Dec. 03--Black Ensemble Theater, the Uptown company best known for its jubilant musical biographies and recurring original musicals, will begin its 2015 season with an unlikely selection -- a play, the theater said on Wednesday.
That play, "The Trial of Moses Fleetwood Walker" (Feb. 7 -- March 15), is a world premiere by Ervin Gardner that tells the story of the Toledo Blue Stockings' Walker, the first African-American major league baseball player. Jackie Taylor will direct the drama that first appeared this year in the theater's Black Playwrights Festival. While there's no singing in the show, the production will feature a live band.
Returning to musicals, "Sounds So Sweet" (April 11 -- May 17), written and directed by Rueben Echoles, will recall the chart hits of girl groups from the sixties to the nineties. "Sounds So Sweet" first appeared as part of the Black Playwrights Festival in 2010.
Then comes "A Tribune to the Incomparable Bill Withers" (June 20-Aug. 16), a musical biography of the songwriter whose resume boasts "Lean On Me," "Use Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine," among many others. Written by Daryl Brooks, the piece began in the 2014 Black Playwrights Festival.
"The Black White Play (Honoring the Memory of Roger Ebert through Music)" (Sept. 19 -- Nov. 1) is another new musical, written and directed by Jackie Taylor, inspired by the life of Roger Ebert, the Sun-Times film critic who died in 2013.
The main season finishes on "Dynamite Divas" (Dec. 6 -- Jan 12, 2016), Jackie Taylor's tribute to popular chanteuses like Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone and Gladys Knight, alongside new inclusions added since the 2001 production such as Beyonce and Mariah Carey.
The Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center is located at 4450 N. Clark St.
