Fringe Theater celebrates Black History month with a staged reading of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom presented on February 6 and 7 at the William Weech American Legion Post 168, located at 803 Emma Street. 

The Pulitzer Prize winning August Wilson wrote ten plays, collectively referred to as his American Century Cycle. He set each play in a different decade in an effort to chronicle the twentieth century African American experience.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opened in 1985 to critical acclaim and won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play. It also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.

The play mixes fact with fiction.

Ma Rainey was a popular blues singer who is often referred to as the Mother of the Blues. She was born to Vaudeville parents and spent the majority of her life successfully touring throughout the US. She was known as a shrewd business woman with a powerful command of her music and her audience. Ma Rainey also recorded over a 100 records, singing with the best known artists and musicians of the day. 

August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is set in a recording studio in Chicago in 1927. The band has gathered to record Ma’s own version of “The Black Bottom,” a popular dance of the period. Tensions rise among the band members when an ambitious trumpet player joins the session and sets in motion an irrevocable and tragic outcome.

Fringe Theater’s reading of this American classic features readers Clayton Lopez, Joan Leggett, Gil Parker, Richard Quint, Eva Parker, Jerry Ginsberg, Bob Capetta, Tim Dahms, and Ervin Gallo-Tumm. Wilhelmina Lopez Martin will read the title role of Ma Rainey. 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is funded, in part, through an Arts Builds Community Grant awarded from the Florida Keys Council of the Arts. It is presented in partnership with the American Legion Post 168 which was built in 1951 by veterans and employees from the Key West Navy Yard to commemorate African Americans killed in WWI and WWII.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will be presented February 6 and 7 at 7pm. General Admission tickets are $30 and are available online at www.fringetheater.org or by calling 305-731-0581. Advanced tickets are encouraged as last year’s reading sold out both evenings.

Fringe Theater is Key West’s community-focused theater. Fringe is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to creating unique opportunities for people to see and do theater. Learn more at www.fringetheater.org

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]