Charlene A. Donaghy LLC
"Charlene writes stories that give voice beyond the boundaries of race, sex, or privilege, painting pictures of human conditions, taking her audiences on journeys through the gift and magic of her words."
Jackie Davis, Artistic Director, New Urban Theatre Laboratory, Actor
Jackie Davis, Artistic Director, New Urban Theatre Laboratory, Actor
Debra Khan-Bey
Upcoming ProductionLifting As We Climb
Reflecting on the Voices of African-American Women Gracewell Productions In 1920, 19th Amendment ratification power, granting women the vote, sits with white Tennessee legislators. To appease them, white suffragists distance from African American suffragists. Mary Church Terrell, National Association of Colored Women founding member, discovers this when asked to curb her suffrage activities. Now Mary must decide her future in the movement and relationship with women she trusted, answering: did these women break faith for their own sakes or for a perceived greater good? Sunday, March 27, 2022 - 2pm Palace Theatre, Waterbury, CT Directed by Phyllis Bash Featuring: Debra Khan-Bey as Mary Church Terrell |
Recent PublicationThe Quadroon
and the Dove Clarice's "Destiny" Monologue She Persisted One Hundred Monologues by Women over Forty Edited by Lawrence Harbison Published by The Applause Acting Series From plays by members of Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women over forty. "These women are in their forties and fifties and sixties, and they have been writing a long time, and they are at the height of their craft. These are tight, complex, nuanced pieces of writing, which no one has seen because for too long they weren't looking. These are important writers, and important plays." —Theresa Rebeck, from the introduction |
Nyah Ajeya
Upcoming ProductionHow to Fix a Broken Peacemaker
Reflecting on the Voices of African-American Women Gracewell Productions Love and loss between sisters can be a twisted journey. For Antonia and her sisters, life after social distancing might bring them together to heal from a broken past, with the echo of youthful adventure. Sunday, March 27, 2022 - 2pm Palace Theatre, Waterbury, CT Directed by Phyllis Bash Featuring: Nyah Ajeya as Antonia |
Bones of Home and Other Plays*
Hansen Publishing Group I explore characters submerged in challenges ranging from a bad economy, to crime, loss of loved ones, and displacement. Miriam, the protagonist of the title piece, Bones of Home,has lost her long-time partner. As she contemplates a bottle of wine and sleeping pills, onto her dilapidated porch sneaks Dillon, hoping to steal away back to New Orleans to “…at least be close so I can talk to [my parents] and they hear me in the oaks and along the river and in a drafty old Treme cottage where maybe I can hide out as long as I need to feel them.” Across age and race, where the fear of loneliness is deeper than the fear of death, Dillon pushes Miriam with “You live, you keep this house alive, keep Jessie alive.” As she hears Dillon drive away in her 1969 truck, the audience is left to ponder Miriam’s choice as the lights fade on her and her decision. |
The Quadroon and the Dove*
Charlene A. Donaghy New Orleans, 1841. As a January cold snap settles over New Orleans, Clarice, a free woman of color Quadroon placée to Lucien Boudet, a wealthy white Native Creole industrialist, prepares to attend the upcoming and extravagant Quadroon Ball. 15 years have passed since Clarice was presented to Lucien at such an event and she has since led a life of status and privilege. Only in silence, Clarice contemplates if the price she has paid for such a life is yet another form of slavery. As the Quadroon Ball rapidly approaches, secrets and lies fuel betrayals and threaten the delicate balance of this provincial world poised on the precipice of change. As Lucien’s lustful desires for another collide with a looming enslaved persons' uprising, Clarice fights to maintain the life she has so carefully forged while striving to protect her young, teenaged niece Juliette, known as Dove…and to maintain her very sanity. Riveting and fast-moving, The Quadroon and the Dove is a powerful, poetic story that resonates with prevailing struggles we continue to confront in society today. Strong themes of race, gender and power are presented by a cast of six characters that you will stay with long after you leave the theatre. |
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