On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 @ 7pm, meet author Jacqueline Malcolm at Les Ambassades Bar & Restaurant, 341 Lenox Avenue in New York, where she will read excerpts from her new novel SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom. The reading will be followed by a book signing.
British author, Jacqueline Malcolm, joins the United States in Remembering…
January 1st 1863, during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued an order famously declaring that ‘all persons held as slaves…are, and henceforth shall be free…’ and as America step up to the plate to remember the 150th Anniversary of this Emancipation Proclamation through a plethora of big budget movies and events, Seaburn Publishing Group release the first book of her trilogy, SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom.
Lincoln’s order did not immediately apply to all slaves in the US at that time: It could not be enforced in the rebellious states until they had been fought and won by the Union Army; nor could it be applied to the five slave states that were not in rebellion and so forth, but from the moment of its announcement the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the heart of the Civil War to a fight not just to save the Union but for man’s freedom.
Set a century earlier in 18th Century New York, SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom introduces its reader to Hezekiah Thomas, a mulatto slave, born to his white General Father and slave mother, who becomes a free man for the first time in his life. But with this freedom comes an unfamiliar weight of responsibility and we watch as one decision fueled by pure ambition leads him down a road of disastrous consequence where not only everything he loves and everything he holds dear is put into great jeopardy but he faces losing the one thing he had wanted above all else; his freedom.
When asked what inspired her to write this story, Ms. Malcolm said; “I wanted to explore an alternative set of events and not only high-light the motives behind my black ancestors that seemingly profited from the trade but also open a window into our own hearts by asking; how far will we go to survive and how far will we go for a profit?”
Jacqueline Malcolm
Northhampton, England native Jacqueline Malcolm has enjoyed a long lasting professional career in administration and event management to an executive level. A classically trained actress (New York and London), Malcolm has had a passion for writing since a very early age. A published author of the children’s book, The Adventures of Lucy the Lamb, her other writing credits to date include a myriad of stage plays, screenplays and commissioned pieces. Ms. Malcolm presently lives on the Island of Syros, Greece with her family and welcomes visitors to her site; www.jacquelinemalcolm.com
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: ‘I was swept up in the story, relishing in the way it would ease into a comfortable pace before whisking away on new revelations. It was always a step ahead of me, and the ending left me breathless in the way that great reading experiences often do.’ Casee Marie – Literary Inklings ‘An historical epic grand piece of theatre.’ Ben Guillory – Robey Theatre Company ‘As a historical matter, this work is enlightening and fascinating as it represents a piece of history whose scope was larger than many knew. As entertainment, it is brilliant, on target and fluid in its storytelling.’ Ken Melamed – Bret Adams Agency ‘Moving, surprising, loving, disturbing. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wanting more.’ Consuelo Gonzalez – EMMY award-winning Director
January 1st 1863, during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued an order famously declaring that ‘all persons held as slaves…are, and henceforth shall be free…’ and as America step up to the plate to remember the 150th Anniversary of this Emancipation Proclamation through a plethora of big budget movies and events, Seaburn Publishing Group release the first book of her trilogy, SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom.
Lincoln’s order did not immediately apply to all slaves in the US at that time: It could not be enforced in the rebellious states until they had been fought and won by the Union Army; nor could it be applied to the five slave states that were not in rebellion and so forth, but from the moment of its announcement the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the heart of the Civil War to a fight not just to save the Union but for man’s freedom.
Set a century earlier in 18th Century New York, SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom introduces its reader to Hezekiah Thomas, a mulatto slave, born to his white General Father and slave mother, who becomes a free man for the first time in his life. But with this freedom comes an unfamiliar weight of responsibility and we watch as one decision fueled by pure ambition leads him down a road of disastrous consequence where not only everything he loves and everything he holds dear is put into great jeopardy but he faces losing the one thing he had wanted above all else; his freedom.
When asked what inspired her to write this story, Ms. Malcolm said; “I wanted to explore an alternative set of events and not only high-light the motives behind my black ancestors that seemingly profited from the trade but also open a window into our own hearts by asking; how far will we go to survive and how far will we go for a profit?”
