Ugandan playwright Adong Lucy Judith
Ugandan playwright Adong Lucy Judith will direct performances of her play Ga-AD!, showing September 26-30, in the Center for the Performing Arts Theatre at Illinois State University.
Judith, a TED Fellow, is part of a six-week residency at Illinois State’s School of Theatre and Dance. The performance is part of the School’s Crossroads Project, which is committed to diversity in theatre.
Performances for this highly acclaimed drama written by Judith and Nambozo Beverley Nzengiyunva will be at 7:30 p.m. September 26-29 with 2 p.m. matinees on September 29 and 30. For ticket information, contact Ticketmaster at (309) 454-5500 or the Theatre and Dance Box Office at (309) 438-2535. Those who need special accommodations can call the box office at (309) 438-2535. Parking is available free-of-charge in the School Street Parking Garage at the corner of Beaufort and School streets on the Illinois State campus in Normal.
A Fulbright scholar who graduated from Temple University with a master’s degree in film and media arts. Judith taught international cinema and screenwriting. She is the recipient of the Margaret McNamara Memory Fund Education Grant, and was voted into the Who is Who in American Universities and Colleges. She is an alum of the Sundance Theater Lab and the Royal Court Theatre International Playwrights Residency. Her captivating plays and films provoke and promote dialogue on social issues affecting underprivileged groups. Outside of Africa, Judith’s plays have been presented in New York, London, Toronto, and Chicago.
Ga-AD! is inspired by the poem The Loneliest Journey is the Journey of a Faithful Woman, and set in a Pentecostal Church in Ugandan, Africa, during the 21st century. Ga-AD! takes a close look at Pentecostalism and the role of women in its church. The audience follows the character Faith, a loyal servant of God, who has departed this world and entered into the afterlife. To get the answers she craves, Faith must not only understand the world she has entered, but must also understand the world she has left behind. From her new vantage point, she looks back at her Pentecostal life on earth and struggles to understand it.
This Crossroads production of Ga-AD! is co-sponsored by the Illinois State University Office of the President, the Harold K. Sage Foundation and ISU Foundation Fund, the Alice and Fannie Fell Trust Fund, the College of Fine Arts, and the School of Theatre and Dance. The Coalescence Theatre Project, with Artistic Director Don Shandrow, is a community partner in this production.
Those with questions regarding the play or the Crossroads Project can contact Associate Professor Leslie Sloan Orr at (309) 438-2895 and lsorr@ilstu.edu; or the Director of the School of Theatre and Dance, Janet Wilson at (309) 438-8088 and jmwilso4@ilstu.edu.
