Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

LVTF presented performances in France for three years and then moved to the United States with The Tempest Project, a workshop for girls in New Orleans who had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Founded in 2004, LVTF sought to bring together young theater artists from around the world to create and perform multi-lingual versions of classic English and French plays in a 1,000-year-old abbey in the Loire Valley. (“LVTF”) is a non-profit 501(c)3 company.

With management by Gary McAvay of Columbia Artists Theatricals, the live musical is being booked for the 2021-22 season. A limited run in a New York theatre is planned for 2022. In 2020 Voza Rivers/ New Heritage Theatre Group, the oldest African-American non-profit NYC theater organization, joined Producers Lynda Blackmon Lowery, Miranda Barry, and Amy Sprecher, as a producing partner of the musical. Turning 15 is currently available as a streaming video for theatres, schools, and community groups. In the summer of 2018, Director Fracaswell Hyman, Music Director Joshuah Brian Campbell, and a gifted ensemble of young actors joined the company.įrom Fall 2018 through Spring 2020, the musical has been seen across the United States in cities including New York, NY Huntington Station, NY Riverdale, NY Newark, NJ Maplewood, NJ Millburn, NJ New Brunswick, NJ Arlington, VA Clearwater, FL Miami, FL Delray Beach, FL Wilkes Barre, PA Columbus, OH Little Rock, AR Millersville, PA among others. Elmo’s Fire, as well as more recent leading roles in High Art, Psych, and The Little Sister, directed the powerful young actress Damaras Obi, who originated the role of Lynda, and adapted Lynda Blackmon Lowery’s book into a theater production, which was performed as a workshop at LaGuardia.Īs a one-woman show, Turning 15 toured upstate New York and New York City. Ally Sheedy, known for her performances in The Breakfast Club and St. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City.

The show features an ensemble of African American actor-singers who bring the 1960s to life on the stage through the soul-stirring music of the Civil Rights Movement. She believed that “a voteless people is a hopeless people,” and put her life on the line, non-violently, to prove that anyone can change history no matter how young or powerless they seem. to secure the right to vote for African Americans. Jailed nine times before the march and badly beaten on Bloody Sunday, Lynda and her neighbors fought alongside Dr. Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom tells the inspiring, true story of Lynda Blackmon, who celebrated her 15th birthday on the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom by Lynda Blackmon Lowery