The Vicksburg Project, presented by Harlem Stage, produced by Mabou Mines and piece by piece productions, and created by Eve Beglarian, Mallory Catlett, and Karen Kandel, traces the experiences of women and gender-expansive people in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a small city pivotal to the painful history of our country. How can we speak honestly about what happened in this place that haunts us still?
The texts of The Vicksburg Project are constructed from historical diary entries, letters home, newspaper accounts, live interviews, and original writing by Karen Kandel as well as poetry by June Jordan, Thylias Moss, and Lucille Clifton. These materials are spun into intimate songs and confessions inspired by everything from parlor music of the 1860s to traditional blues of the 1920s to freedom songs of the 1960s, and from Wagnerian lushness to solo uke strumming to a capella chant.
The Vicksburg Project resurrects deeply researched stories from the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, and integrates the creators’ own experiences as women — black and white, straight and gay, the descendants of enslavers and the enslaved. The Vicksburg Project acknowledges the humanity in every person’s story.
Thank you for joining us!
Harlem Stage
Photo by Richard Termine
“it is the great circulation of the earth’s body, like the blood of the gods, this river in which the past is always flowing.” – Lucille Clifton
Autumn Angelettie
Associate Director
Alex Brock Associate Sound Design/ Audio Engineer
Jacob Montgomery Audio Engineer
Louis Brown Assistant Costume Design
Eric Dyer Production Manager
Jason Kaiser Production Stage Manager
Francisco J. Rivera Rodriguez 1st Assistant Stage Manager
Yuchen Lin 2nd Assistant Stage Manager
Sara Vandenhuevel Wardrobe & Props Supervisor Kamilah Bryan Wardrobe
Sharon Fogarty
Wendy vanden Heuvel
Producer/Co-Artistic Director, Mabou Mines
Producer, piece by piece productions
Kendra Bator Executive Producer, piece by piece productions
Autumn Angelettie Assistant Producer, Mabou Mines
Karen Kandel and Jason Kaiser appear through the courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Audio selection from the film A Regular Bouquet by Richard Beymer with music by Billy Strange from the National Preservation Film Foundation. Used with permission from Richard Beymer.
“Calling On All Silent Minorities” by June Jordan from The Essential June Jordan edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller, Copper Canyon Press 2021. © 2021 June M. Jordan Literary Estate Trust. Used by permission. www.junejordan.com
“the mississippi empties into the gulf” by Lucille Clifton from How We Carry Water: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1996 by Lucille Clifton. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., boaeditions.org.
All rights reserved worldwide.
All music by Eve Beglarian unless otherwise noted
“My Name is Karen. My Name is Mary” Words by Karen Kandel
“A Northerner Could Sympathize” Words by Emilie Riley McKinley Adapted by Eve Beglarian, Karen Kandel, Mallory Catlett and Megan Schubert Music from “The False Friend” by William Wallace Adapted by Megan Schubert and Eve Beglarian
“On the Battlefield” Words by Eve Beglarian Trombone and Video by Matt Petty
“See Right Through Me” Words by Eve Beglarian
“Letter to Mary” Words by Karen Kandel Spontaneous composition/improvisation by Melanie Dyer, Gwen Laster and Christina Morris
“The Affair” Words by Karen Kandel Adapted from newspaper accounts
“Sweet Enough Ocean” Words by Thylias Moss from Slave Moth
“Does That Count”
Words by Fran O’Brien and Bettye Oliver
Adapted by Mallory Catlett, Eve Beglarian, Karen Kandel, Megan Schubert, and Kasper
From letters and interviews with two Freedom Summer Civil Rights activists Spontaneous composition/improvisation by Melanie Dyer, Gwen Laster, Christina Morris and the Company
Dance Music by Billy Strange from Richard Beymer’s film documentary A Regular Bouquet.
“My Name is RED”
Words by Karen Kandel in collaboration with RED
“Calling On All Silent Minorities” Words by June Jordan
“the mississippi river empties into the gulf” Words by Lucille Clifton
When I first conceived this project, in November 2009, we were living in almost unimaginably different times. The hopes that our first Black president inspired had not yet been tempered by all that has unfolded since.
As we have been building the piece, I’ve come to see “Sweet Enough Ocean” as the crux of the piece. Everything leading up to that song is the expression of individuals who are fundamentally alone, isolated in prisons of their own making or that have been imposed on them.
