Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre’s 2024 season will conclude with Dael Orlandersmith’s UNTIL THE FLOOD, a play exploring the 2014 social uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by a police officer. Orlandersmith drew from interviews she conducted with Missouri residents in the year after the shooting to create eight characters - black, white, male, female, young, old - as composites of the people most directly affected by the police shooting and the subsequent unrest. THE NEW YORK TIMES’s Jesse Green called the play, “an urgent moral inquest….Ms. Orlandersmith digs deep enough into each character, and with such decency, that no segment seems obligatory.” (Ms. Orlandersmith herself is the ninth “character.”) UNTIL THE FLOOD will play Saturdays and Sundays from October 26 – November 10, 2024, at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in the Noyes Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, Evanston. Press opening is Sunday, October 27 at 3 pm.
Jazzma Pryor and Jasmine “Jaz” Robertson will divide the play’s nine roles between them. Pryor is well-known to FJT audiences, having recently appeared there this past July in FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, and previously in THE LIGHT, SUNSET BABY, FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA, and her 2021 one-woman performance of Anna Deavere Smith’s TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES,1992. Robertson, who will make her FJT debut in UNTIL THE FLOOD, has been seen in BEYOND THE GARDEN GATE (Impostors Theatre), REGRESSION (Redtwist Theatre), RUINED (Invictus Theatre), NOTES & LETTERS (Underscore Theatre), THE REVOLUTIONISTS, FAILURE: A LOVE STORY, AND SHIPWRECKED! AN ENTERTAINMENT (Oil Lamp Theater), as well as in many other workshops and independent productions around the city.
Left: Jazzma Pryor, Right: Jasmine "Jaz" Robertson
FJT Artistic Director Tim Rhoze will direct the production and will additionally design the set in collaboration with Technical Director Shane Rogers. The team also includes Kate Parker-Burrows (Costume Designer), David Goodman-Edberg (Lighting Designer), Rick Sims (Sound Designer), Rich Oliver (Stage Manager/Assistant Director), and Bria Walker-Rhoze (Artistic Associate).
Performances will be Saturdays at 7:00 pm and Sundays at 3:00 pm, at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston. Tickets are $30.00 and are on sale now at www.fjtheatre.com.
LISTING INFORMATION
UNTIL THE FLOOD
by Dael Orlandersmith
Directed by Tim Rhoze
October 26 – November 10, 2024
Saturdays at 7 pm, Sundays at 3 pm
Press opening Sunday, October 27 at 3 pm
Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center
927 Noyes Street, Evanston
Tickets $32.00, on sale now at www.fjtheatre.com
Phone 847-866-5914
This powerful and thought-provoking theatre is adapted from interviews the author conducted with St. Louis area residents who lived through the civil unrest resulting from the 2014 police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri of teenager Michael Brown. A tour de force theatrical journey that builds a sobering brick-by-brick portrait of a society still reckoning with racism in all its insidious forms. The effect is akin to that of a prayer, a poetic plea for understanding and peace that ought to be heard everywhere.
BIOS
DAEL ORLANDERSMITH (writer) is an American actress, poet and playwright. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for YELLOWMAN in 2002. THE BLUE ALBUM, in collaboration with David Cale, premiered at Long Wharf Theatre in 2007. BONES was commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum, where it premiered in 2010. She wrote and performed the solo memoir play FOREVER at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the Long Wharf, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage in 2016 and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
In 2016, Orlandersmith wrote and performed UNTIL THE FLOOD, commissioned by St. Louis Repertory Theatre. It was later produced at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, ACT Seattle and Goodman Theatre. Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. YELLOWMAN and a collection of her earlier works have been published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service. She attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. She is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an Obie Award for BEAUTY’S DAUGHTER.
TIM RHOZE (Artistic Director, Director) Tim Rhoze has been the Producing Artistic Director of Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre since 2010. His directing credits include: FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, 1619: THE JOURNEY OF A PEOPLE (with Ted Williams III), THIS BITTER EARTH, THE BALDWIN | GIOVANNI EXPERIENCE, THE LIGHT, AMERICAN SON, HOME, TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES 1992, THE MEETING, FIRES IN THE MIRROR, BLACK BALLERINA (co-writer), NUTCRACKER(ISH), CROWNS, HAVING OUR SAY, FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA, WOZA ALBERT!, GOING TO ST. IVES, SINGLE BLACK FEMALE, A SONG FOR CORETTA, YELLOWMAN, SWEET, LADY DAY AT EMERSON BAR & GRILL, BEAR COUNTRY, NOBODY, FENCES, PIANO LESSON, AIN'T MISBEHAVIN, K2, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, et. al. Tim is also the writer/director of WHY NOT ME? A SAMMY DAVIS JR. STORY, and MAYA’S LAST POEM, both produced at FJT; and BLACK BALLERINA, produced at FJT and Pittsburgh Public Theatre. He was co-writer and director of A HOME ON THE LAKE, co-produced with the Piven Theatre Workshop.
JAZZMA PRYOR (Actor #1) is excited to perform on the FJT stage again! Her Chicago credits include: FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, THE LIGHT, TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES,1992, SUNSET BABY, and FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA (Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre); JUMP, STEW, HANNAH AND MARTIN, and CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Shattered Globe Theatre); DOUBT: A PARABLE (Irish Theatre of Chicago); PHILLIS: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY (Redd Opera); INSURRECTION: HOLDING HISTORY (Stage Left Theatre); MARISOL (Promethean Theatre); and PRELUDE TO A KISS (The Comrades). Jazzma has an M.S. in Leadership for Creative Enterprises from Northwestern University and B.A. in Production Studies with a theatre concentration from Clemson University. She is an ensemble member with Shattered Globe Theatre.
JASMINE "JAZ" ROBERTSON (Actor #2) is a multi-hyphenate artist from Memphis, TN. In her three years as a Chicago local, she has been seen onstage in various productions such as BEYOND THE GARDEN GATE (Impostors Theatre), REGRESSION (Redtwist Theatre), RUINED (Invictus Theatre), NOTES & LETTERS (Underscore Theatre), THE REVOLUTIONISTS, FAILURE: A LOVE STORY, and SHIPWRECKED! AN ENTERTAINMENT (Oil Lamp Theater), as well as many other workshops and independent productions around the city. She is also an aspiring playwright/lyricist, an inaugural ensemble member with Oil Lamp Theater, and an alumna of The American Theatre Wing's SpringboardNYC program.
ABOUT FLEETWOOD-JOURDAIN THEATRE
Founded in 1979, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre is a professional, award-winning theatre company that has been thrilling audiences with over four decades of unique, inspirational, and invigorating African American and African Diaspora-centered storytelling. The company has been honored in the Black Theatre Alliance/Ira Aldridge Awards. From original plays to the best of Broadway, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre has remained committed to supplying the very best in theatre. "Umoja!! ….Working Together in Unity" is the foundation from which FJT began and continues to thrive!
It is our mission to present powerful, thought-provoking, Theater Arts programming with a commitment to diversity and creative excellence. We are dedicated to providing a nurturing and creative environment for directors, playwrights, actors, set, light, and costume designers. In this positive environment, they can further develop their creative skills and share their artistic expressions. The Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre is funded by the City of Evanston and in part by the Illinois Arts Council, A State Agency.