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The Cast of "The Last
Season" |
| Kem H.
Saunders |
John
Marshall Jones |
M.
Darnell Suttles |
Tegan
Summer |
Ben
Guillory |
Karl
Calhoun |
Harry
Lennix |
|
Jason Delane |
Dwain A. Perry |
Amad Jackson |
Glenn
Bradshaw-Collins |
Rico Anderson |
New Film Star Harry Lennix in
West Coast Premiere of play about
The Negro Baseball League.
The
Robey Theatre Company and Legacy Productions have a commitment to tell
the stories that reflect the Black experience and illustrate the
events that impact us all in an intimate and very human way. Each
company is compelled by the need to mount productions that educate its
audiences theatrically and presents the questions, and sometimes the
answers, to where and how we got to this point in history. The
responsibility to community, an integral sense of social conscience,
the excitement of our experiences, the absolute necessity to
communicate these events with integrity and principle bring Robey and
Legacy together to present THE LAST SEASON.
Baseball - The National Pastime - is a sport comprised of team-work,
competition, discipline, patience, concentration and fairness. In
spite of the virtue of these ideals, for more than sixty years this
all-American game contained an insidious element: racism. Racism is
integral to the foundation of this country, but when Jackie Robinson
was signed by Branch Rickey to the all white Brooklyn Dodgers, it
shook this country, a turning point in a long complicated history of a
divided nation. This singular event served as a beginning and an
end. It was a beginning of the disintegration of a wall between
people, a wall that continues to crumble, allowing those on both sides
to reach over and out. It was the end to an isolation of a people
who, for better or worse, created a cultural unity and identity which
would never again be the same.
The Robey & Legacy Theatre Companies are pleased that you, our
audience, have come to see this gifted ensemble tell this story...
Welcome!
Ben
Guillory Harry Lennix Chuck
Smith
 It’s
1946, and Jackie Robinson has broken the color barrier and
joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. “The Last Season” is not his
story, but the story of the Montgomery Black Kings, champion
team of the Negro Baseball League, trying for its third
consecutive World Series Negro Baseball championship, an
unheard-of feat. Robinson’s success in breaking the color
barrier of Major League Baseball as a player foreshadows the
waning of the Negro League. Harry Lennix plays Henry, who is
tempted to desert his team to integrate another all-white team
in the Majors.
“The Last Season”
chronicles a glorious moment in baseball history, the lives of
African-Americans, and the annals of America as a whole. It
examines a place in time when the first great cultural isolation
of African-Americans ended, and Black America would face a new
and uncertain future.
The Robey Theatre Company and
Legacy Productions co-produce “The Last Season.” Robey
recently scored a critical and popular triumph with its
production “Toussaint: For The Love Of Freedom,”
part one of the trilogy about the Haitian Revolution. The
seven-year-old company was founded by Danny Glover and Bennet
Guillory to create more opportunity for African-American theatre
artists. While maintaining a concentration on Black aesthetics
and experiences, it has also produced multicultural projects,
collaborating with other cultural communities, building bridges
to others and recognizing and celebrating diversity within the
Black community itself. Robey takes its name from Paul Robeson,
the late great actor, singer, and Renaissance man. Cynthia
Stillwell and Bennet Guillory produce for Robey. Harry Lennix
and Chuck Smith produce for Legacy Productions.
Guillory is the Robey’s
Artistic Director. Lennix and Smith are the Co-Artistic
Directors of Legacy Productions.
 Two
years ago, Harry Lennix achieved international stardom
for his critically acclaimed performance as Aaron The
Moor in
“Titus”
- Julie Taymor’s film version of William Shakespeare’s
“Titus Andronicus” which also starred Academy Award
winners Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Soon,
Lennix will be visible starring as a new character in
“The Matrix II” and “The Matrix III.”
Now,
Harry Lennix will star with a gifted cast in the West
Coast Premiere of a play about a championship baseball
team, “The Last Season.” The play by Christopher
Moore was originally developed at the Goodman Theatre Of
Chicago by director Chuck Smith, who helms the new L.A.
production.
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In addition to Lennix and Guillory, the cast includes Glenn Bradshaw-Collins,
Karl Calhoun, Amad Jackson, J.J. Jones, Dwain A. Perry, Tegan
Summer and M.
Darnell Suttles.
Production stage
manager: John Freeland, Jr. Set design: Edward Haynes. Lighting
design: Doc Ballard. Costume design: Naila Aladdin-Sanders.
Sound design: Anthony Carr.
PHILIP SOKOLOFF
Publicity for the arts
P.O. Box 94387
Pasadena, CA 91109-4387
(626) 683-9205
fax (626) 683-9172
e-mail:
showbizphil@yahoo.com
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