CHESTERTOWN — Kent Cultural Alliance in partnership with Minary’s Dream Alliance are bringing award-winning actress Debra Ann Byrd to Kent County with her show “Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey,” to be performed 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21 at the Garfield Center for the Arts.
Tickets ($10 apiece) are available only from the KCA; see www.kentcuture.org or call 410-778-3700.
The Garfield Center for the Arts is located at 210 High St. in downtown Chestertown.
Byrd is a classically trained actress and producer.
She’s been a writer-in-residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust; artist-in-residence fellow at the Folger Institute; community scholar arts fellow at Columbia University; artist-in-residence at Skidmore College; and artist-in-residence at Southwest Shakespeare, where she reprised the role of Othello and won the 2019 Broadway World Phoenix Award for best lead actress.
Also, she is the founding artistic director of the Harlem Shakespeare Festival and an emerging playwright.
Byrd received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from Marymount Manhattan College in New York and completed advanced studies at The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab, Shakespeare & Company and The Broadway League’s Commercial Theatre Institute.
Her classical roles for the stage include Queen Elizabeth in “Richard III,” Mrs. Malaprop in “The Rivals,” Volumnia in “Coriolanus,” Cleopatra in “Antony & Cleopatra,” Othello in “The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice” and Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the latter for which she received best lead actress and outstanding actress in a lead role nominations from AUDELCO and the NY Innovative Theatre Awards.
Byrd’s career as an actor, producer, arts manager and business leader has been recognized with more than 20 awards and citations, including the NAACP Shirley Farmer Woman of Excellence Award, the LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and the Josephine Abady Award for Excellence in “Producing works that foster diversity.”
“Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey” is an autobiographical show chronicling the trials and triumphs of Byrd’s life that is interspersed with Shakespearean verses.
A news release states, “This living memoir weaves Shakespeare’s words into Debra Ann’s story, but you don’t have to be a Bard aficionado to appreciate Byrd’s stirring telling of her own story.”
“Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey” is made possible in part through the Mid Atlantic Tours program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
NOTE: “Becoming Othello” is based on real-life experiences and includes content that may be distressing; it is appropriate for audience members 13 and older.