True Colors Opens 17th Season with PARADISE BLUE

Artistic Director Jamil Jude and Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company will open a ground-breaking 17th season with Dominique Morisseau's Paradise Blue.

A study conducted by the Dramatist's Guild and the Lilly Awards found that only 3.4 percent of plays on American stages are written by women of color, and Jude is working to combat that statistic, with a season themed She Griots. The three productions of this 17th season focus on strong women playwrights, storytellers, historians and leaders of various generations.

Jude will direct the dynamic and musically-infused Paradise Blue, which is True Colors' third installment of Morisseau's Detroit Project trilogy. True Colors is one of two theatres across the nation who will complete the trilogy in 2019, having produced Detroit '67 in 2015 and Skeleton Crew earlier in February of this year. Morisseau's theatrical relationship to her hometown has been compared to August Wilson's devotion to writing a 10-play cycle based in his birthplace of Pittsburgh. Like Wilson, she captures the linguistic poetry and aspirations of the striving working class people she grew up with.

Paradise Blue, set in Detroit's Black Bottom in 1949, explores a time when the new mayor of Detroit is working to get rid of the "blight of the city" by moving Black people out of Detroit's Black Bottom. Blue, a gifted trumpeter and tortured soul, considers selling his once thriving family jazz club, leaving his beloved Pumpkin and her dreams behind. As Blue fights personal demons to better his life and maintain his sanity, his fellow band members, Corn and P-Sam, are stuck wondering where they fit into the plan to benefit from the changes in their neighborhood. Silver, a sultry woman with a mysterious past, enters the scene with her own agenda, turning everyone's lives upside down.

"Dominique's way with words and how she builds complex characters are truly a director's dream," remarked Jude. "She gives you so much to play with-all of the elements she provides synthesize into a satisfying whole. I'm excited to work with her words, paired with a powerful cast of Atlanta-based actors, to fully realize Dominique's world and to conclude her Detroit Project trilogy."

True Colors supports the local arts community with an all-Atlanta cast which features several True Colors' alumni. Enoch Armando King, who portrayed "Sly" in Detroit '67 (2015) and "Reggie" in Skeleton Crew (2019), is "P-Sam". Javon Johnson (Stick Fly) is "Blue", Cynthia D. Barker (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Black Nativity) is "Pumpkin", and Keith Arthur Bolden (Fetch Clay/Make Man, Between Riverside and Crazy) is "Corn". Tangela Large, a newcomer to True Colors' stage, will play "Silver".

Paradise Blue will be in preview performances September 24 - 26 at 7:30 PM; Opening Night is Friday, September 27, 2019 at 7:30 PM. The show will run through October 20, 2019. Performances during the run are Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30 PM and Saturday - Sunday at 2:30 PM. There will be 11:00 AM matinees on Wednesday, October 2; Wednesday, October 9; and Wednesday, October 16. All performances will be presented at Fulton County's Southwest Arts Center, located at 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta, GA 30331.

Ticket Prices: $15+

Tickets and Season Subscriptions are available by contacting TicketsWest at 1.888.479.6300 or through True Colors' website at www.truecolorstheatre.org.

Group Sales are available by contacting True Colors' Group Sales department at 404.523.1901 ext. 201 or groups@truecolorstheatre.org.

Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company is a regional theater company based in Atlanta, GA. Founded in 2002 by Tony Award®-winning Director Kenny Leon and the late Jane Bishop, True Colors Theatre Company's mission is to celebrate the rich traditions of Black storytelling while giving voice to bold artists of all cultures. We help those who often don't have a voice, to be heard through artistically excellent theatre productions, so they feel inspired and proud to be a part of a culturally inclusive community.