably racist society. The characters featured in “Unveiling Shadows” are all based on real women whose identities have been based on Joyce’s extensive research into the writings and records of women of the time period.
About the play, Heather S. Nathans, Professor of Theatre, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, University of Maryland said, “This is truly an astonishing piece of theatre — the stories are as compelling and urgent today as they were centuries ago. The performance brings these women to life in completely accessible and deeply moving ways. The meticulous research that went into recuperating the experiences of these women is evident in every line, yet never overwhelms the production.”
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