Kimberly Wilson’s One-Woman Play, “A Journey …” Thursday

If you’ve ever wanted to meet Harriet Tubman or one of the other African American women who made black history, come to the WHS on March 20 for a catered lunch and one- woman show, “A JOURNEY…”, presented by Westport actress Kimberly Wilson.

Wilson’s performance uses song, movement and dialogue to bring to life Tubman, a runaway slave who led hundreds of other slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, as well as former slave and Abolitionist leader Sojourner Truth, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and the poet Maya Angelou.

“I am these characters – I become them,” Wilson, who started developing her one-woman show over 15 years ago, first performing “The Spirits of Black Womanhood” at Weston Elementary School, was quoted as saying in the Connecticut Post, “These are historical figures I’m portraying, but anybody who comes to see the show can find something in her own history.  Everyone has his own unique journey."

In addition to presenting such iconic historical figures as Tubman and Parks, Wilson also includes an African queen and a slave woman, who are intended to be representative of the African American experience.

African Queen, who endures a brutal journey on a slave ship, is a reminder of the rich native African culture and heritage in place before the start of the slave trade, Wilson says.

The slave woman, the actress says, represents the struggles of slaves in a strange land with a strange language, crushed by the destruction of family and culture, and surviving through courage, hope, hard work and never-ending faith.

Sojourner Truth was a former slave from New York who became an outspoken advocate for the rights of both blacks and women and helped recruit black troops for the Union Army during the Civil War.

Fast-forward 100 years to Rosa Parks, who, with many others, helped “kick-off the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, AL bus, spurring a city-wide bus boycott and forcing the city to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses.

Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet and author Maya Angelou is also an important Civil Rights Era figure whose poems and books emphasize looking to the future with hope and courage, Wilson says.

Actress, singer, poet Kimberly Wilson was a member of theater companies in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN.  She is now an active member and Board Treasurer of the Theatre Artists Workshop in Norwalk.

Thursday, March 20, 2014: 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

www.westporthistory.org







This event is sponsored by Catamount Wealth Management,