N

One word can mean so much. Adrienne Earle Pender gives us the influential and momentous N play, that dramatizes the struggle between playwright Eugene O’Neill and actor Charles Sidney Gilpin over the inclusion of the N-word in the script for O’Neill’s first box office hit, The Emperor Jones.

Eugene O’Neill’s groundbreaking 1921 play, The Emperor Jones, was the first American play that featured an African-American actor in the lead role on Broadway. Charles S. Gilpin’s portrayal of Emperor Brutus Jones was hailed as “revelatory,” and he was named the finest actor of the age. The opening of The Emperor Jones made stars of both men; it was O’Neill’s first commercial success, and Charles Gilpin became the toast of the theater world. But by 1926, the fortunes of both men had taken very different turns. N explores the challenging relationship between Gilpin and O’Neill and how it ultimately hinged on one word; a word that lifted one of them to the heights of American theater, and a word that destroyed the other.

Powerful treatise on art, ego, and how the weight of a single word can crush the human soul. Triangle Arts and Entertainment
A thoughtfully, considered piece. The News and Observer
A layered and nuanced double portrait. Washington City Paper
Compelling. John Hopkins University.

Stage Director: Joanna Godwin-Seidl
Cast and Creatives to be announced
Performance licence: Blue Moon Plays, Virginia Beach
viennatheatreproject.com

Supported by U.S. Embassy Vienna for Black History Month.