April History Café

WHO MAKES HISTORY?

The History Center will host its April History Café on April 8, 2010 at the KITCHEN THEATRE COMPANY in the historic Clinton House at 116 N. Cayuga Street

Join playwright Ain Gordon, actress Michelle Hurst and panelists Carol Kammen and Sean Eversley Bradwell as they tackle the topic of who owns/determines/makes history in this exciting History Café.

About the play: Inspired by the true story of Daphney and Samuel Oldham, Lexington Kentucky’s first free African-American couple to build their own house in town, IN THIS PLACE is a one-woman tour-de-force imagining the Oldham’s life and 19th century Lexington through Daphney’s eyes.

Following a two-year development process, including numerous interviews and archival research, the play brings this forgotten Lexingtonian to life. Daphney comes to us as a ghost striving to remember her “living days.” Interwoven are images of her after-life, a phantom Lexington populated by the famous and the disappeared, a land where every building that ever stood – still stands.

PANEL PARTICIPANTS

Ain Gordon is a three-time Obie Award winning writer/director/actor, a two time NYFA fellow and the recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in playwriting.

Michelle Hurst is a NYC based actress. Michelle originated the role of Daphney Oldham. She has numerous stage and television credits.

Sean Eversley Bradwell, PhD is an assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity at Ithaca College. He serves as the coordinator for the African Diaspora Studies minor.

Carol Kammen is a historian and senior lecturer in History at Cornell University, and the author of several books. She is the editor of The Pursuit of Local History and co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Local History.