Friday, May 19th and Saturday, May 20th | 6:00 Dinner, 7:00pm Play Reading
Tickets are on sale now: $100 per person | Ring (262) 968-4110
All tickets include dinner and a complimentary specialty drink.
Just as the Lunts collaborated with playwrights, actors, and directors in developing new work, Ten Chimneys Foundation continues the tradition as we welcome Art Manke, playwright, and director, and the cast of Pearl's in the House, for a play reading at Ten Chimneys. Pearl's in the House is a musical play workshopped at Ten Chimneys, and features actors Kim Staunton, Ed Swidey and Malkia Stampley.
About Pearl's in the House
A performer, writer, and special delegate to the United Nations, Pearl Bailey was a trailblazer for African-American women. Yet a talk-show host in 1987 questioned many of her motives; so Bailey responded the only way she knew how—through her music.
About Art Manke
Art Manke is an award-winning director and playwright. His credits include work with South Coast Rep, Denver Center Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others. His plays include an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love (co-author, Douglas Langworthy), and this musical about Pearl Bailey and her influence on the White House, Pearl's in the House.
The Cast
ED SWIDEY
Ed Swidey is a Lunt-Fontanne Acting Fellow, Class of 2015, and is thrilled to return to Ten Chimneys. Credits - Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, directed by Phylicia Rashad (LADCC Awards for Best Ensemble & Best Revival). Wilma Theater, Philadelphia, Hothouse Resident Ensemble Member: Blood Wedding, An Octoroon, Antigone, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Barrymore Award Nomination, Best Supporting Actor), Hamlet, Under The Whaleback, Curse Of The Starving Class, Our Class, & Macbeth. EgoPo Classic Theater, Philadelphia, Company Member: The Seagull, Death Of A Salesman, GINT!, The Lady From The Sea, Uncle Tom's Cabin, & Endgame. Additional Credits - Aladdin (People's Light & Theatre); The Hostage, She Stoops To Conquer (Resident Ensemble Players, University Of Delaware); Bathtub Moby Dick (Renegade Company); Waiting For Godot (W.H.A.T.); IL, CO, & TX Shakespeare Festivals. MFA: University of Delaware.
KIM STAUNTON
Kim has been a guest company member at the Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC) for 15 seasons. She represented DCTC as an inaugural Lunt-Fontanne Fellow at Ten Chimneys Foundation. Regional credits include Indiana Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Stage Company, Ebony Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre, Lake Dillon Theatre Company, Lone Tree Arts Center, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Folger Theatre, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, and the O'Neill Theatre Center. She has performed in numerous productions on and Off-Broadway. Film credits include First Sunday, Changing Lanes, Heat, Dragonfly, Bark, Holy Man, Deceived, and Amos & Andrew. Television appearances have included guest starring roles on Eleventh Hour, Army Wives, The Nine, Bones, Strong Medicine, Judging Amy, Law and Order, City of Angels, New York Undercover, and TNT's original movie, Glory and Honor. Ms. Staunton is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of The Julliard School.
MALKIA STAMPLEY
Malkia Stampley, a Milwaukee native, is elated to be back at Ten Chimneys where she studied under Olympia Dukakis (March 2016) and performed in readings years ago as a Milwaukee Rep Acting Intern! She received her acting training at Marquette University. She recently directed Black Arts MKE and Marcus Center's Black Nativity and will return for the 2017 production. Recent performances include: Learning to Stay by James DeVita (Forward Theater); Welcome to Bronzeville (First Stage); Project: Black Lives (Bronzeville Arts Ensemble/Milwaukee Fringe Fest); Crowns (Skylight Music Theater); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre LILA/Children's Theatre of Madison collaboration, Optimist Theatre); A Midnight Cry (First Stage); Burying the Bones (In Tandem Theatre); Good People (Forward Theater); Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (First Stage); Dreamgirls (St. Louis Black Repertory Theater); Black Nativity (Congo Square Theatre); Raisin (Court Theatre). She also twice toured Japan and Taiwan in a Disney Music revue. Malkia has also been seen on this season's Chicago PD and Empire.