Authentic Gumbo Supper and Documentary Film Begin the Two Week Residency with Award Winning Artists from New Orleans – At Next Stage Arts Project in Putney!
The much anticipated Cry You One residency gets rolling this week when Sandglass Theater and Vermont Performance Lab present The Jumbo Gumbo Combo at Next Stage Arts Project in Putney.
The evening begins with a Louisiana gumbo supper, prepared by Sandglass’s Board of Directors, under the tutelage of Scott Ainslie, local blues master and bayou cook! “The recipe is Scott’s own, learned first hand from master gumbo cooks in Louisiana. Scott is taking us step by step through the fixing, right from making the roux. It’s authentic, and made without okra” says Eric Bass, Co-Artistic Director of Sandglass Theater.
Scott adds, “It’s a chicken gumbo and there will be one pot of gluten-free vegetarian gumbo, available, as well. And gumbo has African (the okra from which gumbo gets its name is an African import), French (the roux technique), Spanish (the chiles) & Native American (the filé – sassafras thickener) influences…a perfect bowl to serve at a Cry You One event!” Musicians from the visiting companies, Mondo Bizarro and ArtSpot Productions, will accompany this supper with live Cajun music!
My Louisiana Love, is a documentary that follows a young Native American woman, Monique Verdin, as she returns to Southeast Louisiana to reunite with her Houma Indian family. She soon sees that her people’s traditional way of life – fishing, trapping, and hunting these fragile wetlands – is threatened by a cycle of man-made environmental crises. As Louisiana is devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Rita and then the B.P. oil leak, Monique finds herself turning to environmental activism. She documents her family’s struggle to stay close to the land despite the cycle of disasters and the rapidly disappearing coastline. The film looks at the complex and uneven relationship between the oil industry and the indigenous community of the Mississippi Delta.In this intimate documentary portrait, Monique must overcomethe loss of her house, her father, and her partner, and redefine the meaning of home. Her story is both unique and frighteningly familiar.The Cry You One team will screen this deeply moving film upstairs in the theater at Next Stage Arts Project at 7pm, directly following the gumbo supper.
My Louisiana Love was broadcast on Public Television in 2012. The film is directed by Sharon Linezo Hong, who is also a co-writer and co-producer on the Cry You One project. She is the founder of Within A Sense, an independent production company aspiring to create portrait documentaries reflecting on social and environmental issues through personal perspective. Co-writer and co-producer, Monique Michelle Verdin is a native daughter of southeast Louisiana. Her intimate documentation of the Mississippi River Delta’s indigenous Houma nation exposes the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate and change. Her photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, Yale University Press (2008) and Nonesuch Records’ Habitat for Humanity benefit album Our New Orleans (2005).
The film showing will be followed by a discussion with members of the Cry You One team of artists and creators.
Tickets for The Jumbo Gumbo Combo:
$20
(If you’d like to just see the film, a $10 suggested donation is asked, payable at the door. Proceeds go to Sandglass Theater and Next Stage Arts Project)
Check out the full schedule at http://sandglasstheater.org/2014-voices-community/
and order your tickets now!
http://sandglasstheater.org
(802)387-4051 | info@sandglasstheater.org