Varl’s fierce act of imagination in “Sweet Enough Ocean’’ transforming the site of backbreaking labor into a place of charged beauty, opens the piece into a place where authentic community can begin to be constructed. (Tentative and fragile it may be, but it does count.)
The music I made to support Varl’s vision in “Sweet Enough Ocean” was inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’s love of Wagner’s Lohengrin. (Yes, I know, I know.)
“It is a hymn of Faith,” Du Bois wrote of Lohengrin. “Something in this world man must trust. Not everything — but Something. One cannot live and doubt everybody and everything. Somewhere in this world, and not beyond it, there is Trust, and somehow Trust leads to Joy.”
Eve BeglarianEmilie Riley McKinley, From the Pen of a She-Rebel, Gordon A. Cotton, ed.
The Vicksburg Post, May 14, 1919 and the days and weeks following. Thylias Moss, “Sweet Enough Ocean, Cotton” from Slave Moth.
Fran O’Brien, unpublished letters home, Summer 1964 and later.
Bettye Oliver, interview, November 2021.
June Jordan, The Essential June Jordan
Lucille Clifton, How We Carry Water: Selected Poems.
The Vicksburg Project has been over a decade in the making. Our research has been extensive and we must acknowledge the voices and vision of those who have inspired us as well as the people from Vicksburg who opened their homes and hearts to us.
We acknowledge those from Vicksburg: Yolande Robbins, Leo Turnipseed, Bettye Gardner, Dr. Calloway, Regina Winger, Linda Fondren, David Slay, Bettye Oliver, Betty Bullard, Andrew Harrell who took the time to meet with us and share their stories, as well as Civil Rights workers who spent Freedom Summer there: Fran O’Brien, Annie Popkin, and Shelton Stromquist. We also acknowledge the friendship of Lesley Silver, Lisa Longfellow, H.C. Porter, Lucius, Kathy Mabry, David Greer, Mark Howell, Penny Alvarez, Karen Moore, Rev. Andy Andrews, Rev. Billie Abraham, Rev. Elisabeth Malphurs, Deacon Josie Williams, Tillman Whitley, and Gertrude Young.
We acknowledge those writers and scholars who guided our research and decision making process: bell hook’s Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Lose Your Mother, and “Venus in Two Acts”, Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake, James W. Silver’s Mississippi: The Closed Society, Charles Chiplin’s Roads from the Bottom, Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, Huey Copeland’s Bound to Appear, David Blight’s online Civil War course, and Race & Reunion; W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk and The Souls of White Folk, Toni Morrison’s novels and essays, Audre Lorde: Sister Outsider, Walter Johnson, Daphne A. Brooks, James A. Davis, Eileen Southern, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Walt Whitman, Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class and Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Margo Jefferson, E. Patrick Johnson and Catherine Waggoner.
We would like to acknowledge the work of visual artist Lorna Simpson which has been foundational to the production design as well as Jennifer Packer’s beautiful monochromatic paintings. And Matt Petty and Virginia Harrell for their visual contributions to the video design.
We would like finally to thank the artists involved in earlier workshop incarnations of the work: Michele Kennedy, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Jules Skloot, Danielle Buonaiuto, Kasper, Jen Baker, Tyler Thomas, Jehan O. Young, Onome Ekeh, Sabrina Bianca and Bill Kennedy.
Eve Beglarian is a composer whose concert music has been commissioned by Roomful of Teeth, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, among many others. 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award; 2017 Alpert Award in the Arts. For Mabou Mines: Obie-winning Mabou Mines Dollhouse, Animal Magnetism, Ecco Porco, Choephorai, and Shalom Shanghai, all directed by Lee Breuer. www.evbvd.com
Mallory Catlett is a creator and director of performance across disciplines. She is a co-Artistic Director of Mabou Mines since 2020 and the founder of Restless NYC whose Bessie and Obie Award winning production This Was The End was developed and performed at Mabou Mines (2018). She is the recipient of a 2016 Creative Capital Grant and a 2015 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. www.mallorycatlett.net
Karen Kandel is a writer, performer, and Co-Artistic Director of Mabou Mines. Awards: 3 OBIEs, Dramalogue, Connecticut Critics Circle, Edinburgh Herald Angel. Grants: NYC Women’s Fund, US Artists Fellow, Audrey Skirball-Kenis T.I.M.E. Grant, Asian Cultural Council, TCG/Fox Fellowship, TCG Future Collaborations, Peter S Reed Foundation, Jim Henson Foundation, Spencer Cherashore Fund.
