Bloomington’s Coalescence Theatre Project has a curtain call on the national stage in June.
“Walking With My Ancestors” was selected to compete at the American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) Finals.
Playwright and sole performer Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum said all audiences can connect with the storyline.
“A play that talks about slavery, and enslavement, and the conditions of what slavery did to our society. And it still has an impact. Slavery does still have an impact on our society today,” Aduonum said.
The play brought home the top spot and three awards from AACT’s Region III competition.
The theatre’s artistic director Don Shandrow said Coalescence is one of 12 companies from across the U.S. selected to perform at the finals.
“Here we are, a Central Illinois theatre company, that has been selected to perform a play about the repercussions of slavery from its very inception in the slave dungeons of Ghana, here in the United States," Shandrow said.
Coalescence Theatre Project aims to tell the world’s unheard stories. Shandrow says “Walking With My Ancestors” is an apt choice for the finals in the same Pennsylvania town where Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address.
The theatre is planning another local showing of the performance for August.
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