WEDDING BAND (CLOSED)

“When this Alice Childress play opened at the Public Theater in 1972, Ruby Dee played one half of its central couple — a Black woman and a white man in 1918 South Carolina, loving each other despite laws and a racist culture that said they couldn’t. The play hasn’t been seen in New York since that production, which Childress directed with Joseph Papp. Now Theatre for a New Audience is bringing it back, directed by Awoye Timpo.” —The New York Times

WEDDING BAND
A Love/Hate Story in Black and White
By Alice Childress
Directed by Awoye Timpo

Set in the deep south at the end of World War I during the flu epidemic, Alice Childress’s seldom-produced masterpiece is one of American drama’s most mercilessly revealing tales of interracial love. A jewel of theatrical concision and detail, the play traces a devoted couple’s caustic confrontations with anti-miscegenation laws, vicious family racism, community disapproval and finally deadly disease and their own long-buried feelings. Wedding Band, written in the heat of the Civil Rights era, speaks with stunning clarity to the public debates of the Black Lives Matter era. Awoye Timpo directs the play’s first New York production since its New York premiere in 1972.

CAST

Brittany Bradford, Rosalyn Coleman, Veanne Cox, Rebecca Haden, Brittany-Laurelle, Sofie Nesanelis, Phoenix Noelle, Renrick Palmer, Thomas Sadoski, Elizabeth Van Dyke, and Max Woertendyke.

Scenic Design by Jason Ardizzone-West, Costume Design by Qween Jean, Lighting Design by Stacey Derosier, Sound Design by Rena Anakwe, Original Music by Alphonso Horne

Please click here to view the 360° Viewfinder for Wedding Band.

Deepen your experience of Wedding Band with free post-show conversations with artists and scholars following select 2pm matinee performances. TFANA Talks are free and open to the public and do not require a ticket to that day’s performance.

Saturday, May 21, 4:30PM: TFANA Talk
“Interrogating the Left in the Work of Alice Childress”
Moderator: Dominique Rider
With: Venus Evans-Winters, Awoye Timpo, Mary Helen Washington

Watch Awoye Timpo, Brittany Bradford and Thomas Sadoski discuss Wedding Band.

Watch Brittany Bradford discuss Wedding Band with radio personality Angela Yee.

Watch Awoye Timpo’s conversation with Angela Yee.

“Wedding Band” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

Art © Paul Davis. Reference photo of Alice Childress courtesy Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and the Tilden Foundations

Deloitte and Bloomberg Philanthropies are the 2021-2022 Season Sponsors.

Principal support for Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs is provided by The Hearst Foundations, JLGreene Arts Access Fund in the New York Community Trust, The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Thompson Family Foundation, and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs are also made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts; Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.