Megan Schubert has performed with robots while locked inside a giant Van de Graaff Generator; the role of Jane Jacobs in A Marvelous Order; for inmates at Sing Sing; for Elliot Carter celebrating his 100th birthday; in Jazztopad and Berlinerfestspiele; in the film opera River of Fundament, etc. www.meganschubert.com
RED (he/they) is a trans theater maker, designer, and performer. RED received their undergraduate degree at NYU and is currently pursuing his MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. RED is a New York Musical Festival award winner, and has performed at prominent venues and theaters across NYC. Find him @redhex_225
Lauren Genevieve recently played Wendla in Spring Awakening (NYU Tisch) and Little Inez in Hairspray (Priscilla Beach Theatre). She is thrilled to be working with these incredible artists in The Vicksburg Project. Lauren graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts New Studio on Broadway.
Gwen Laster performs/composes improvisational genres rooted in jazz, experimental and global music. Awards: NEA, New Music USA, South Arts, Puffin Foundation, Arts Mid Hudson. Founder of New Muse 4tet-an improvising string quartet. Recent collaborations: Wadada Leo Smith, We Free Strings, Brooklyn Raga Massive/Go Organic, Sun Ra Arkestra. www.gwenlaster.com
Melanie Dyer performs and composes in creative, improvised and through-composed music forms. In 2011, Melanie founded WeFreeStrings, an improvising string/rhythm collective. She has performed with Sun Ra Arkestra, Tomeka Reid, William Parker, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Dead Lecturers, Gwen Laster’s New Muse 4tet, Craig Harris, and Janice Lowe/Tyehimbe, Jess Millie & Christine.
Christina Morris has her BA in Music Theory. Christina studied conducting under Michael Tilson Thomas, Stephan Asbury, Neeme Jarvi and Andris Nelsons. Christina works to engage and expose the classical music community to the possibility of change through systemic reconstruction, one beat at a time.
Janice Lowe is a composer-poet and pianist. Her musical Lil Budda, text by Stephanie L. Jones was presented at the O’Neill Musical Theater Conference and at NAMT. Lowe is the author and composer of Leaving CLE. A recent MacDowell Fellow, Lowe leads the poetry-music ensemble, Namaroon.
Ariadne Greif starred in operas ranging from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with the Orlando Philharmonic, to Atthis, by G.F. Haas, with recent performances with William Kentridge of Ursonate, and a film of We Need To Talk by Caroline Shaw for Opera Philadelphia. She has premiered upwards of a hundred and fifty new works.
Peiyi Wong is a New York-based scenographer and interdisciplinary artist. She designs sets and costumes for theater, dance, opera and film with a particular interest in experimental and cross-disciplinary collaboration. 2023 Edith Lutyens & Bel Geddes Design Enhancement and NYSCA Support for Artists grantee, 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design: Memoirs of a…Unicorn (NY Live Arts). www.peiyiameliawong.com
Kate McGee is a trans*designer. Off-Broadway: My Lingerie Play (Rattlestick Theater), while you were partying (Soho Rep), Pay No Attention to the Girl (Target Margin Theater), Taylor Mac’s The Hang (HERE), Early Plays (New York City Players/Wooster Group). www.kateisalightingdesigner.com
Dianne Smith is an interdisciplinary artist. Smith’s work includes costume design, I Dream a Dream That Dreams Back at Me a Juneteenth Celebration, Lincoln Center, and set design A Walk Into Slavery, the Billie Holiday Theatre. Her artwork is in The National Museum of Women in the Arts permanent collection.
Wyatt Moniz (he/him) Wyatt Moniz is a theater designer and visual artist using light, sculpture, and projected image to create unconventional storytelling devices. He is currently a Lincoln Center Fellow as part of the Collider Series under Mimi Lien’s Social Sculpture project. Credits include Shenny De Los Angeles’ “Sisters by Water” at Harlem Stage, and lighting design for “The Baptism” by Carl Hancock Rux and Carrie Mae Weems.
M. Florian Staab is a composer and sound designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Staab was born and raised in Germany and received degrees from Oberlin College and UIUC/Krannert Center. His designs have been heard at the Public Theater, Irish Rep, Trinity Rep, City Theatre Pittsburgh, CTG, Mint Theater, National Playwrights Conference, Opera Vanguard and The Met. www.florianstaab.com
Leslie Cuyjet is a Bessie award-winning performer and dance artist living in Brooklyn, NY. Her dances often interrogate the performing body through a research-intense, interdisciplinary creative practice. Mostly known as a performer, she is a writer and editor, as well as a co-founder of the collective, Duvet.
