BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Kennedy Center will join theater companies and groups across the nation, as well as ArtPlay and UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (ASC) on Sept. 15, for a national staged reading of Christina M. Ham’s play “FOUR LITTLE GIRLS: Birmingham 1963.”
The readings will commemorate the precise 50th anniversary of the bombing that took the lives of four young girls at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. It is part of Project1Voice’s nation-wide, simultaneous event of staged readings commemorating this seminal event in American history, which helped to galvanize the American civil rights movement only weeks after the historic March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
The staged reading will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 15, in the ASC’s Sirote Theatre, 1200 10th Ave. South. Tickets are $15. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.alysstephens.org.
ArtPlay’s teen Make It Happen Performing Ensemble and ArtPlay students will participate, along with a multi-generational cast of community actors and performers, directed by Alicia Johnson-Williams. ArtPlay and the ASC performed a workshop reading of the play in February of this year, to an invited audience that included family members and friends of the four girls, theater performers and presenters.
The play portrays Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins, four girls who are bursting with promise and excitement for the future. They share their hopes and dreams against the backdrop of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement until it all comes crashing down when the girls are killed by a bomb while preparing for the church’s Youth Day service.
Commissioned and originally produced by SteppingStone Theatre, “FOUR LITTLE GIRLS: Birmingham 1963” examines the realities of a segregated, politically charged climate through the lives of the children in a time of extreme circumstances during the fight to end racial discrimination and inequality.
Project1Voice is a not-for-profit performing arts service organization founded by New York-based actor/producer and Birmingham native Erich McMillan-McCall to nurture, promote, strengthen and preserve the legacy and tradition of African-American theater and playwrights.
For tickets, visit www.alysstephens.org or call 205-975-2787.