Jacqueline Malcolm
Northhampton, England native Jacqueline Malcolm has enjoyed a long lasting professional career in administration and event management to an executive level. A classically trained actress (New York and London), Malcolm has had a passion for writing since a very early age. A published author of the children’s book, The Adventures of Lucy the Lamb, her other writing credits to date include a myriad of stage plays, screenplays and commissioned pieces. Ms. Malcolm presently lives on the Island of Syros, Greece with her family and welcomes visitors to her site; www.jacquelinemalcolm.com
On January 31, 2013 @ 9pm, you can meet Ms. Malcolm at Delice Cafe in Syros, Greece, where she will present SLAVE: Escaping the Chains of Freedom Book & Play Reading, and will sign books after the presentation. I look forward to catching up with her during her North American Book Tour in February, 2013.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: ‘I was swept up in the story, relishing in the way it would ease into a comfortable pace before whisking away on new revelations. It was always a step ahead of me, and the ending left me breathless in the way that great reading experiences often do.’ Casee Marie – Literary Inklings ‘An historical epic grand piece of theatre.’ Ben Guillory – Robey Theatre Company ‘As a historical matter, this work is enlightening and fascinating as it represents a piece of history whose scope was larger than many knew. As entertainment, it is brilliant, on target and fluid in its storytelling.’ Ken Melamed – Bret Adams Agency ‘Moving, surprising, loving, disturbing. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wanting more.’ Consuelo Gonzalez – EMMY award-winning Director
From August 2-4, 2011, Two-time Tony Award Nominee and Emmy Award-Winning actor André De Shields will reprise his critically acclaimed role as W.E.B. DuBois in Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss, directed by Chuck Smith, at The National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, a co-production of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Company.
Performances are Tuesday, August 2 @ 8pm, Wednesday, August 3 @ 3pm and 8pm, and Thursday, August 4 @ 8pm, at the Hanesbrands Theatre – Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts, 209 N. Spruce Street in Winston-Salem, NC. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased online.
The cast also features Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois, Gillian Glasco as Lenora, Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford, Sean Phillips as Countee Cullen, and Marie Thomas as Nina Du Bois.
The New York Times called Knock Me A Kiss “a dandy play about the ill-advised marriage of W. E. B. Du Bois’s daughter,” and went on to say “suchrollicking fun that you may find yourself worrying at the intermission about whether there’s any way this production can successfully work itself around to the serious part of the story that you know lies ahead. But somehow it does, keeping its sense of humor but muzzling it just enough to allow some drama and poignancy to enter the mix. There are moments in the second act when the play seems less like a work about the past and more like a work from the past… an engaging, well-acted production that deserves a better theater and a longer run.”
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
Erin Cherry and Marie Thomas Photo by Lia Chang
Larry Leon Hamlin founded the National Black Theatre Festival® in 1989. His goal was to unite black theatre companies in America and ensure the survival of the genre into the next millennium. With the support of Dr. Maya Angelou, who served as the Festival’s first Chairperson, NBTF was born. The ’89 Festival offered 30 performances by 17 of America’s best professional black theatre companies. It attracted national and international media coverage. According to The New York Times, “the 1989 National Black Theatre Festival® was one of the most historic and culturally significant events in the history of black theatre and American theatre in general.” Over 10,000 people attended. It lived up to its theme: An International Celebration and Reunion of Spirit. The NBTF enables Black theatre professionals to express cultural values and perspectives inherent to the African Diaspora candidly, dramatically and powerfully. Staged components of the NBTF foster the creation and sharing of new works while educational components document and preserve the history and traditions of the genre. Intense week-long interactions focus on renewing their commitment to preserve professional Black theatre and to revitalize its genre. Held biennially, the NBTF attracts more than 65,000 people during the six-day event. The 2011 National Black Theatre Festival will be held in Winston-Salem, NC, August 1 – August 6.
André De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois with Erin Cherry, who play his daughter Yolande, in Charles Smith's Knock Me A Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, as the farmer Old Banks opposite Charlayne Woodard, in the Red Bull Theater’s Off-Broadway production of The Witch of Edmonton at The Theatre at St. Clement’s, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. He recently appeared as the title character of Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James, directed by Chuck Smith at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater in Chicago. Upcoming projects include directing a staged reading of Jacqueline Malcolm’s The Trade at The Player’s Club in New York on July 19; jetting off to Italy after the Festival to be a teaching artist at the 1st Annual La MaMa Umbria International Master Acting Workshops; and directing the New Jersey-based Crossroads Theatre Company’s production of the Fats Waller revue Ain’t Misbehavin’, October 6-24. A triple Capricorn, he is the ninth of eleven children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland. www.andredeshields.com.
