The experience of writing and developing BAMBOOZLED was one of the most memorable, joyful, delightful, meaningful… all the “ful’s” except “awful,” that I’ve experienced to date in the theater. To have any one of the amazing cast members – Chelsea Bearce, Susan Jackson, Stacy Ross, and Jeunée Simon – in the cast, would have been quite a coup. To get all four made the thing absolutely magical! Plus, we had the amazing Deb Fink, who was with us much of the way in the role of Rochelle. And I’m everlastingly grateful to director Gary Graves, who knows when to let his actors just let loose. I’m one lucky living playwright.
The idea of taking our current horrendous moment in US history, then harkening back to the Civil War with all its trauma, and slavery with its horrific and lasting injustices … and then make that into a comedy … it took nerve. I kept telling myself that we (all of us who would be witnesses) need a pinch of justice and a smidgen of laughter in order to keep on fighting. Judging from audience response, I reckon I was right.
Pictured: Stacy Ross, Jeunée Simon, and Chelsea Bearce. Photo by Jim Norrena.
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