Tony Winner Cooper Stars in Swamp Dwellers Reading with Cathey and Jones

By Ernio Hernandez
April 14, 2008

Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper, Reg. E Cathey and Albert Jones lead the cast of the Theatre for a New Audience reading of Wole Soyinka's The Swamp Dwellers April 14.

Part of the company's Literary Supplement series, the free 7:30 PM event will be performed at The Cherry Lane Theatre. Robert O'Hara (In the Continuum) directs.

Nigerian Nobel Prize winner, novelist, poet, playwright and activist Soyinka penned this reworking of the Prodigal Son parable. "The Swamp Dwellers has often been seen as an allegory of conflicting forces at work in Africa today," according to an announcement.

The cast features Reg E. Cathey (The Green Bird, Blue Door), Chuck Cooper (The Life, Caroline, Or Change), Albert Jones (Henry IV, Oroonoko), Marjorie Johnson (Hoodoo Love) and Harold Surratt (The Conscientious Objector, Serious Money).

"The Literary Supplement" series — which focuses on the company's mainstage season theme "Africa, Europe, America - Exploring the Connections" — concludes with this work. Michael Feingold served as curator for the series produced by Theatre for a New Audience's associate artistic director Arin Arbus.

Reservations are required for the free reading of The Self-Tormentor at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street. To reserve call (212) 229-2819, ext. 10. For more information visit tfana.org.