SAN DIEGO — Lydia Fort, Executive Artist Director of Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company (MPAC), is clear about her belief in the transformational power of story to inspire social change.
The world premiere of Cell by Cassandra Medley is MPAC’s first play of the 2015-2016 season, her upcoming San Diego directorial debut and her first programmed season. This belief has been her driving force. “Mo`olelo’s focus on producing socially-conscious theater – both by diverse artists and for diverse audiences – is what brought me to San Diego,” she says. “This provocative and layered play beautifully wrestles with issues of race, class and immigration. It is set in a profoundly unjust world of bureaucracy and corporatocracy. And yet, it manages to connect us to our shared, essential human-ness and to inspire courageous action,” says Ms. Fort. Cell tells the story of four African Americans who work as guards in a private immigration detention center. A series of explosive incidents result in life-transforming choices and decisions, and force them all to question and confront their humanity. To bring the challenging story to life, a powerhouse group of actors have been cast who are not only talented, but share a passion for social justice.
One of San Diego’s most beloved local actresses, Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson, leads the cast as the matriarch of the family. A long-time social justice activist, primarily in the civil rights movement, Ms. Thompson found the play especially compelling because of the many intersecting story lines. She calls the combination of political, family and personal issues explored in the play, “an explosive formula.” Ms. Thompson was most recently seen in Marsha Norman’s riveting drama ‘night Mother, is remembered for her appearance in Joe Turner’s
Come and Gone at the Old Globe Theatre and is a San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award winner.
Immigration is a topic that has been especially relevant in Ms. Thompson’s professional work as a teaching artist with Young Audiences, where she works with 5th graders in National City. “My schools are 10 minutes from the border, so I have predominately Latina and Latino students,” she says. “I really felt ill informed about the corporate control of detainee centers, and my eyes were opened. I was shocked that I didn’t know about the injustice that is occurring in these privately owned detainee centers, especially because living in a border town like San Diego, we are so close to the immigration issue.
San Diego newcomer and youngest Cell cast member, 28 year old Andréa Agosto, also works with immigrant children. She said that although she is currently teaching ESL, before reading Cell, immigration detention centers had never crossed her mind and she just assumed that deportation was a quick process. Her naïvety is fitting, since she will be playing the role of young and innocent Gwen, the character through which the story unfolds. Ms. Agosto was surprised to learn that, “the exit can be just as dangerous as the entry,” and that deportation can take months. “Many of the students I work with will probably have experienced this in some way, and that affects them in the classroom. It affects their ability to learn. What kind of advocate or ally would I be if I didn’t make an effort to learn about their home-life, their immigration story, or their past?”
Rounding out the cast are San Diego natives Monique Gaffney and Vimel Sephus. Ms. Gaffney and Mr. Sephus recently starred in Moxie Theatre’s Trouble in Mind. As an activist/artist, Ms. Gaffney chooses to work on plays like Cell that wrestle with challenging topics. In her own life, Ms. Gaffney knows of someone who was going through the immigration process, following the law, and yet was in a detention center cell for four months while the paperwork was processed.
Vimel Sephus, the only man in the cast, gets right to the point saying, “We need to see what is really going on.” And that is exactly why Ms. Fort selected this hard-hitting show to open her first season at MPAC. She says, “with injustice and violence happening in almost every aspectof life — in our homes and school, in our fields and streets — it is essential that we listen to these stories and ask how we can help.”
Performances are September 24 through October 18. Show times are Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday at 2:00pm. Press Opening Night is September 26 at 8:00pm with rooftop party to follow.
For more information regarding tickets, please contact the box office at 619-231-4137 or visit www.moolelo.net. Discounts are available for students, active-duty military, seniors and groups of 10 or more.
