Open to Public
The Susie King Taylor Project
Free Event
Please RSVP through the link provided. The event Zoom link will be distributed via email, and available to registered attendees starting 2 days prior to the event.
Thu, Mar 23.2023
Virtual Event
The Susie King Taylor Project features dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of selections from Susie King Taylor’s Civil War memoir Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, as a catalyst for a guided audience discussion, grounded in the perspectives of Black Nurses and Veterans, aimed at generating compassion, awareness, connection, and much-needed healing.
In her searing memoir, Susie King Taylor—the first Black Nurse to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War—describes her four years, without formal training or pay, caring for wounded and sick soldiers of the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. She also offers her reflections on life and conditions after the war in a powerful indictment of the Jim Crow South that speaks to the present moment with prescience and clarity.
Featuring Tracie Thoms (Rent, The Devil Wears Prada).
Presented by Theater of War Productions, DAV (Disabled American Veterans), and The Susie king Taylor Center for Jubilee.
Co-presented as part of The Nurse Antigone initiative by Theater of War Productions, the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, the Resilient Nurses Initiative - Maryland.
Supported by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.
Support for our digital programming is provided, in part, by the Mellon Foundation.
Co-facilitated by Bryan Doerries and Charlaine Lasse.
Directed by Bryan Doerries. Produced by Marjolaine Goldsmith.
The Susie King Taylor Project will take place on Zoom Webinar and can be accessed on personal devices. The event Zoom link will be distributed via email and available to registered attendees starting two days prior to the event.
This event will be captioned in English.
All of Theater of War Productions' events follow the same format:
- The performers will read the text.
- Community panelists will kick off the discussion with their gut responses to what resonated with them across time.
- We will open the discussion to the audience, facilitated by Bryan Doerries and Charlaine Lasse. During the discussion, please raise your hand using the button at the bottom center of the screen. If called upon, please accept the invitation to be promoted to speak and you will be visible and heard by the entire audience for the duration of your comments. If you would prefer not to be seen, please disable your video.
Cast Members
-
Tracie Thoms
Explore Projects
-
Racism & Social JusticeThe Drum Major InstinctCommissioned by BRIC, The Drum Major Instinct engages audiences in dialogue about racism, inequality, and social justice. The performance features a dramatization of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final sermon, embodied by prominent actors and supported by a large gospel choir, composed of singers, activists, police officers, and musicians from St. Louis, MO, and Brooklyn, NY.
-
Pandemic & Climate CrisisThe Oedipus ProjectThe Oedipus Project presents acclaimed actors reading scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for powerful, constructive, global conversations about the climate crisis, ecological disaster, environmental justice, and healing online conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon diverse communities throughout the world. Sophocles’ ancient play, first performed in 429 BC, just after the first wave of a plague that killed nearly one-third of the Athenian population, is a story of arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, intergenerational curses, and a pestilence and ecological collapse that ravages the archaic city of Thebes. Seen through this lens, Oedipus the King appears to have been a powerful tool for helping Athenians communalize trauma and loss, while interrogating their own complicit role in the suffering, not just of those around them but of generations to come.
-
Racialized Police ViolenceAntigone in FergusonAntigone in Ferguson is a groundbreaking project that fuses dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of Sophocles’ Antigone with live choral music performed by a diverse choir, including activists, youth, teachers, police officers, and concerned citizens from St. Louis, Missouri and New York City, culminating in powerful, healing discussions about racialized violence, police brutality, systemic oppression, gender-based violence, health inequality, and social justice. Antigone in Ferguson was conceived in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014, through a collaboration between Theater of War Productions and community members from Ferguson, MO, and premiered at Normandy High School, Michael Brown’s alma mater, in September of 2016.