Performing with the stars

"I read a dozen scripts a year. This is one of the best I've ever read!" ~Jack Williams, Co-Founder and Director, Opera House Stage Company 

Monticello is a magical town where miracles can and do happen! The Long Goodbye is about one of those miracles. Soon to be a Christmas classic, it's a story of love, hope, and letting go. For Mrs. Pet, disbelief is the easiest way to deal with the death of her daughter Amy. The tragedy splits up her family, but after years of drifting apart, HOPE COMES in the form of an angelic man, Faith, and a 1955 Chevy brings a new young lady into their lives. It's going to take a Christmas miracle to help Mrs. Pet find the courage to finally say goodbye and face her new life.

The Long Goodbye is a holiday dramedy written by Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Reiser Lab Playwright Anthony Lamarr White. The world premiere production, a collaboration between the Monticello Opera House and Florida A & M University's Essential Theatre, was directed by FAMU Assistant Theatre Professor Evelyn D. Tyler. The Long Goodbye was chosen for the 2017 National Black Theatre Festival Readers Theatre of New Works. It was presented in partnership with Antmar Entertainment.

A lot has changed in Greenville since its birth from the Old South. A lot hasn’t.

There are still wounds. The wounds - some physical and some psychological - inflicted by racism, hopelessness, and unrequited love, still bleed profusely. Daddyo, a middle-aged Black man, has lived his entire life bleeding inside. He is a man imprisoned by memories – a man who cannot live in the present. His sons are his life now. Michael is his reason for living, while he blames Tracey for inflicting one of his deepest wounds.

By the 1970s, time had destroyed many of the railroads that separated Daddyo’s family from the rest of the world. But, not even time could bridge the chasm that separated them from each other.

The story opens at the end of the 1976 school year as the town of Greenville and the country prepare for a summer of Bicentennial celebrations. The town of Greenville is also preparing for a change as Michael has been declared the Senior Class of 1976 Valedictorian. This makes Daddyo the proudest man in town. But, minutes after the graduation, Tracey tries to gain Daddyo’s affection by committing a horrific act of vengeance that has been at the forefront of Daddyo’s thoughts since he was a child. But, instead of loving Tracey for doing what he always wanted to do, Daddyo hates him even more.

Calming The Man is the story of two young men who are determined not to let their father’s anger break them, regardless of the cost.

Calming the Man was chosen as a co-winner of the 2021 Essential Theatre Award (ATL). The play was also a 2017 Alliance Theatre Resier Atlanta Artists Lab Fellowship winner. It also premiered as workshop readings at the 2017 Leimert Park Theatre Festival in L.A. (with Lance Reddick), the 2015 Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival and the 2015 National Black Theatre Festival’s Readers Theatre of New Works.