Historical Theatre: Students Stage Play About City's 1968 Unrest, Nov. 15, 17
November 10, 2016
Contact: Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
Students in the University of Baltimore's new Performance Studies: Baltimore specialization will begin their performance journey with a presentation of One Particular Saturday, a play from the perspective of witnesses of Baltimore's 1968 riot, on Tuesday, Nov. 15 and Thursday, Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. in the Wright Theater in the UB Student Center, 21 W. Mt Royal Ave. Both performances are free and open to the public. It's the final production of Spotlight UB's fall 2016 season.
Devised by Kimberley Lynne, published playwright, arts and theater manager and an adjunct faculty member in UB's Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, One Particular Saturday collects the accounts of a soldier, a looter, a storeowner, and an activist, organized into a presentational view of the weekend of the unrest that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968. Lynne originally wrote the play as part of the University's public analysis of the 1968 riots on their 40th aniversary in 2008.
The play's cast is made up of students in ARTS 297, which is taught by Lynne., It is directed by acclaimed theatrical artist and educator, Donald Hicken, who joins UB's faculty in the Performance Studies specialization.
More than 40 of Lynne's plays have been produced in Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis, and Virginia. She is a member of Actors Equity Association and the Dramatist Guild. Helen Hayes award-winner Hicken directs at Everyman Theatre, The Annapolis Shakespeare Company, Rep Stage, The Berkshire Theatre Festival, Round House Theatre, and Pennsylvania Stage. Hicken served as Department Head of Theatre at the Baltimore School for the Arts from 1979-2016. He received his MFA in acting and directing from The Catholic University. As a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Hicken traveled with Freedom Summer activists to encourage voter registration in the African-American communities of the south.
Last May, UB announced its new specialization, Performance Studies: Baltimore, in partnership with Everyman Theatre and the Hippodrome Foundation. It is built around a mix of arts management and acting skills. The ARTS297 learning community marks the beginning of the specialization’s curriculum.
Spotlight UB has frequently produced live theatre about social justice, and also aims to tie programming directly to curriculum. Its mission always has been to provide the UB community and the public with quality performing arts, especially when it features Baltimore artists and local stories. The creative and historical merge in One Particular Saturday, whose themes are just as relevant to the city today as they were nearly 50 years ago.
Learn more about Spotlight UB and Performance Studies: Baltimore.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.