Saturday July 24, 2021 :: 6pm :: 5:30 Pre-show talk with the playwright Charles Smith!

We are excited to welcome back most of the cast from out critically acclaimed 2013 production!!
Returning :: Anne McEvoy :: Peter Lawson Jones* :: Kyle Carthens :: Keith Stevens* :: Antuane Rogers :: J’Vaughn Briscoe :: and the wonderful addition of :: Robert Hawkes :: Mary Alice Beck :: Becca Moseley ::
*Denotes a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

The reading will take place via Zoom Webinar @ 6pm.
There will be a brief pre-show talk with and Q&A with our playwright @ 5:30.
See instructions below to submit questions prior to the webinar. Please Note : The webinar will be live.

Content warning: Please note there are adult situations and strong language in this reading.
There will also be some sound effects that include the sound of a gun shot.

No audience will be in the theatre, participation is entirely virtual.
Once you have purchased your virtual ticket you will be emailed a link to join the webinar!
Then tune in on the 24th for this wonderful event to support two great organizations!

All proceeds will benefit:
Ensemble Theatre and The Ebony Bobcat Network (EBN) Urban Scholarship Endowment
which provides scholarships for deserving students from urban areas across the state of Ohio.

We wish to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Unions: Actors’ Equity Association, American Guild of Musical Artists, American Guild of Variety Artists, & SAG-AFTRA, through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in permitting the Artists to appear on this program.

Please call :: 216-321-2930 :: -or- :: Email us :: info@ensmeble-theatre.org :: with any questions! z
You can also fill out the form below. We will reply within 48hrs!
You can also use this form to submit questions for our playwright, Charles Smith, prior to our pres-how talk!
Scroll down below our form to learn more about the play, the playwright and actors!

ABOUT THE PLAY

They survived history. But whose history?
In 1930, James Cameron and Mary Ball emerged as the sole survivors of racial crimes in Marion, Indiana. Teenagers when the crimes occurred, they look back on those events and their lives in this World Premiere work commissioned by the IRT. As their past and present lives intermingle, Cameron and Ball discover that their remembrances of that day differ even if their experiences were the same – challenging us all to wrestle with the tensions between memory, history and redemption.

The Gospel According to James was commissioned in 2006 and produced March 22nd to April 10th, 2011 by the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Janet Allen, Artistic Director, Steven Stolen, Managing Director. The commission and production were supported in part by a Joyce Award. The production was directed by Chuck Smith. Set design was by Linda Buchanan, costume design by Rachel Anne Healey, lighting design by Kathy A. Perkins, and sound design and original composition by Ray Nardelli. The stage managers were Nathan Garrison and Joel Grynheim.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Charles Smith’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway and from coast to coast by theaters such as Indiana Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, New Federal Theatre, The Acting Company, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Penumbra, Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland, Crossroads Theatre Company, Penguin Repertory Theatre, Ujima Theatre Company, The Colony Theatre, St. Louis Black Rep, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Jubilee Theatre, Ensemble Theatre in Houston, and Berkeley Repertory Theater.
Nine of his plays received their world premiere productions at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. Three of his plays, The Gospel According to James, Sister Carrie, and Les Trois Dumas, were all commissioned and produced by Indiana Repertory Theatre. Les Trois Dumas has also been produced by People’s Light & Theatre and by Independent Theatre in Adelaide, South Australia, and his play The Gospel According to James was also produced by Victory Gardens Theater. His play, Denmark, was the inaugural production of the reopening of Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph, and his play Pudd’nhead Wilson, commissioned and produced by The Acting Company, enjoyed a twenty-two-city national tour before being produced Off-Broadway. His plays Takunda and City of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast and his play Knock Me a Kiss was recently produced in New York, directed by Chuck Smith and featuring Tony Award-winning André De Shields. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children’s Theater Festival in Seattle, and The National Black Theatre Festival. His play, Objects in the Mirror, premiered at Goodman Theatre and his most recent work, The Reclamation of Madison Hemings, was commissioned by Goodman.
His other plays include, Freefall, The Sutherland, Black Star Line, Jelly Belly, Young Richard, Cane, and Free Man of Color, which was also produced in Australia, New York, Los Angeles, and around the United States. Free Man of Color was also awarded the Joseph Jefferson Award and a John W. Schmid Award, both for Outstanding New Work. He has also received the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Illinois Arts Council Governors Award, Princess Grace Fellowship, the Cornerstone National Playwriting Award, the Joyce Award, The National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the Theodore Ward National Playwriting Award, two Black Theatre Alliance Awards for New Work, the NBC New Voices Award, and numerous other AUDELCO, Jeff, NAACP, and Black Theatre Alliance award nominations. He is also author of two Emmy Award-winning teleplays, Fast Break to Glory and Pequito. As alumnus playwright of New Dramatists, graduate of the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and one of the founding members of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, he has taught playwriting at Northwestern University, for the Prague Summer Program in Creative Writing in the Czech Republic, and for the Center for Dramatic Art in Groznjan, Croatia. He is a recently retired Distinguished Professor of Playwriting at Ohio University.

