By John Moore, March 24, 2013
Opening No. 52: Athena Project Festival’s “Tell Martha Not to Moan”: The play, by Clinnesha D. Sibley, looks at the changing world through an African-American home in Detroit 2007. As the presidential campaign plays out on the national stage and the 40th commemoration of the Detroit Riot is marked, memories punctuate the journey of a devoted, elderly couple in their squalid living room. Starring Russell Costen and Adrienne Martin-Fullwood. Featuring Kathi Wood, Martell Harding and Don Randle. Directed by Melissa McCarl at the Aurora Fox studio theater. “Tell Martha Not to Moan” was the fully staged centerpiece of the Athena Project Festival, which included readings by female playwrights Erin Wagoner, Barbara Lhota, Catherine Wiley and Pat Montley. Click here for more info on the Athena Project.
This photo gallery is part of my ongoing, 2013 labor-of-love photo series called “It’s Opening Night in Colorado Theatre,” bringing you iconic snapshots from behind the scenes all over Colorado theater. All photos by John Moore for www.CultureWest.Org. To see the actual, official photo series featuring one intimate, iconic snapshot from 53 Colorado opening nights (and counting), click here.
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Adrienne Martin-Fullwood greets her fans after a performance of the new play that was the centerpiece of the Athena Project’s new-play festival.
The crowd gathers outside the Aurora Fox studio theater before the performance.
The curtain call after Friday’s performance.
Don Randle plays a man who wants to marry the girlfriend of his best friend, who was killed in the Detroit Riot of 1967.
Russell Costen plays an 87-year-old who is slipping into dementia. Kathi Wood plays the former girlfriend of his late son.
In the past year Kathi Wood, left, has played Audrey in “Little Shop of Horrors,” an innkeeper warding off racists in “The Foreigner,” and now the caretaker to an elderly couple in the civil-rights drama “Tell Martha Not to Moan.” With star Adrienne Martin-Fullwood.
