 |
Theater
Professor Publishes Second Novel
 is pleased
to announce the publication of Redwood
and Wildfire,the second novel
by Andrea Hairston, professor of theater and Afro-American
studies at Smith and an award-winning playwright.
Redwood
and Wildfire is a novel of what might have been. At the turn
of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville,
which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in
dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images.
This “dreaming
in public” becomes
common culture and part of what transforms immigrants and “native” born
into Americans.
Redwood, an African American
woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia
to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a “city of the future.” They are gifted
performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the
wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen,
but on city streets, in front parlours, in wounded hearts.
The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes
in its capacities to heal and determine the course of today
and tomorrow. Living in a system stacked against them, Redwood
and Aidan’s power and talent are torment and joy. Their search
for a place to be who they want to be is an exhilarating,
painful, magical adventure. Blues singers, filmmakers, haints,
healers.
of Hairston discussing her book.
In addition to serving on the
faculty at Smith, Hairston is the
artistic director of Chrysalis Theatre in Northampton. Her
first novel, Mindscape, which was short-listed for the Philip
K. Dick and James Tiptree Awards, was awarded the Carl Brandon
Society’s
Parallax Award. Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep,
Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, Stage West, and on
Public Radio and Television. She has received many awards
for her writing and directing, including an NEA Grant to
Playwrights, a Ford Foundation grant to collaborate with
Senegalese Master Drummer Massamba Diop, and a Shubert Fellowship
for Playwriting. |
|
