RAT Only in America Press Release

[brad rothbart <scrdchao@nni.com>]

PLEASE POST, COPY, FORWARD, AND GENERALLY DISSEMINATE WIDELY





*  Press release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Theatre Double's  reading series,
Underground Voices
Curated by Brad Rothbart
presents

Only In America
by Aishah Rahman

 The playwright will be present at the reading.

In his critical examination of the work, Thadious Davis in OBSIDIAN 111
states,"...ONLY IN AMERICA is oracular, mythic, wicked satire with
outrageous humor and provocative subject matter.  In this play, Rahman
achieves a synthesis of jazz and secular speech, as she creates a language
for one of America's invisible women. Please join us for this unique
(re)cognizing of the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas  Senate hearings as, on
Martin Luther King Day, we explore sexism within the black community. Stay
afterward to meet the playwright and discuss the work at  our wine and
cheese post-show reception. For further information, members of the press
can call 215.836.5382. The phone number for publication is 215.557.9421.

Actors in  ONLY IN AMERICA  include LISA NORTON as Cassandra, SHELITA
BIRCHETT as Lilli and TOPAZ WISE as Scatwoman.  MICHAEL  LELAND  will read
the stage directions. The reading will  take place at Theatre Double, 1619
Walnut Street   in Philadelphia  at 8pm on 17 January 2000.  Doors will
open at 7:30. The reading is  for one night only.  Admission is
pay-what-you-can, and the space is wheelchair accessible.

Aishah Rahman (playwright/librettist) is currently a professor of
playwriting in Brown University's M.F.A. Creative Writing Program where she
also edits the drama journal NuMuse. Among her many awards she numbers the
Rockefeller Fellowship for American Playwrights.   Ms. Rahman's fellowship
bears a citation for "proven talent, sustained dedication to work in the
theater and current productivity."

Widely anthologized, Ms. Rahman's plays (Only In America, The Mojo And The
Sayso, Unfinished Women, and The Tale of Madame Zora, to name a few) are
included in several collections. These include Nine Plays by Black Women,
ed. Margaret Wilkerson, Moon Marked and Touched by Sun, ed.  Sydne Mahone,
and  Plays by African-Americans, ed. James V. Hatch.  The Summer 1999 issue
of Obsidian 111 focuses on Ms. Rahman, featuring articles and interviews on
her oeuvre and  theatrical work. Her most recent creations  include  a
stage play, Chiaroscuro: A Light (and Dark) Comedy, a libretto, "Anybody
Seen Marie  Laveau?" and Chewed Water, a memoir of her first 18 years
growing up in Harlem, New York.

		Future readings include:
		31 January Alice Tuan, Coastline
	              07 February Paula Cizmar, Street Stories ( postponed
from 3 January)
		21 February Amy Wheeler, Weeping Woman