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| (from left) Melody Cooper, Christoper Conant and Alima Lindsey in the Five Points Presents... production of Day of Reckoning. (photo: Ronald L. Glassman) |
Five Points Presents..., in association with the All
Stars Project, Inc., presented Day of Reckoning, an
original, award-winning play by African American playwright
Melody Cooper.
The two-act historical drama, which
opened Friday February 4 at the All Stars Project
on 42nd Street, was a huge hit — with audiences
and critics alike — garnering praise and positive coverage
in several major dailies (New
York Times, Amsterdam
News, The
Journal News and the Daily
News.) The play featured playwright Cooper as
the famed anarchist and former slave, Lucy Parsons, and Christopher
Conant as Albert Parsons, the ex-confederate soldier who becomes
Lucy’s husband. The Parsons were key leaders in the early
fight for workers’ rights and the eight-hour workday. Day
of Reckoning also starred David Adams
as Albert Parsons, Jr., and Parris Nicole Cisco and Alima
Lindsey, alternating as Lulu Parsons.
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| Freed slave, Lucy Parsons (Melody Cooper) with her husband and ex-Confederate soldier, Albert Parsons (Christopher Conant), the famed labor agitators, in the Five Points Presents... production of "Day of Reckoning," a drama about the earliest -- and deadliest -- days of America's labor movement. |
Day of Reckoning,
which closed February 27th, was the
second production in a three-play Black History Month festival
at the All Stars Project.
Five Points Presents... was proud to
bring Melody Cooper, one of the most talented young Black
playwrights in America today, to 42nd Street. Cooper,
a native of New York City and graduate of Adelphi University,
is an accomplished actress and author of several stage works.
While at Adelphi, she collaborated (as lyricist) with the
late Jonathan Larson (the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning
creator of Rent) on a number of songs for the stage.
Day of Reckoning
won the Jane Chambers Award and the MultiStages 2003 New Works
Playwriting Contest.
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Five Points Presents...
a new community producing consortium
Day of Reckoning,
the historical drama by Melody Cooper about the lives
of Lucy and Albert Parsons, completed its four-week
run February 27. Day of Reckoning is the third play
produced by Five Points Presents... at the All Stars
Project on 42nd Street. “Five Points Presents...
is a new producing consortium of community-based theatres
and artists, dedicated to creating and increasing the
impact of cutting-edge political, experimental and multicultural
theatre,” says Diane Stiles, a Five Points founder
and managing director of the Castillo Theatre. Five
Points Presents... includes theatre companies and theatre
artists with roots in the African American, Puerto Rican,
gay and working-class communities including the Nuyorican
Poets Café, New Village Productions, the New
Federal Theatre and the Castillo Theatre. Five Points
was named after the impoverished 18th and 19th century
lower Manhattan immigrant neighborhood. Like the All
Stars Project, Five Points works to bring together the
cultures of different communities in a collaborative
environment and, in the process, create a new kind of
culture accessible to everyone. While the members of
Five Points bring their very diverse histories and theatrical
sensibilities to this consortium, they share the conviction
that theatre can and must matter in the lives of ordinary
people. Five Points Presents... was established with
five founding principals, to create theatre that is:
“community-based, multi-ethnic, socially relevant,
spiritually challenging and culturally developmental.”
In addition to Day of Reckoning, Five Points
Presents..., which is in residence at the All Stars
on 42nd street, has staged two other productions since
its 42nd street debut: A Solution to all the World's
Problems by Ben Caldwell, and Sister Music
by Carol Polcovar. For more information on Five Points
Presents... click
here. |
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