Event

Crowns

Crowns is a moving and celebratory musical play in which hats become a springboard for an exploration of black history and identity as seen through the eyes of a young black woman who has come down South to stay with her grandmother after her brother is killed in Brooklyn. Hats are everywhere from the etiquette of hats to their historical and contemporary social functioning. There is a hat for every occasion, from flirting to churchgoing to funerals to baptisms, and the tradition of hats is traced back to African rituals and slavery and forward to the New Testament and current fashion. Some rap but predominately gospel music and dance underscore and support the narratives. The conclusion finds the standoffish young woman, whose cultural identity as a young black Brooklyn woman has been so at odds with the more traditional and older Southern blacks, embracing hats and their cultural significance as a part of her own fiercely independent identity.

Crowns features Erie Theater Company resident artists sharing the stage with professional and semi-professional performers for and exciting, educational and empowering experience that promises to enrich their lives as theater enthusiasts and performers. Eries own Carla Hughes, James Darby, Teresa Oliver, Erik Holman, Chatiqua Keyes-Carr and Nya Allen-Meyers join New York artists LaTrina Rice and Geraldine Flood in preparing for the success of Crowns.