Carl Hancock Rux is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, actor, theater director, radio journalist, as well as a frequent collaborator in the fields of film, modern dance, and contemporary art. He is a co-Artistic Director of Mabou Mines, and Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence at Harlem Stage. www.carlhancockrux.com
Autumn Angelettie is a theatrical director, producer, and multi-hyphenate theatre artist with experiences on and offstage at the Apollo, Signature Theatre, Lincoln Center, and Theater Alliance. She is a current member of the Roundabout Directors Group, Moxie Arts NYC Incubator, and serves as the Artistic Director of Lime Arts Productions. www.autumnangelettie.com.
Alex Brock is a Brooklyn-based sound designer and engineer. This is her first project with both Mabou Mines and Harlem Stage. Upcoming designs include the world premiere of “The Rewards of Being Frank” at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, “Escape to Margaritaville” at Walnut Street Theater (Philadelphia), and “Jelly’s Last Jam” at Cape Fear Regional Theater.
Louis Brown has worked in the fashion industry for over three decades. His work includes being the creative director for brands like Nicole Miller and Etienne Agnier and assistant costume designer for I Dream a Dream That Dreams Back at Me, a Juneteenth Celebration at Lincoln Center.
PRODUCTION MANAGER - PREMIERE
Eric Dyer is a Co-Founder of Radiohole.
PRODUCTION MANAGER - DEVELOPMENT AND
Bill Kennedy is a visual and technical artist who has worked with The Wooster Group, The New York City Players, Mabou Mines, Rachel Cohen, and was the technical director at St. Ann’s Warehouse and Celebrate Brooklyn.
Jason Kaiser: “Only An Octave Apart” (St. Ann’s, NY Phil); “Kiki and Herb SLEIGH” (BAM); “Social!” and “Party in the Bardo” (both at Park Avenue Armory); “Oklahoma!” (Broadway, St. Ann’s); “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” with Taylor Mac; “Available Light”; “Einstein on the Beach” (BAM); and three world-premiere plays by Athol Fugard.
Francisco J. Rivera Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican director resident in NYC. Recent directing credits: The mourners (The Space at Irondale); The Clone, December, Family (NYU/AOP). Recent Stage Management credits: Fuente Ovejuna (Teatro Circulo); La vida es sueño (Teatro Círculo/Spain Tour to Alcala & Almagro). MFA in Directing (The New School, CoPa). BA in General Drama (Universidad de Puerto Rico, RP) www.franciscoprdirecting.com
Yuchen Lin is an assistant stage manager and “undercover” ER registered nurse in The Vicksburg Project. Co-founder and stage manager of New York Mandarin Playback (NYMP). Past theatre productions: Rhapsody M, NYMP Performance Series, Apparition, Cityscape Theatre Series: When you get lost in NY, Arrival||Departure, Missing.
Sara Vandenheuvel is a New York based costume designer with over ten years of experience in the field. Sara is committed to work that pushes boundaries and believes that theater is most interesting when it fully embraces the suspension of disbelief that only theater can get away with. www.saravandenheuvel.com
As a producer Sharon Ann Fogarty launched most of Mabou Mines’ works since 1994. She wrote and directed Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, directed Finn by Jocelyn Clark and Goethe’s Faust 2.0 adapted by Matthew Maguire. Her teaching credits include her current position of Adjunct Lecturer of Acting/Directing at Barnard College/Columbia University.
Kendra Bator: Favorite credits with piece by piece productions include: Weightless; Birdheart (Julian Crouch and Saskia Lane); The Town Hall Affair, and Early Shaker Spirituals (The Wooster Group); Hundred Days (The Bengsons, Record Album); Martin Moran’s All The Rage (Lortel Award); Elective Affinities (Starring Zoe Caldwell).
