by Lee Pierre
Last Thursday (January 15) evening may have been chilly but the atmosphere was warm inside as six performers “called up the sun.” At the Harrison Museum of African American Culture located on Melrose Avenue, the inaugural session of the “Story Keepers’ Studio” monthly reading series was performed. First up was Addae Moon’s “She Calls Up the Sun.” It is a memory-rich dram that explores grief, legacy and transformation in a small town on the Florida coast.
Moon is an Atlanta-based playwright, director, and cultural worker. He is also a dramaturge, which is a dramatist or literary editor on the staff of a theater working with authors and editing texts. He is the Associate Artistic Director at Theatrical Outfit and a co-founder of the performance collective Hush Harbor Lab. His staged reading, “She Calls up the Sun,” is built on characters navigating the difficult worlds of flesh and spirit, past and presents, home and abroad, traditional and modern, heartache and healing set in rural Florida culture and folklore.
The readers were a talented group and included: Kiesha Preston, who played the role of Marie, a young woman who had just buried her mother; Ishmael, Marie’s partner, played by Sage Love; Juicepoet Smith was Oliver, Marie’s estranged father; Lisa Gabourel made the role of Claire, a well-known and respected woman, her own; and Kiesha’s longtime friend and former romantic interest, Felix was played by Raekwon Moore. E. B. Smith directed the reading session.
After a stunning performance, Smith said he chose this reading because of his closeness with Addae, a former college classmate. He also emphasized the importance of the female roles in the reading. Smith said Moon is currently the director of playwrights at Hollins University.
Juicepoet said the play reminded him of “how strong women were back then and they had certain ways of doing things regarding birth, loss, life and above all, when you come to a crossroad, you must go a certain direction – either left, right, forward, or turn around and go back. The play made me appreciate more of what my great aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother taught me when I was younger.”
William Penn, an audience member, remarked on how the women were extremely close and added that it reminded him of a “tight Black community where they have wise older ladies.”
“The poetic nature of the play was very intergenerational. It was like this is what my mama did, what her mama did, and what I must do. Things are passed on through rituals, and the play was very much about ancestry and how we carry it forward,” remarked Brittney S. Harris, Virginia Tech professor of Applied Theater.
Obviously the audience agreed because nods and yeses elicited during the reading.
The second presentation in the series, “Blues for Mister Charlie” by James Baldwin (1924-1987) is scheduled for February 28 from 7– 9p.m. The American writer and civil rights activist’s searing examination of racial violence and justice anchors the February reading, inviting deep conversation on America’s moral landscape. For more information and ticket purchase, visit https://harrisonmuseum.com/story-keepers-studio-sessions-play-reading/
If the next performance is anything like the first one, prepare to be entertained!
