Phylicia Rashad & More to Set for Black Women and the Ballot Radio Plays

Tony winner Phylicia Rashad will be among the stars set for Black Women and the Ballot, a presentation of three short radio plays that will be available on June 19, also known as Juneteenth, the day that marked the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. Deadline reports that American Slavery Project, a theater company devoted to stories about slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow by Black writers, is partnering with 11 additional theater companies for the special presentation.

The presentation will be available on the American Slavery Project website and YouTube channel as well as Crossroads Theatre’s website. Black Women and the Ballot will examine the relationship between America and Black women voting in this 100th anniversary year of women’s suffrage.

The plays will include Saviana Stanescu's Don’t/Dream as well as Judy Tate's In the Parlour and Pulling the Lever. Rashad has been announced to play the Ancestor in Pulling the Lever, in which three generations of Black women recount their most important voting experiences.

A Tony winner for her turn as Lena Younger in A Raisin in the Sun, Rashad has also appeared on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, August: Osage County, Cymbeline, Gem of the Ocean, Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls, The Wiz and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. She has numerous directing credits on small stages, including productions of Gem of the Ocean at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone at the Mark Taper Forum and Fences at both the Long Wharf Theatre and the McCarter Theatre. She helmed the acclaimed 2018 Signature Theatre mounting of Our Lady of 121st Street and had been announced to direct Charles Randolph-Wright's acclaimed play Blue prior to the COVID-19 crisis leading to the shut down of theaters on Broadway, off-Broadway and across the pond.

The theaters collaborating with American Slavery Project on Black Women and the Ballot include Crossroads Theatre Company, Civic Ensemble, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Conch Shell Productions, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Harlem Stage, HartBeat Ensemble, Liberation Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture and Tony Howell Productions.