Marla lou @ NYTW & CAST ANNOUNCEMENT
Honored to be in the space with Imani Uzuri and friends to co-create this Black piece! A coming of age story centering our indigeneity, our spirit work, and ancestral legacies of healing all while organizing my life around the movement building with our collective at Claim Our Space NOW. I’m really starting to find my rhythm of liberation ritual amidst my creative works and favorite collaborators since being back in the city!
Casting for the first full-length reading of Lighthouse of the Singing Birds includes Tony Award winner Lillias White (The Life, Hadestown, Disney’s “Hercules”), Nichelle Lewis (The Wiz on Broadway, Ragtime at Encores), plus stage and screen talents Charlie Burnham (violinist/composer), Starr Busby(Octet, The Beautiful Lady), Jared Wayne Gladly (Aladdin, Frozen), Yayoi Ikawa (jazz pianist/composer), Polanco Jones (The Wiz), Marla Lou (Theater Producers of Color 2023, Hadestown), Matthew D. Morrison (musicologist), and Mercy Viola (cultural worker/performance artist).
Imani and I first met crying and holding each other in our shared mentor Jeanine Tesori’s invited concert presentation of For Colored Girls of NYCity Center last year before I left for the road. I can’t wait to see how my enby truth gets to shine through this character, Twilight!
“Lighthouse of the Singing Birds is a magical realist musical with book, music, and lyrics by Hermitage Major Theater Award winner Imani Uzuri. ”
