News Release

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Note: Director Trezana Beverley will discuss the play
at noon Wednesday (Feb. 21) in the Paul Green Theatre.

PlayMakers to present stage version
of Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’

CHAPEL HILL – Growing up black in 1940s Ohio, Pecola Breedlove recognizes the correlation between skin color and the world’s narrow definition of beauty. At age 11, she idolizes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed white girls adored by everyone.

Her fictional story is central to “The Bluest Eye,” which PlayMakers Repertory Company at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will perform Feb. 28 through March 25.

Adapted for the stage by Lydia R. Diamond, the play dramatizes Toni Morrison’s first novel, published in 1970. Racism, betrayal, love and beauty are among themes explored in the production, set to begin on the last day of Black History Month.

Show times will be 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays in the Paul Green Theatre, inside the Center for Dramatic Art on Country Club Road.

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamt of a world where little black boys and little black girls would one day be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin,” said Trezana Beverley, who will direct the production.

“Yet in 2007, the positive images which are vital to the healthy self-esteem of young African-American men and women are still overshadowed by images of a white world of privilege and power; a world that is not real to the majority of people of color.”

In “The Bluest Eye,” Pecola escapes into that world of false perfection to avoid her misery, Beverley said: “The question becomes, ‘What do people of color in the United States do to reinforce their personal self-esteem when they see so little of themselves reflected in the mass media?’”

Beverley won a 1976 Tony Award for her performance in “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf” on Broadway. Now artistic director of her own company, OdD Socks Productions in New York, N.Y.,  Beverley previously directed PlayMakers’ productions of “Yellowman” in 2005 and “Salomé” in 2003. American Theatre magazine ranked the latter among the top four productions of the play that season.

Morrison won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel “Beloved,” also named the most influential work of fiction of the last 25 years by The New York Times Book Review. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 and the 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award for “Song of Solomon.”

Guest actors and actresses who will appear in PlayMakers’ “The Bluest Eye” and some of their credits are:

• Adrian Bailey, more than a dozen Broadway shows including “La Cage Aux Folles” in 2005, and on television, HBO’s “The Josephine Baker Story.”

• Lou Ferguson, “Seven Guitars,” “Two Trains Running,” “Playboy of the West Indies” and other plays on Broadway, and “Third Watch,” “Law & Order” and “Attica” on television.

• JoAnna Rhinehart,  TV’s “As the World Turns” and the Off-Broadway shows “The Odyssey” and “The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae.” 

• Georgia Southern, “The Color of Justice” Off-Broadway and, on TV, “One Life to Live” and “Law & Order.”

 PlayMakers company members cast in “The Bluest Eye” are:

• Allison Reeves, “The Spade Game” Off-Broadway and three previous performances with PlayMakers.

• Heaven Stephens, a master’s degree candidate in the UNC dramatic art department, who appeared in PlayMakers’ “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

• Danika Williams (Pecola Breedlove), PlayMakers’ “The Tragedy of King Richard II,” “Caesar and Cleopatra” and “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

• Kathryn Hunter-Williams, PlayMakers’ “String of Pearls” and “Yellowman”; She also co-directed a production of “Doing More Than Time” with members of the North Carolina Women’s Prison Writing and Performance Project.

The production team will include Anne Kennedy (costumes), Robin Vest (sets), Peter West (lighting) and Michèl Marrano (sound). 

Tickets are $10 to $40. Special events will include free post-show discussions on March 7 and 11 and an all-access performance for those with special needs on March 20. On March 16 and 17, an accompanying seminar is available through the UNC Program in the Humanities and Human Values. For details, visit http://adventuresinideas.unc.edu/level_3/2007_Spring/BluestEye.htm.

Box office hours are Mondays through Fridays from noon to 6 p.m.; 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on performance nights; and noon to 2 p.m. on performance Sundays. Call (919) 962-PLAY (7529) for information or tickets.

PlayMakers Repertory Company, based in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, is the Carolinas’ oldest professional, resident theatre company. Committed to engaging the greater Triangle community in an ongoing exploration of theatre and nurturing succeeding generations of artists and audiences, PlayMakers was recognized as one of “America’s leading theatre companies” by American Theatre magazine. For more information, visit www.playmakersrep.org.

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Photo URLs: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/playmakers/PlayMakerstrezana_beverley001.jpg
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/playmakers/PlayMakersbluesteyehighreslogo.jpg

Coverage note: Media are welcome to cover the preview and talk by director Trezana Beverley at noon Wednesday (Feb. 21). Photography, videography, lights and flashes are not restricted. For additional assistance, call (919) 621-1230.

PlayMakers contact: Pam O’Connor, (919) 621-1230, pamo@nc.rr.com
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339, deereid@unc.edu