Los Angeles, CA–Sikivu Hutchinson’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic,” will debut Friday Jun. 24 at the McCadden Theatre in Los Angeles. The world premiere engagement was announced as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival and is presented by Third Rail Alive.
“It’s the late 1970s, and ex-Pentecostal Black queer female electric guitarist Rory Tharpe navigates the cutthroat world of corporate rock, dive bars, dusk-to-dawn recording sessions, and shady contracts as she travels the nation in a dilapidated tour bus with her bickering, boozing all-male band. Much-imitated and little-credited, Rory is in a late career tailspin when she goes on tour with international superstar Jude Justis, a white woman blues-rock singer who has built a turbulent mega-platinum career out of stealing from Black musicians. Broke and frustrated by the racism, sexism, and ageism of the rock boys’ club, Rory warily joins forces with Jude. She then takes a detour through the painful past she shares with childhood nemesis Divinity Mason Mulvaney, a maverick pastor at the helm of the mega church enterprise Revivals, Inc.”
Hutchinson is a Black feminist, educator, author and playwright. She received her doctorate from New York University and has authored several books and projects, including, “Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical” (2020), “White Nights, Black Paradise” (2015), “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars” (2011) and “Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles” (2003).
In 2013, Hutchinson was named Secular Woman of the year and was a recipient of Harvard’s Humanist of the Year award in 2020. Hutchinson’s book, “Moral Combat,” was the first book on atheism to be published by an African-American woman.
She also wrote, directed and produced the short film “White Nights, Black Paradise” on Peoples Temple and the 1978 Jonestown Guyana massacre which was awarded California’s 2019 “Humanities for All” project grant for stage production in the Bay Area. “White Nights, Black Paradise,” focused on the intersecting lives, politics and moral dilemmas of Black women in the Peoples Temple church and debuted at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Read More: http://sikivuhutchinson.com/
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic” is written, directed and produced by Sikivu Hutchinson, and features Alma Schofield, Brenda Lee Eager, Ashlee Olivia, Patti Henley, JC Cadena, Phillip McNair, Darrel Philip, Dina Cataldi, Janine Lancaster and Philip Sokoloff.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic is playing Friday, Jun 24, 2022 at 7:15 p.m. & Sunday, June 26 at 3:15 p.m.
The McCadden Theatre is located at 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood, CA 90038.
Learn more at https://hollywoodfringe.org/projects/7400.
Purchase Tickets: bit.ly/38Bd6Rj
