Junebug Productions, Inc.
www.junebugproductions.org

Junebug Productions, the acclaimed African American theater company of New Orleans, offers multiple community projects and performances.
The Junebug Cycle
“Sayings From the Life and Writings of Junebug Jabbo Jones"

Four plays, written by the award winning, critically acclaimed Mr. John O'Neal, comprise the Junebug Cycle.All four plays are filled with stories, songs, and poems drawn from the rich trove of over 100 years of African American oral history. Junebug moves through a world of cotton fields, sanctified churches, plantation life, rural schools, cities burning in the 60's, and finally to present-day neighborhoods. Junebug's wisdom is immense. From simple lessons of respect to the complexity of redemption, these powerful plays, with their two exceptional actors, teach and amaze.


Don't Start Me to Talking or I'll Tell You Everything I Know (Vol. I)
Performed by Mr. John O'Neal

You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover (Vol. II)
Performed by Mr. John O'Neal

'Til the Midnight Hour (Vol. III)
Performed by Mr. John O'Neal

Trying to Find My Way Back Home (Vol. IV)
The "next generation Junebug," performed by Mr. O'Neal's son, William O'Neal

The first three plays in the Junebug Cycle feature John O’Neal with his brilliant and acclaimed acting bringing a host of characters alive on stage. The fourth and newest play introduces Mr. O’Neal’s son, William O'Neal, as the "next generation Junebug" on a journey to find out who he is and what stories he should be telling. William’s incredible singing and contemporary music electrify the stage with hip-hop beats and spoken word.

The Colorline Project

John O'Neal and Theresa Holden were recently honored with the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World award for their work on this exceptional community-based project. The Colorline Project has visited numerous communities over the past eight years. In each community, the CLP team conducts this exceptional story-collecting and performance project, which is centered around the Civil Rights Movement. Local community artists, educators and organizers join the Junebug team in community story-collecting and in the resulting artistic and educational projects and productions.

Like Poison Ivy

A powerful new play with music about a family and neighborhood dealing with the realities and results of environmental injustice, written by Junebug Productions' Artistic Director, John O’Neal and directed by Steve Kent, with music by composer, Michael Keck.

Availability: General

Roadside Theater & Pregones Theater
www.roadside.org & www.pregones.org

About Roadside Theater
Roadside Theater has spent 31 years developing original plays drawn from its Appalachian Mountain history and culture and touring them nationally and internationally, performing 55 new plays in 43 states.  In New York City, the company has been in residence at the Manhattan Theatre Club, Theater for the New City, and Dance Theatre Workshop, and has performed at Lincoln Center.

About Pregones Theater
Pregones Theater has received numerous awards for theatrical excellence and is now celebrating its landmark 27th anniversary with the launch of a new theater in The Bronx.  The ensemble is known for mining connections between theater and popular culture and for creating plays with dynamic visual, musical and rhythmic character.  Pregones’ ensemble has toured to more than 400 U.S. cities and 11 countries.  Productions are performed in both Spanish and English.

About the Collaboration
Pregones and Roadside each pride themselves on their respect for cultural traditions, their ability to reach a popular audience, and their aspiration to tell new American stories.  The two ensembles have been working together for ten years.  Their last co-creation, Promise of a Love Song, toured nationally in 2000-2002 and was published in 2005 by Theatre Communications Group, New York. Now available in 2007-2008, their latest collaboration available for theaters across the nation is the new musical, Betsy.

Betsy

BETSY is the story of a Bronx born and bred Puerto Rican jazz singer who stirs up the little known history of her Scotch-Irish ancestry, bringing to life ghosts that have a life of their own:   an orphaned teenager tricked into leaving Ireland to become an indentured servant in 18th century North America, her seducer, and their descendants; a grown woman finding her bearings in the rhythms of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in the 20th century, a time traveling woman whose soul rests in her Caribbean and Scotch-Irish origins.  This musical is alive with the fire of Jazz, Bluegrass, and Latin compositions delivered by three powerful vocalists and a five-member Latin-Appalachian band.  Three years in the making, BETSY’s music was composed by Roadside’s Ron Short, Nashville jazz pianist Beegie Adair, and Pregones’ Desmar Guevara.

Ruby Nelda Perez
www.rubyneldaperez.com

Ruby Nelda Perez is one of the most acclaimed and beloved Chicana theater artists in the nation. She has performed throughout the US, Mexico and Latin America. For 2007-2008, three exceptional plays are available, both written by Rodrigo Duarte Clark and performed by Ruby. These solo performances are deliciously comic and peppered with the poignancy of cultural pride.

Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen

In Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen, Doña Rosita invites the audience for the "Last Supper" in the Salsipuedes barrio. Treating the audience as guests in her restaurant, Doña Rosita contemplates selling her restaurant/home of 23 years to a big-time real estate developer, in order to make way for a brand new tourist shopping mall. Generous servings of one flavorful character after another will leave your spirit nourished.

Availability: General


Rosita’s Day of the Dead

In Rosita’s Day of the Dead, the stage is set as Rosita cooks late into the night, dishing out recipes and juicy stories about the living, the dead and the people who fall in between.

Availability: General

A Woman's Work

Through the use of poems, folktales, monologues and personal experiences, this play focuses on the life of a student teacher.  Portraying various family members and herself as an adolescent, she gives insight to life’s obstacles and finds the power to succeed within herself.  Bringing understanding, humor and compassion to those awkward and sometimes regretful times, audiences are able to reflect, laugh and relate. 

Best for Middle and High School Students

Click here for General Technical Requirements.

The Triangle Project: Journey of the Dandelion
www.taiko.org

The Triangle Project: Journey of the Dandelion is an international collaboration that weaves together the music and lives of three extraordinary women artists of Japanese and Japanese-American origin: Yoko Fujimoto of KODO from Japan, PJ Hirabayashi of San Jose Taiko, and Nobuko Miyamoto of Great Leap from Los Angeles.

These artists witness the beginnings of the nuclear age and follow the reverberations of war 60 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when more Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) are being created across the globe. This meditation on peace is narrated through a blend of personal stories, traditional Japanese folk music, contemporary original music, the rhythms of taiko and dance.   The Journey of the Dandelion invokes the spirit of Ame no Uzume to bring light and harmony to our fractured world. Ame no Uzume, is the Japanese shaman of song and dance, who created a magical commotion to beckon Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, out of her cave to return light into the world.

Journey of the Dandelion takes us beyond performance, to invoke ritual to engage the audience. Using the vibration of voices and drums, the performers shift the winds of fear and violence and through the transformative energy of music, reveal our collective power and connection with all humanity.

Music, book and choreography by: Yoko Fujimoto, PJ Hirabayashi and Nobuko Miyamoto, and directed by Kevin Higa

Yoko Fujimoto was born and raised in postwar Tokyo which was quickly being westernized.  Learning to play the koto and singing Japanese songs her mother knew was a way of knowing her roots.  A founding member of KODO, now home is Sado Island, where she lives in a village of musicians who use taiko as a means of creating “one earth.”

PJ Hirabayashi grew up in an all-white neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay area, with a passion to dance and play music.  The socio-political movements of the 70’s inspired her to explore her cultural roots, where she found taiko as a path to community empowerment and self-discovery.  Now her home is San Jose Japantown, the epicenter of her cultural awakening.  

Nobuko Miyamoto was a child of Japanese American relocation who found a home in the world of music and dance.  A veteran of Broadway and film musicals, she claimed her own voice in the social movements of the 70’s, co-creating the seminal album, “A Grain of Sand.”  Founder of Great Leap, her music and theater works create bridges between people of diverse cultures.