Lia Chang: André De Shields to Direct Reading of Jacqueline Malcolm’s The Trade at The Player’s Club on July 19, 2011

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, Two-time Tony Award nominee and Emmy Award winning actor André De Shields will direct the staged reading of Jacqueline Malcolm’s The Trade, the second entry in her SLAVE Trilogy, at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park in New York at 7pm. Admission is free, please RSVP to jacquelinemalcolm@yahoo.co.uk.

Written and created by Jacqueline Malcolm, The Trade follows the story of Albert Shelton, a man born free, yet brought up as a slave. His identity is lost as he tries to find his way in a world where men are traded for beads and the color of the skin can mean death or life. Becoming a Trader himself, Albert’s journey takes him from middle-class Bristol, England to life with the Maroon Tribe of the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, until finally, his destiny and drive throws him into the chaos of pre-independent New York City.

Born in Northhampton, England, playwright Jacqueline Malcolm is a classically trained actress from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York and the London Center of Theatre Studies, London, who has had a passion for writing since a very early age. A published author of the children’s book, The Adventures of Lucy the Lamb (Author House Publishers, 2005), her other writing credits include: The Red Dress (short play, The Kings Head Theatre, London, 2004); Cornflakes (short play, The Kings Head Theatre, London, 2004), Twisted Magnolias (short play, Camden Theatre, London, 2006); Lost In the Moment (short play, 2009); A Child’s Wish (commissioned script for theatre in education project in NY, 2009). Ms. Malcolm has written theatre and movie reviews/articles for LA Splash Magazine, California, as well as a commissioned short story for publication, Stoner Story. She also has an ongoing professional career in administration and event management to an executive level.

In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, as the farmer Old Banks opposite Charlayne Woodard, in the Red Bull Theater’s Off-Broadway production of The Witch of Edmonton at The Theatre at St. Clement’s, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. He recently appeared as the title character of Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James, directed by Chuck Smith at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater in Chicago.

From August 2-4, 2011, De Shields will reprise his critically acclaimed role as W.E.B. DuBois in Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss, directed by Chuck Smith, at The National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, a co-production of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Company. Click here for tickets. He then jets off to Italy to be a teaching artist at the 1st Annual La MaMa Umbria International Master Acting Workshops. A triple Capricorn, he is the ninth of eleven children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland. www.andredeshields.com.

Articles on Andre De Shields:
Project1Voice’s Multiple Staged Readings of Alice Childress’ Trouble in Mind features André De Shields, Peter Coyote, Roger Robinson, Leslie Uggams, LaChanze, John Mahoney, Bill Irwin, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Irma P. Hall on June 20
André De Shields in Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James at the Victory Gardens Biograph through June 12
André De Shields set for Chicago Premiere of Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James at the Victory Gardens Biograph
Photos: De Shields, McClendon, Elisa, Glasco, Nemser, Phillips, Thompson at The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy Reading
Spend Valentine’s Day with André De Shields in The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy at the Abingdon Theatre
André De Shields and Charlayne Woodard are featured in Red Bull Theater’s Off Broadway Production of The Witch of Edmonton
André De Shields leads cast of Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss at Abrons Arts Center
Andre Dé Shields is having a Devilishly Good Time in Damn Yankees at The John W. Engeman Theater at Northport
Photos of André De Shields in Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance
Achieving the American Dream, Professional Charmer Andre De Shields Sees Theater is a Way to Life
André De Shields Celebrates Black History Month Starring in The Working Theater’s Production of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory at The Abingdon in February 2010
Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, MTC’s Ruined are Top Winners at 2009 Audelcos
Multimedia: Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe Opening Night Party Photos
Multimedia: Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe
André De Shields and Reg E. Cathey Star in Cato at The Flea

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Lia Chang is an actor, performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multimedia journalist.

As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. Lia currently plays Nurse Lia on “One Life to Live”. She has appeared in Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and “New York Undercover”.

Selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space are now in the newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.

Lia’s portraits and performance photos have appeared in Vanity Fair, Gourmet, German Elle, Women’s Wear Daily, The Paris Review, TV Guide, Daily Variety, Interior Design, American Theatre, Broadwayworld.com, Life & Style, OUT, New York Magazine, InStyle, Timeout.com, Villagevoice.com, Playbill.com, Theatermania.com, thelmagazine.com, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post. A former syndicated arts and entertainment columnist for KYODO News, Lia is the New York Bureau Chief for AsianConnections.com. She writes about culture, style and Asian American issues for a variety of publications and this Backstage Pass with Lia Chang blog.

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