MEET THE CAST AND CREW

Anne McEvoy (Marie) is grateful to be revisiting this powerful play and to work with some of Ensemble's original cast members, as well as some new ones. Last seen on stage here in Alabama Story, Anne has also worked at Actor's Summit, Beck Center, Cleveland Playhouse, CPT, Cleveland Shakes, Convergence Continuum, Dobama, Karamu, Kennedy's, None Too Fragile, Ohio Shakespeare, and Seat of the Pants.

Becca Moseley (Mary) is excited to be back (virtually!) for another Ensemble production. She has served as the Resident Production Stage Manager/Assistant stage manager for many Ensemble shows, including both parts of Angels in America, Radio Golf, The Penelopiad, Intimate Apparel, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, the Iceman Cometh, Knock Me A Kiss, Anna Christie, Thurgood, Death of a Salesman, and Slow Dance on the Killing Ground. She co-directed Run, Kingsbury, Run and recently Assistant Directed East of Eden. She was onstage in past seasons at Ensemble as a chorus leader/puppeteer in Around the World in 80 Days, Pea in Jerusalem, the Childlike Empress/company in The Never Ending Story, The Phantom Tollbooth (Princess Rhyme/Ensemble,) and as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Other favorite credits not at Ensemble include Rosalind in As You Like It, Fabiana Cunningham in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Dorine in Tartuffe, Maggie in A Chorus Line, and Ophelia in The Horatio Project. She thanks Ian and Celeste for building and nurturing a theatre that provides a constant supply of great scripts and people to bring them to life, her family for their love and support, and her husband Kyle for always believing in the magic.

Peter Lawson Jones* (James) is a member of both Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA as well as a playwright. He has appeared in over twenty films (White Boy Rick, Alex Cross, The Assassin’s Code, Starve), on network television (NBC’s Chicago Fire as a guest star and ABC’s Detroit 1-8-7), in national commercials for Marathon Oil and Kia and on stages throughout Northeast Ohio. His play, The Bloodless Jungle, received two full productions at Ensemble Theatre (Cleveland Heights) and staged readings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Dallas Convention Center, National Black Theatre Festival, Duquesne University and in Harlem. The Ryan Repertory Company in Brooklyn, New York has added the drama to its 2021-2022 season. Land of Cleve, a regional arts and culture blog, ranked the play’s 2017 production among the best in Northeast Ohio that year. His earlier drama, The Family Line, has been produced at Karamu, Ohio University and Harvard University, where he received his bachelor’s and law degrees. Peter received the 2016 Indie Gathering International Film Festival Best Ohio Supporting Actor and the 2012 African American Playwrights Exchange Artist of the Year awards. (*Denotes Member of Actors’ Equity Association.)

J'Vaughn Terell Briscoe (Apples) has been off and on the stage since the tender age of 7. From the East Cleveland Theater, to being a double major in dance and theater at Cleveland School of the Arts, J'Vaughn considers himself to be a jack of all trades. Previous Ensemble credits include E-Z in Lower Ninth and as Apples in the 2013 Ensemble production of The Gospel According to James. He is excited to be back and to be a part of this benefit!

Kyle Carthens (Abe Smith) believes in the power of great storytelling. He is a proud graduate of the Cleveland School of the Arts and has performed in over 80 productions throughout his fifteen year career in Cleveland, Ohio and Los Angeles, California. Some Ensemble favorites include the title role in The Great Gatsby, Jimmie Lunceford in Knock Me A Kiss, MacDuff in Voodoo Macbeth, and Abe in the original acclaimed production of “Gospel”. Recently Kyle formed his own production company, Purple Brick Productions LLC, with the hopes to entertain as well as educate through powerful and uplifting images of Black and Brown people, culture, and art."

