MOXIE THEATRE’s 2013-2014 MOMENT OF TRUTH Season Continues With
The Poignant CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY by LYNN NOTTAGE,
Performances Begin Friday, JANUARY 24, Opening on Saturday, FEBRUARY 1 ~
Join Us At MOXIE THEATRE in Rolando!

MOXIE Theatre’s 2013-2014 “Moment Of Truth” Season takes audiences on a journey to that very moment in which life turns drastically in a new direction. The Season greets the new year with a poignant and surprisingly funny story about changing times, race relations and coming of age, Pulitzer Prize-Winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY. Nottage also received the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award, the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, and is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.”

Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg and sponsored by Joann Clark, CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY will play from January 24 through March 2, 2014; with Opening Night on Saturday, February 1. The cast of local favorites includes Deja Fields (Common Ground), Cashae Monya, Vimel Sephus (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity), Jada Temple (Oklahoma), and Jennifer Eve Thorn. Monya and Thorn appeared in the critically-lauded Counterweight: An Elevator Love Play, directed by Sonnenberg for the recent La Jolla Playhouse WoW Festival. Thorn was also nominated for San Diego Magazine’s “Women of the Year” award for her work with MOXIE.

This is a welcome return to the script for Sonnenberg, whose link to it was forged when she worked as production stage manager on CRUMBS’ world premiere production at NYC’s Second Stage in 1995. Twenty years later, she is exulting in directing this amazing play at her company, with a talented cast of actors very close in age to the characters they play (rarer than you think!) Sonnenberg is excited to re-visit Nottage’s story about a young father with young daughters who are just becoming women with two young actresses still in high school, a choice with inherent challenges. Younger actors have less experience but their freshness can be its own reward. Audiences who have seen the play before will feel like they are re-discovering it.

It’s 1950 and Ernestine Crump has just lost her mother. Her father turns to religion for solace, uprooting the family to be closer to the “Mission” in Brooklyn. Struggling to find her way as a young African American woman, Ernestine’s life is upended when her communist aunt moves in preaching feminism and her father comes home with a new white wife. Critics across the country have raved about CRUMBS: the New York Post opined “Imagine a pairing…between Tennessee Williams and Lorraine Hansberry, a memory play about a black family, a glass menagerie in the sun… a small window into the past, and this almost voyeuristic glimpse is worth attention,” and the Chicago Sun Times called it “…A complex, thought-provoking play!”

The creative team for CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY include Jennifer Berry (Choreographer), Tim Nottage (Scenic Designer), Ross Glanc (Lights), Jennifer Brawn-Gittings (Costume Designer), Melanie Chen (Sound) and Angelica Ynfante (Prop Designer); with Mark Butterfuss (Assistant Director), Jessamyn Foster (Stage Manager) and Malloree Philhower (Production Assistant).

MOXIE Theatre presents CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY, a poignant and surprisingly funny story about changing times, race relations and coming of age, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg and sponsored by Joann Clark. Previews begin Friday, January 24; Opening Night on Saturday, February 1 at 8PM includes a post-show reception. It will play Thursdays through Sundays at 8PM, with Sunday matinees at 2PM, through March 2, 2014. MOXIE Theatre is located at 6663 El Cajon Blvd Suite N, San Diego, CA 92115. Tickets: Opening Night – $40; Previews–$20; General Admission –$27; Seniors, Students, Military, AASD–$5 off general admission. Group rates available: 10 or more $20, 15 or more $15, special pricing available for student groups. Call 858-598-7620 or visit www.moxietheatre.com/crumbs to purchase tickets. This play contains some mild adult content and may not be suitable for young audiences.

For background information and photos, go to www.moxietheatre.com/pressroom. Please follow MOXIE on social media as well—on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MoxieTheatre and on Twitter: @MoxieTheatreCo.

Bios:
Lynn Nottage’s By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre (Lily Award, Drama Desk nomination) at the Geffen Playhouse, Lyric Stage, Goodman Theatre and Alliance Theatre; and will be seen this season across the country. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club and Goodman Theatre (OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play). It subsequently toured widely throughout US regional theatres and premiered internationally at the Almeida Theatre in London. The play has since been produced throughout the world, including Cambodia, Chad, The Caribbean, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Germany. Her other plays include Intimate Apparel (Francesca Primus Prize, American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers and POOF!

