Crumbs From the Table of Joy

Crumbs From the Table of Joy
by Lynn Nottage

Tickets: General Admission
Admission Price: Pay what You Wish
Full cast and director to be announced soon.

Crumbs From the Table of Joy is a coming-of-age story told through Ernestine Crump. Set in 1950 with the ever-present backdrop of working-class Brooklyn New York, Earnestine’s seventeen-year-old world is turned upside down after her mother dies and her father moves her and her sister from Pensacola to Brooklyn. This memory play examines racism, feminism and the challenging nature of change. ‘Crumbs’ premiered Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre from May 9, 1995, through July 1, 1995. Directed by Joe Morton, it was commissioned by Second Stage, as part of their program for teen audiences. Lynn Nottage took the title “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” from the poem "Luck" by Langston Hughes. He wrote "Sometimes a crumb falls/From the table of joy, /Sometimes a bone/Is flung. /To some people/Love is given/To others/Only Heaven."

Lynn Nottage Photo by Gregory Costanzo

Lynn Nottage is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and a screenwriter. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. Her most recent play, Mlima'sTale, premiered at the Public Theater in May 2018. In the spring of 2017, Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Tony Nomination, Drama Desk Nomination) oved to Broadway after a sold out run at The Public Theater. Other plays include: By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk Nomination), Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award), Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play) and Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award). Nottage is the co-founder of the production company, Market Road Films.

Over the years, Nottage has developed original projects for HBO, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Showtime, This is That and Harpo. She is writer/producer on the Netflix series "She's Gotta Have It," directed by Spike Lee. Nottage is the recipient numerous fellowships and awards including MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Creativity, The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award and the inaugural Horton Foote Prize. Other honors include the National Black Theatre Fest's August Wilson Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant and the Lucille Lortel Fellowship. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama.

She wrote the book for the world premiere musical adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel “The Secret Life of Bees,” with music by Duncan Sheik and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. It is now playing at the Atlantic Theatre Company, directed by Sam Gold.

About Project1VOICE “One Play One Day” 2019

Project1VOICE is a 501(c)(3) performing arts service organization whose mission is to provide significant support, access and adequate representation of the Black experience in the American theater—an integral part of the English-speaking theater—through its robust programming and innovative partnerships. “One Play One Day” is Project1VOICE's signature event. Now in its ninth consecutive year, “One Play One Day” celebrates forgotten and under-appreciated narratives in the American theater with same-day staged readings of these plays in cities all over the world on the third Sunday and Monday in June--Juneteenth. Previous staged readings selections include: “Trouble in Mind” by Alice Childress, “The Amen Corner” by James Baldwin, “The Colored Museum” by George C. Wolfe, “A Soldier's Play” by Charles Fuller and “Yellowman” by DaelOrlandersmith.

For more information on Project1VOICE visit www.project1voice.org