Playwright Charles Smith is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, alumni playwright of the Tony Award-winning New Dramatists in New York, and Head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and around the country by theaters such as Victory Gardens, The Acting Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Penumbra, Ujima Theatre Company, St. Louis Black Rep, New Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children’s Theater Festival in Seattle, and the North Carolina Black Arts Festival. His play Pudd’nhead Wilson enjoyed a 22 city national tour and his plays Takunda and City of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast. His other plays include Free Man of Color, which recently premiered in Australia after being awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award and John W. Schmid Award, both for Outstanding New Work. He is also author of two Emmy Award-winning teleplays, “Fast Break to Glory” and “Pequito.” A graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and recipient of the 2008 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Smith has received commissions from Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting Company, and Ohio University. His most recent work, The Gospel According to James, was commissioned by Indiana Rep and is the result of a Joyce Award. The Gospel According to James received its World Premiere production at Indiana Rep and had a success run this Spring at the Victory Gardens Biograph in Chicago.
Director Chuck Smith has had 25 years of experience in African-American theater. He is resident director of the Goodman Theatre, where he has directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Christmas Carol, and Vivisections from the Blown Mind. Smith is a founding member of the Chicago Theatre Company, where he was artistic director for four seasons, staging plays including Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Fathers and Other Strangers, Suspenders, the Jeff-winning musical Po’, and The Meeting. He has also directed at Fleetwood-Jourdain, The New Regal, Kuumba, Pegasus Players, New Federal Theater, ETA Creative Arts, Columbia College, and Chicago Black Ensemble Theater. He is also artistic director of the Chicago Historical Society’s Voices in History program and an artist-in-residence at Columbia College Chicago, where he facilitates the Theodore Ward playwriting contest.
Woodie King Jr. is the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre. Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has presented over 200 productions in its 40-year history. Mr. King has produced and directed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Regional Theatres, and in universities across the United States. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (first produced by NFT and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre), What the Wine Sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critics Circle Award). His directional credits are extensive and include work in film as well as theater. For more information, visit www.newfederaltheatre.org/
As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. Lia currently plays Nurse Lia on “One Life to Live”. She has appeared in Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and “New York Undercover”.
Selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space are now in the newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.
On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, Two-time Tony Award nominee and Emmy Award winning actor André De Shields will direct the staged reading of Jacqueline Malcolm’s The Trade, the second entry in her SLAVE Trilogy, at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park in New York at 7pm. Admission is free, please RSVP to jacquelinemalcolm@yahoo.co.uk.
Written and created by Jacqueline Malcolm, The Trade follows the story of Albert Shelton, a man born free, yet brought up as a slave. His identity is lost as he tries to find his way in a world where men are traded for beads and the color of the skin can mean death or life. Becoming a Trader himself, Albert’s journey takes him from middle-class Bristol, England to life with the Maroon Tribe of the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, until finally, his destiny and drive throws him into the chaos of pre-independent New York City.
Playwright Jacqueline Malcolm and André De Shields after the performance of Lonnie Carter's The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy, at the Abingdon Theatre in New York on February 14, 2011. Photo by Lia Chang
Born in Northhampton, England, playwright Jacqueline Malcolm is a classically trained actress from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York and the London Center of Theatre Studies, London, who has had a passion for writing since a very early age. A published author of the children’s book, The Adventures of Lucy the Lamb (Author House Publishers, 2005), her other writing credits include: The Red Dress (short play, The Kings Head Theatre, London, 2004); Cornflakes (short play, The Kings Head Theatre, London, 2004), Twisted Magnolias (short play, Camden Theatre, London, 2006); Lost In the Moment (short play, 2009); A Child’s Wish (commissioned script for theatre in education project in NY, 2009). Ms. Malcolm has written theatre and movie reviews/articles for LA Splash Magazine, California, as well as a commissioned short story for publication, Stoner Story. She also has an ongoing professional career in administration and event management to an executive level.
Andre De Shields Photo by Lia Chang
In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, as the farmer Old Banks opposite Charlayne Woodard, in the Red Bull Theater’s Off-Broadway production of The Witch of Edmonton at The Theatre at St. Clement’s, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. He recently appeared as the title character of Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James, directed by Chuck Smith at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater in Chicago.
From August 2-4, 2011, De Shields will reprise his critically acclaimed role as W.E.B. DuBois in Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss, directed by Chuck Smith, at The National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, a co-production of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Company. Click here for tickets. He then jets off to Italy to be a teaching artist at the 1st Annual La MaMa Umbria International Master Acting Workshops. A triple Capricorn, he is the ninth of eleven children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland. www.andredeshields.com.
As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. Lia currently plays Nurse Lia on “One Life to Live”. She has appeared in Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and “New York Undercover”.
Selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space are now in the newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.
Lia Chang