Antuane Rogers (Tommy Shipp) was an original cast member of the ‘13 Cleveland premiere production of “Gospel”, and is extremely energized to be returning for this special production. Antuane was last seen in the Cleveland Museum of Art as Junie & Walter Beau/Willie Jones in the Project1Voice production of The Colored Museum. He also was understudy for James Pickens Jr. (Grey’s Anatomy) as Cephus Miles in their production of Home. Additional credits include work on the film White Boy Rick (Starring Matthew McConaughey, Brian Tyree Henry, and Bruce Dern), the lead role of John Newton Templeton in the Cleveland premiere of Free Man of Color (also at Ensemble), and Fortune/Rebel Soldier in Ruined at the Karamu House. Antuane’s breakout performance came in the title role of Othello at Eldred Theater. Additional credits include Private First Class Peterson in A Soldier’s Play, John Nevins in Trouble in Mind, Narrator/Church In the Amen Corner, and assistant stage manager for For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf, with Project1Voice, Peter in Zoo Story, Conrad in Much Ado about Nothing, Brian in the Sweetest Swing and Ken Gorman in Rumors. At the request of Director Geoff Bullen, Associate Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (London, England), Antuane the appeared in the Cleveland Play House/CWRU PATP’s production of All’s Well that Ends Well as Younger Dumanine/1st Lord. Antuane is proud to have originated the roles of Willie Brown in You Got Nerve at Karamu House Theater and Macon in The Negro Perkins at the Cleveland Public Theater; both of which received rave reviews. Antuane portrayed the 61 year old bluesman Willie Brown, suffering from Alzheimer's disease and haunted by hallucinations of his deceased wife Claire Brown, at the tender age of 23; to which Chris Yarborough of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote "...the real story behind the play, the relationship between Claire and crusty "old-timer's disease" patient Willie Brown, played so painfully well by Antaune Rogers that he ought to be collecting retirement." Antuane is an alumnus of the National Theater Institute (Eugene O’Neill Theater Center). While studying at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center he was a co-creator and featured in the original abstract work Want.Need.Feed. Antuane has studied in London, England with both Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. While at Shakespeare’s Globe, Antuane was featured in a showcase of William Shakespeare’s varied works in conjunction with the University of Washington in St. Louis. Additional Film credits include the lead role in Gangster's Blood, and the “Protagonist” in the theatrical short film Catastrophe. Antuane has his B.A. in Theater Arts, with a double concentration in Acting and Directing from Case Western Reserve University.

Keith E. Stevens* (Claude) is an actor and director with over 25 years of professional experience. He was last seen at Ensemble as Biff in Death of a Salesman and is thrilled to be back for this benefit performance of Mr. Smith's brilliant drama! Keith's most recent directing credits include Lost in Yonkers, Emma, and Mixmatched.com all at Western Reserve Playhouse in Bath. Some of Keith's other regional acting credits include Deserters by Michael Quinones’ (Bernie West Theater) and Big Al by Brian Goluboff (ASDS) both in New York City. He holds a MFA in Acting from The Actors Studio Drama School and a BA in Theater from Cleveland State University. He is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio. (*Denotes Member of Actors’ Equity Association.)

Robert Hawkes (Hoot Ball) was active on Cleveland area stages for many years between 1982 and 2020. He acted several times at Ensemble Theatre, in plays by Eugene O'Neill and many others. His last appearance was at Clague Playhouse, in Gérald Sibleyras's "Heroes", in Jan./Feb. of 2020.

Mary Alice Beck (Bea Ball) is a Cleveland actor who is grateful for this opportunity to create and tell stories in these socially distanced times. Pre-pandemic her most recent projects were as Ilene in Karamu’s revival of Rasheeda Speaking and as Margrethe Bohr in the Cesear’s Forum production of Copenhagen. She has performed at many other area theatres: among them, The Beck Center for the Arts, Cleveland Public Theatre, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival and Ensemble Theatre. Favorite roles include: Anna Christie (Marthy Owens), Death of a Salesman (Linda Loman), Lanford Wilson’s Brontosaurs (The Dealer); The Pitmen Painters (Helen Sutherland); Titus Andronicus (Tamora) and A Streetcar Named Desire (Blanche DuBois).