WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH 2025!
“Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations.”
Ptomaine Poison by Dr. Janice Liddell
"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
FSWW, in partnership with Zoomcatchers and The Billie Holiday Theatre, is pleased to release Ptomaine Poison by Dr. Janice Liddell. Dr. Liddell embodies the theme of Women's History Month 2025: "Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations" with this piece about key events in Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1960s.
Byron C. Saunders directed Ptomaine Poison, featuring Adrienne Carlotta, Ella Tabu, Seth LaRoc, Heidi Cox, Kat Peterson, Lance Joos, and Hannibal Tabu. Kimberly S. Gunn and Garland Thompson Jr. produced this reading.
Synopsis:
A timely exploration of race and racial interactions in the south. Set in Greater Birmingham, Alabama in 2013, Marianne Williams and Mary-Lou LeBlanc, each have histories, though very divergent histories, in the Birmingham Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Their 14-year-old daughters, Nzinga Williams and Collette LeBlanc, are collaborating on a school project to commemorate one of the most significant events of the Civil Rights movement, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four Black girls and injured 22 others.
As White and African American natives of Birmingham respectively, they continue to reflect clear racial perspectives and even now clash over racial issues as they meet for the first time. How will each family handle this collaboration?
About the Playwright:
Dr. Janice Liddell, Professor Emerita, retired from Clark Atlanta University after serving for over thirty-five years in several capacities, including Professor of English, Chair of the Department of English, and Director of Faculty Development.
In 2021, her play, Who Will Sing for Lena, represented the United States in the international community theatre festival, Mondial du Theatre in Monaco. That same year, Liddell was also commissioned to write a play by the city of Sparta, Georgia, to write a play on one of their historical figures, Amanda America Dickson, the enslaved daughter born to an enslaved 12-year-old girl and her 40-year-old white slave owner.
In 2024, Dr. Liddell produced a collection of three one-act plays, Elders Igniting: Many More Stories to Tell, written by three senior Atlanta playwrights, of which she was one. This production focused on the experiences of a Black eldering population and their engaging concerns. Following this production, she designed and taught a playwriting course for seniors.
Liddell, who wrote her first play when she was fifty years old, is a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother and resides in Atlanta, GA..
Watch our virtual production of Elders Igniting: Many More Stories to Tell here.
Check out the full FSWW play reading series here:
STAY TUNED FOR MORE TO COME THIS SPRING!
PEACE
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