One-Woman Show slices into Viewer’s Consciousness
What: Torie Wiggins will star in a multimedia production, I’m Not Your Negro Tour Guide, which lampoons race, sexuality and gender in American society. The one-woman play is based on a book having the same title and written by Kathy Wilson, a newspaper columnist and commentator for National Public Radio.
When: Monday, April 6 at 7 p.m.
Where: The Washington Room in Mather Hall on the Trinity campus, 300 Summit St., Hartford.
Background: Torie Wiggins, who has been performing since the age of 2, has trained in Atlanta, with Chicago’s Second City, and was the second African-American actress to graduate with a BFA in dramatic performance from the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music.
She served as artistic director for the Black Arts Collaborative and has appeared in Love’s Fire, The Tempest, The Grapes of Wrath, The Mutilated, Marisol, Blues for an Alabama Sky, The Colored Museum, and The Vietnam Project. A resident of New York, Wiggins has also appeared on All My Children and in the move, Love Me Through It, and her voice can be heard of many television and radio commercials.
The book upon which the play is based contains short, vivid essays that speak for blacks, women, the working class and gays.
According to Publishers Weekly, “Wilson writes with razor-sharp candor and amusing irreverence – to amplify her voice, to divest mainstream America of its monopoly on thought and culture, and to whittle through and then reclaim tired stereotypes.”
The sketches devote a section to Cincinnati city corruption, as well as segments that touch on topics as diverse as comedian Bill Cosby, former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, basketball player Kobe Bryant and Black History Month.
“Wilson writes with in a voice that can fairly simmer with disgust, indignation and a powerful blast of irony,” says Publishers Weekly. “Her writing works best when it’s crackling and clipped, cutting out any verbal window dressing to trumpet her convictions loud and clear.”
The program is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Laura Lockwood, director of the Trinity College Women & Gender Resource Action Center, at 860-297-2408 or at laura.lockwood@trincoll.edu. Other sponsors include the Trinity College Black Women’s Organization, the Campus Climate Committee, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.