For Immediate Release: February 23, 2006
Media Contact: Harriet Goodheart, Temple Theaters, 215.204.1122

The setting is the Jim Crow South of rural Louisiana in 1948 where Jefferson, a young black man, has been condemned to die in the electric chair for a crime he didn’t commit. Enter Grant Wiggins, a conflicted plantation schoolteacher sent by Jefferson’s godmother to teach him to die with dignity.

Thus begins “A Lesson Before Dying,” Romulus Linney’s searing drama, adapted from the 1993 novel by Ernest J Gaines. The play makes its Philadelphia premiere with the Temple Theaters production opening a 10-day run Thursday, March 16, at Temple University’s Randall Theater, 13th Street above Norris Street.

Convicted by an all-white jury, unsuccessfully defended by a white lawyer who portrayed him as an “ignorant hog” incapable of responsibility, Jefferson, handcuffed and in chains, meets Grant in the jailhouse storeroom. Jefferson, stubbornly determined to prove the truth of his lawyer’s characterization of him, and Grant, reluctantly drafted for this teaching assignment and questioning his own worth, are thrust into a compelling relationship with lessons learned by both men as each searches for his own inner dignity and strength.

“This is an intensely human story,” said director John Bellomo. “There is something here for all of us to get out of our collective American history. It’s not about how you die but how you live.”

“Lesson’s” finely crafted ensemble characters provide a prism through which to view that history: Emma, the elderly godmother who is strong, fiercely proud and unafraid to stand up to the bigoted white sheriff; the Rev. Moses Ambrose, single-minded in his Bible-based view of salvation; Grant’s girlfriend Vivian, a schoolteacher who wants Grant to believe in the power of education as the path to liberation for black youth; and Paul, the white deputy drawn into the struggle against injustice that he is forced to witness.

“This play really got to me,” Bellomo said. “I knew when I first read it I would have to do it somewhere down the line.”

Working with his cast of undergraduate and graduate actors, “We all knew that this was a necessary story to tell, and in the telling, we needed to go places that are uncomfortable for all of us.”

Bellomo, a third-year M.F.A. candidate in directing in Temple’s theater program, has an undergraduate degree in acting from the University of the Arts and is a stage combat expert certified by the Society of American Fight Directors.

In “Lesson,” the combat is psychologically driven, he said. “It’s deeply rooted in the issues of race and the death penalty. When the electric chair is trucked in for Jefferson’s execution, which was the custom back then, it becomes an intrusive symbol of the conflicts unfolding onstage: white versus black, justice versus injustice, humanity versus contempt, living versus dying.”

The electric chair used in the Temple Theaters production is constructed from the schematic of the one actually used to execute prisoners — including the man whose real-life story was the basis for Gaines’s novel and Linney’s stage adaptation. It now sits in a Louisiana museum.

Set designer for “A Lesson Before Dying” is Kathleen Chadwick, second-year M.F.A. design candidate. Costume design is by senior theater major Erin Snider. Lighting design is by Shon Causer, third-year M.F.A. design candidate, and undergraduate theater student Johnny Gill is sound designer.

Opening night curtain on Thursday, March 16, is at 7 p.m. Performances continue Friday and Saturday, March 17 and 18, and Monday through Saturday, March 20–25, at 8 p.m., with Saturday matinees March 18 and 25 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $18. Tickets for seniors, students, and Temple employees and alumni are $13, and are available at the Liacouras Center Box Office, located at 1776 N. Broad St, online at www.liacourascenter.com, or Charge-By-Phone at 1-888-OWLS-TIX (1-888-695-7849). For more information, call the Temple Theaters Information Line at 215-204-1122.

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