HOUSTON, Jan. 7, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
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Who/What: |
The Ensemble Theatre will debut its first production by award winning playwright Charles Smith as its 2012-2013 season continues. The show will be directed by visiting artist Chuck Smith, resident director at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. | |||
| Knock Me a Kiss takes place during the 1920s in Harlem. The story follows Yolonda DuBois, a woman torn between two lovers. One is a fast-living musician, Jimmy Lunceford, the other a poet, Countee Cullen, sanctioned by her father, activist W.E.B. DuBois. This fictional account is inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois' daughter Yolande to one of Harlem's great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America's foremost black intellectual, co-founder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. At what personal cost does a leader pay to make life better for so many others when he is blind to those living in his own home? | ||||
| When: | Previews: | Saturday, January 26, 2013: | 8:00 p.m. | |
| Sunday, January 27, 2013: | 3:00 p.m. | |||
| Wednesday, January 30, 2013: | 7:30 p.m. | |||
| Show Run: | January 31 – February 24, 2013 | |||
| Thursdays: | 7:30 p.m. | |||
| Fridays: | 8:00 p.m. | |||
| Saturdays: | 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. | |||
| Sundays: | 3:00 p.m. | |||
| ****Opening Night and Media Reception is Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.*** | ||||
| Where: | The Ensemble Theatre | |||
| 3535 Main St. | ||||
| Houston, TX 77002 | ||||
| 713-520-0055 | ||||
| www.ensemblehouston.com | ||||
The Ensemble Theatre's 2012-2013 Season is sponsored in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and Texas Commission on the Arts. United Airlines is the exclusive airline sponsor for The Ensemble Theatre.
The Ensemble Theatre was founded in 1976 by the late George Hawkins to preserve African American artistic expression and to enlighten, entertain, and enrich a diverse community. Thirty-six years later, the theatre has evolved from a touring company operating from the trunk of Mr. Hawkins' car to being one of Houston's finest historical cultural institutions. The Ensemble is one of a few professional theatres in the region dedicated to the production of works portraying the African American experience. The oldest and largest professional African American theatre in the Southwest, it holds the distinction of being one of the nation's largest African American theatres owning and operating its facility and producing in-house. Board President Emeritus Audrey Lawson led the capital campaign for The Ensemble's $4.5 million building renovations that concluded in 1997. The Ensemble Theatre has fulfilled and surpassed the vision of its founder and continues to expand and create innovative programs to bring African American theatre to myriad audiences.