Beginning Oct. 1, Miami University's Center for the Performing Arts will be presenting the world premiere of the play Down in Mississippi: A Gospel Play with Music.
The play is directed by Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, an associate professor within Miami's School of Fine Arts, and features professional actor, John Frazier, as well as Miami sophomore Kaleigh Brooke Dillingham and junior Aaron Epstein.
According to Armstrong, Down in Mississippi is unique to Miami's theater because it was commissioned from Carlyle Brown, a nationally acclaimed playwright of Carlyle Brown and Company in Minneapolis.
"That is a pretty unusual circumstance to support and commission a professional artist to craft a new work that will go on to other performances outside of the Miami University premiere." Armstrong said.
As one of the lead roles in Down in Mississippi, Aaron Epstein said he believes the play will have a personal connection with Miami since it was specifically created for Miami by Brown.
"We commissioned the writer, Carlyle Brown, to write this play especially for Miami University so it has personal touches for the university, and I thought that that was very exciting," Epstein said. "I really wanted to have the opportunity to be an original in the play."
According to Armstrong, the play has a connection to Miami because of the local history of Western College for Women, which is now Miami's Western Campus.
"We, of course, have the connection to the local history of Western College for Women so the fact that the very buildings on the Western Campus that we use and live in were the fight in which the activists visited in 1964, it's a very powerful connection, and I think we have a responsibility as a community to embrace and tell that story," Armstrong said.
John Frazier, another lead opposite Epstein, said the play will be a great presentation of Miami's historical Western Campus and the role it played during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
"I think its important because it's a part of the history that a lot of the Miami University students, especially Miami University students of color, surprisingly, are not aware of and there's a lot of Miami University students who are white who are not aware of this history as well," Frazier said. "So I think that it's important to introduce this history of civil rights to the students."
According to Dillingham, the play is not primarily focused on the civil rights movement but is a story of prompting people to take action and to work with people in different communities.
"It's a very emotional piece so I think that, if nothing else, it's definitely going to invoke some type of emotion," Dillingham said.
The performances are at 8 p.m. Oct. 1 through Oct. 3 and Oct. 8 through 10 and at 3 p.m. Oct. 4. Tickets are available at Miami's Box Office at Shriver Center, by calling (513)-529-3200, or going online at http://www.tickets.muohio.edu.
