As part of the African-American Arts Festival, Victoria Theatre Association will present the tribute to the Harlem Renaissance, Jasmine Guy in Raisin' Cane with the Avery Sharpe Jazz Trio, at the Victoria Theatre on February 15.
The Harlem Renaissance was a pent-up explosion of brilliant prose, poetry, politics and music of African-Americans ready to say their piece in the 1920s and early '30s.
In Raisin' Cane, the words, thoughts and ideas of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, George Schuyler, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, WE Dubois, Gwendolyn Bennett, Father Divine, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and many others are woven into a panoramic theatrical narrative tapestry that scans an extraordinary outpouring of artistic endeavor that lasted a full decade until the Great Depression brought it to an end.
Jean Toomer's seminal work "Cane," the incomparable short novel that started the sparks flying, is given its full due in this musical theatre work.
Starring in Raisin' Cane is six time NAACP Image Award Winner and acclaimed actress Jasmine Guy. In this theatrical narrative tour-de-force, Jasmine Guy embodies the thoughts and emotions of these powerful and diverse thinkers, artists, religious leaders and politicians. Jasmine Guy began her career as a dancer for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Her television work began with a starring role as co-ed beauty Whitley in "A Different World," which enjoyed a six-season run, and for which she wrote several episodes.
Guy made her feature film debut in Spike Lee's politically charged college comedy/musical School Daze and co-starred in Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights. She returned to the stage in touring companies of Grease, The Wiz, and more recently in the musical Chicago as Velma Kelly.
Accompanying Guy is jazz master Avery Sharpe. Raisin' Cane comes to life with his original jazz score, performed by the Avery Sharpe Jazz Trio, which includes Avery and his brother Kevin Sharpe, playing numerous percussion instruments, and jazz violinist great John Blake.
The jazz score creates a panoramic theatrical presentation of words, music and such graphic images as photos and paintings of the key artists, as well as striking photos and paintings of the period showing Harlemites in everyday work situations and in joyful celebratory dance and musical jazz settings. -- www.victoriatheatre.com
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