Cal U to present play about Civil Rights movement
CALIFORNIA – “My Soul is a Witness” will be presented in Steele Auditorium at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25. The show is free to California University students with a valid CalCard. There is a general admission charge. Tickets are available at the Steele Auditorium box office. Call 724-938-5943 for ticket information.
The Student Activities Board and Student Association Inc. will sponsor the event.
“My Soul Is A Witness” highlights the key events and personalities of the civil rights movement.
From 1955-68, the period covered in the play, the nation fundamentally changed. The change was challenging, painful and explosive.
But that change still affects America in a way that is felt every day throughout the nation.
“My Soul is a Witness” will appear at California University of Pennsylvania for one night only as part of a 40-city national tour performing coast-to-coast from January to March.
To dramatize this history, the JENA Company of New York sought a creative team that would not just reproduce famous Civil Rights events, but would also evoke the spiritual experience of the movement.
After a nationwide search, JENA chose Chicago playwright David Barr III, the creator of the acclaimed stage work “The State of Mississippi vs. Emmett Till” as author. Since his plays are known for their political and social impact, Barr was a perfect fit for “My Soul is a Witness.”
On stage in “My Soul is a Witness,” there are five versatile New York actors playing more than 20 parts.
The scope of the play is vast and wide ranging. At a particular moment, one performer may be a courtly upper class Southerner, apologizing for Segregation. The next, another actor embodies the “fire and steel” of Dr. Martin Luther King. Tied together with stirring gospel and/or protest songs, the action sweeps from one stunning historical moment to another.
Some of the moving events include:
An iconic almost mythic figure, Mamie Till Mobley tells the heartbreaking story of her son Emmett’s murder, and how reaction to it blasted The Civil Rights movement into being.
Rosa Parks explains what came over her on the day she decided she would stand up for an entire race by remaining seated on a bus in Montgomery.
Robert Zellner, a young white college student, tells how he watched the struggle.
And even when this issue “shouldn’t” have