Thursday, July 21, 2011

Woolly Mammoth Theatre remounts the prize-winning play, Clybourne Park

Clybourne Park


Written by Bruce Norris

Directed by Howard Shalwitz

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

641 D Street, NW, Washington, DC

July 21 - August 14, 2011

Post-Show Conversation

with

Poets Sarah Browning & Kenneth Carroll

Saturday, July 23

after the 8 pm Show


A white community in 1950's Chicago splinters over the black family about to move in. Fast-forward to our present day, and the same house represents very different demographics as we climb through the looking-glass of Lorraine Hansberry's classic. These hilarious and horrifying neighbors pitch a battle over territory and legacy that reveals how far our ideas about race and gentrification have evolved -- or have they?


Website: www.woollymammoth.net

Box Office: 202-393-3939


Discounted Tickets Available!


Use promotion code 1285 when arranging tickets to receive a 20% discount off tickets to Clybourne Park.


Reservations can be made online at www.woollymammoth.net, over the phone (202-393-3939), or in person (641 D Street NW). Please limit 2 per person; discount subject to ticket availability. If ordering online, enter the code when you are asked to log in; the blank is listed as "Promotion Code." Clybourne Park runs July 21 - August 14, 2011. Performances are generally Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm.

Questions? Visit www.woollymammoth.net. Problems ordering tickets? Email Rachel Grossman, Connectivity Director, Rachel@woollymammoth.net or call the box office at 202-393-3939.


Sarah Browning is director of Split This Rock. Author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden and co-editor of DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology, she is an associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, poetry co-editor of On The Issues Magazine, and co-host of Sunday Kind of Love, a monthly poetry series at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and the Creative Communities Initiative and is winner of the People Before Profits Poetry Prize. She lives in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, DC, with her husband and son.


Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian. His poetry, short stories, essays, and plays have appeared in numerous publications. He is the former executive director of DC WritersCorps, Inc., where he created the country's first Youth Poetry Slam League, which was honored by President Clinton's Commission for the Arts and the Humanities in 1999. He teaches creative writing at the Washington Writers Center and teaches youth writing workshops for Montgomery County Community College. He has received several literary fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as the Mayor's Award for Service to the Arts. He is married and the proud father of a daughter and two sons.


Post-Show Conversations - from Woolly Mammoth


Special guests from across the Metro serve as "Community Catalysts," joining a Woolly facilitator on stage immediately after a performance to jump-start an audience-wide conversation about by sharing their personal reflections on the show and its themes.


Clybourne Park explores the evolution of race relations and urban development over the past half-century in America by imagining the conflicts surrounding an African American family that purchases a house in a white neighborhood in 1959, and then the re-design of that house in "post-racial" 2009.

While is an actual neighborhood in Chicago, the play makes no direct reference to its geography, and Woolly believes is highly reflective of the changes happening to neighborhoods throughout the DC metropolitan area and across the country. We tested this idea with audiences during our initial run of the play in March 2010, and the response we received overwhelmingly let us know that we were on the right trail -- that Clybourne Park serves as a mirror reflecting the changing faces of our neighborhoods and our city.

To continue this conversation, Woolly Mammoth has created a variety of opportunities for DC audiences to investigate the social and political implications of this provocative work of art, and how they reflect the changes we see happening around us every day.

What is the story of your community? How is it being told? Who's doing the telling? Join the conversation! Information on all the connectivity programming available at: www.woollymammoth.net

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