PAST PRODUCTIONS

Bulrusher

by Eisa Davis
directed by Leah C. Gardiner
Mar 8-April 9, 2006

This poetic, evocative play by Eisa Davis is set at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement, in 1955, the year Emmett Till was murdered. In a small town in California, a young African-American girl begins to understand what race means when a stranger from Alabama arrives. Set in a brothel in the real town of Boonville, with its own unique homespun language (Boontling), BULRUSHER tests our assumptions about race, sexuality and love.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Eisa Davis (Playwright) is the author of Bulrusher, Angela’s Mixtape, Paper Armor, Six Minutes, Umkovu, and Hip Hop Anansi, a musical collaboration with deaf and hearing performers now playing at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD. She is the winner of the Helen Merrill Award, the John Lippmann New Frontier Award, as well as fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. She is presently working on a commission from the Geva Theatre/NYSCA, as well as a screenplay based on her play Angela’s Mixtape. Eisa’s articles and essays have been published in American Theatre, The Source, To Be Real, Everything But The Burden, Step Into A World, Role Call, and Total Chaos (upcoming). Also an actress, Eisa is currently appearing in the Philadelphia Theatre Company production of Intimate Apparel. She has performed her original songs at venues including Joe’s Pub, BAM Café, Makor, the Whitney Museum (upcoming), and as a musical guest on the Showtime series Soul Food. A graduate of Harvard and the Actors Studio/New School, Eisa is a member of New Dramatists and a native of Berkeley, California.

REVIEWS

Eisa Davis "tickles the ears of her listeners [and] the effect is haunting... Ms. Kajese and Ms. Guevara.are drawn to each other emotionally and physically [and] their moving scenes on the banks of the pebble-strewn river, well designed by Dustin O'Neill, feel utterly true " - Andrea Stevens, The New York Times, March 16, 2006