piece by piece productions was started by Wendy vanden Heuvel in 1999. She has been a co-producer with co-founders Brian Mertes and Melissa Kievman on The Lake Lucille Chekhov Project since 2010 (Ivanov, Seagull, Cherry Orchard). Film: The Rest I Make Up directed by Michelle Memran (a documentary about the life and work of the playwright María Irene Fornés), I Am A Seagull: The Lake Lucille Chekhov Project directed by Brian Mertes (Mass MoCa and Under the Radar 2019). piece by piece productions has co-produced various productions with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Mabou Mines, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and Under the Radar. We are currently in development with The Bengsons’ new piece OHIO. www.piecebypieceproductions.org
Mabou Mines is a collaborative hub for diverse, avantgarde theater artists. Our mission is to generate, support, and connect audiences with original works of experimental performance and inventive re-imaginings of the classics, while nurturing the next generations of innovative theater artists. Mabou Mines’ creative vision is informed by the ethos of our co-founders: JoAnne Akalaitis, Lee Breuer, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech, and David Warrilow. Fifty-two years later, the company remains committed to collaboration and providing a platform for work that interrogates, innovates, and represents a multiplicity of identities and experiences. Mabou Mines’ home at the 122 Community Center provides the company with a space to create new work and support emerging artists in our Resident Artist Program and SUITE/Space, a performance program for artists of color. www.maboumines.org
Mallory Catlett, Sharon Ann Fogarty, Karen Kandel, and Carl Hancock Rux
Tei Blow, Perel, David Thomson, and Carrie Mae Weems
JoAnne Akalaitis, Clove Galilee, Philip Glass, Greg Mehrten, Maude Mitchell, David Neumann, and Bill Raymond Writer in Residence/Co-Artistic Director Emeritus Terry O’Reilly
Mallory Catlett, Leonore Cooney, Sharon Fogarty, Esther Fortunoff, Jason Jaffery, Karen Kandel, David Preminger, Carl Hancock Rux, and Fredrick Sherman
Jill Godmilow, Dr. Harold Kooden, Gail Merrifield Papp, and Nigel Redden
Sharon Fogarty, Producing Co-Artistic Director
Julia Mendes, General Manager
Autumn Angelettie, Assistant Producer
Wyatt Moniz, Technical Supervisor
Ona Martini, Company Manager
Mary Sormeley, Auditor
Morgan Lindsey Tachco, Development Consultant
Donate via our website at www.maboumines.org
The Vicksburg Project is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and with support from: New Music USA, The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Café Royal Cultural Foundation, Axe-Houghton Foundation, and the JKW Foundation.
Support for Mabou Mines is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and Materials for the Arts, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Distracted Globe Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, JKW Foundation, Emma A. Shaefer Charitable Trust, Shubert Foundation, Tides Foundation, and the W Trust.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.
Harlem Stage’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.
For nearly 40 years our singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture.
We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.
We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.
Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President
Jamie Cannon, Vice President
Michael Young, Secretary
Mark Thomas, Treasurer
Angela Glover Blackwell
Jenna Bond
Jamila Ponton Bragg
Staff
Patricia Cruz, Artistic Director & CEO
MANAGEMENT
Eric Oberstein, Managing Director
Shamar Hill, Director of Development
Shanté Skyers, Associate Director of Development
Julianna Friedman, Development Manager
Carl Hancock Rux, Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence
Sarah McCaffery, Programming Manager and Associate Curator
Maurice Ivy, Programming Associate
Ashley Areche, Programming & Management Intern
Deirdre May, Senior Director of Digital Content and Marketing
Andre Padayhag, Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer
Ashabi Owagboriaye, Social Media Manager
Jordan Carter, Education & Community Engagement Manager
BOX OFFICE
Eddy Perez, Box Office Manager
Amanda K. Ringger, Director of Production
Clarence Taylor, Lighting Operator
Orlando Alvarado, House Audio Engineer
Saul Ulerio, Video & Lighting Crew
David Barrett, Julio Collado, Deck Crew
JoAnn K. Chase
Patricia Cruz
Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes
Jenette Kahn
Rebecca Robertson
LaChanze Sapp-Gooding Tamara Tunie
Rodney Bissessar, Director of Operations Lamont Askins, Operations Associate Acey Anderson Sr., Maintenance
ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE
NCheng LLC, Accountants/Advisors Jake Lee, Partner Aaron Lam, Supervising Senior Accountant
Aon/Albert G. Ruben Company (NY) —Claudia Kaufman, Insurance DAS Services, IT Consultant
Digital Video Services—BriGuel Lutz & Carr/Chris Bellando, Accountants
Madison Consulting Group—Matt Laurence Manchester Benefits—Greg Martin Marc Millman Photography Digital Video Services—Jess Medenbach RL Stein Group—Robyn L. Stein Snugg Studios—Derrick Saint Pierre Development Consultant
The Whelan Group Incorporated —Charles Whelan Blake Zidell & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing
Nobar De leon, Toma Carthens, Andy Garcia, Julian Norales, Miriam Hernandez, Robert Gibbons