Nottage is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize (Ruined), 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play (Ruined), Helen Hayes Award (Ruined), the Lee Reynolds Award, and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the 2007 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for Drama, as well as fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a visiting lecturer. She is a co-founder and producer at Market Road Films LLC, a film production company.

Nottage is a board member for Theatre Communications Group, BRIC Arts Media Bklyn, Donor Direct Action, The New Black Fest, Voice and Vision, and the Dramatists Guild. Writer, Theatremaker, Activist.

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg (Director) is the founding Artistic Director of MOXIE Theatre, where she has directed many award winning productions. Other San Diego directing credits include plays for: Mo`oelo, ion Theatre, San Diego REP, Cygnet Theatre, New Village Arts, Diversionary, SDSU, Eveoke Dance Theatre and The Playwrights Project. Honors: TCG’s New Generations Program: Future Leaders, San Diego REP; SD Theatre Critics Circle’s Des McAnuff New Visions Award and “Craig Noel” awards; Patte awards; Women’s International Center Living Legacy Award; Van Lier Directing Fellowship, Second Stage Theatre, NY; Drama League’s Directors Program, NY; and a Small Business Leader of the Year awarded by Senator Christine Kehoe. Delicia is married to designer Jerry Sonnenberg and proud mama of August and Zoë.

The Cast:
Deja Fields (Ermina Crump) is a sixteen year old junior at San Diego’s School of Creative and Performing Arts High School. She has been seen locally in Antoinette Winstead’s Common Ground; at The Old Globe in The Odyssey (Ensemble); San Diego REP in Hairspray (Dynamite Girl) and In the Heights (Ensemble); CYC Theatre in 13 the musical (Cassie); and S.C.P.A in The Wiz (Addaperle), in Scrooge (Urchin), and No Child (Shondrika).

Cashae Monya (Lily Ann Green) was last seen in Counterweight: An Elevator Love Play; Moxie’s The Bluest Eye (Pecola), Ion’s Speakeasy Cabaret: Chicago (Roxie Hart) and in education and outreach program at Lamb’s Players Theatre. Monya is a senior at San Diego State University, majoring in Child and Family Development.

Vimel Sephus (Godfrey Crump) returned to San Diego in 2009 after a World Tour with Air Force Tops In Blue and has been performing here ever since. He has been seen in Cygnet Theatre’s A Behanding in Spokane, Ion’s In The Heat of The Night and most recently as the title character for The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.

Jada Temple (Ernestine Crump) is a senior at San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts High School as a musical theatre/acting major; and recently appeared in Company (Marta) and Oklahoma (Ado Annie, National Youth Theatre award nomination).

Jennifer Eve Thorn (Gerte Crump) is one of the founders and Associate Artistic Director of MOXIE Theatre. She was most recently seen in Intrepid Shakespeare’s Hamlet as Ophelia, as well as Counterweight: An Elevator Love Play. At MOXIE she starred in A Man, His Wife and His Hat, Ten Cent Night, Eurydice, The Butcher of Baraboo, Bleeding Kansas, WET, The Treatment and Pulp. Jennifer was recently nominated for San Diego Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” for her work at MOXIE.

Busy director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg and her amazing cast members are available for interviews by phone, in person, and in-studio. For more information and to arrange interviews or press tickets, please contact Susan Chicoine at schicoinepr@cox.net, or 619 325-9416 or Nancy Richards at nancylrichards@gmail.com or 917-873-6389.

FACT SHEET

WHAT: MOXIE Theatre presents CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY
Written by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg
Cast: Deja Fields, Cashae Monya, Vimel Sephus, Jada Temple, Jennifer Eve Thorn

WHERE: MOXIE Theatre
6663 El Cajon Blvd Suite N, San Diego, CA 92115

SCHEDULE: Previews: January 24– January 31, 2014
Opens: February 1 @ 8pm
Closes: March 2, 2014

PRICES: Opening Night $40.00
Thursday-Sunday $27.00
Previews $20.00

DISCOUNTS: Seniors, Students, Military, AASD $5.00 off general admission
Group rates: 10 or more $20, 15 or more $15, special pricing available for student groups.

BOX OFFICE 858-598-7620 or www.moxietheatre.com/crumbs

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