Crumbs from the Table of Joy
by Lynn Nottage I directed by Chris Anthony
sponsored by Maine Community Foundation

Brooklyn 1950. After the death of their mother, Ernestine and Ermina Crump move to New York with their father, Godfrey, who seeks guidance from charismatic preacher, Father Devine. In the swirling, glamorous commotion of this new city, with calls for equal rights and communist rebellion hanging in the air, the girls begin a journey toward independence and a challenging future. This sharp and boisterous play from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage about family, faith, and revolution had been described as a mashup of Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams, a memory play about a black family, a glass menagerie in the sun.

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Schedule
Thursday, July 8, 7:30 PM (Preview Night)
Friday, July 9, 7:30 PM (Opening Night) 
Saturday, July 17, 7:30 PM
Wednesday, July 28, 7:30 PM (*Winery Wednesdays)
Tuesday, August 3, 7:30 PM
Wednesday, August 4, 1:00 PM
Thursday, August 12, 7:30 PM
Sunday, August 15, 1:00 PM (Outside Cumston Hall) 
Saturday, August 21, 7:30 PM

*Winery Wednesdays will take place outside at WillowsAwake at 10 Leeds Junction Rd. Leeds, ME 04263

Want to find out more about TAM’s production of Crumbs from the Table of Joy? View the Pre-Show Discussion video on our YouTube channel to get an inside look at the making and importance of Crumbs from the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage. Watch now!

Production Team

Chris Anthony
Director

Jo Davita
Stage Manager

Aja Jackson
Lighting Designer

Emma Kielty
Props Master

Natalie Morales
Set Designer

Elizabeth Rocha
Costume Designer

Rew Tippin
Sound Designer

  

Cast

Sarah Goldman
Ernestine

Charence Higgins
Lily

Nathan M. Ramsey
Godfrey

Tori Thompson
Ermina

Casey Turner
Gerte

  

From the Director

A little girl stands before a studio backdrop. Hair in neat corn rows, wearing a denim dress and new sandals, arms akimbo, one foot casually crossing the other. Smiling and confident, I imagine her thinking “Let’s do this, pre-school!” I imagine her mother standing to the side, just out of frame. She shakes her head slightly and perhaps even says, “This girl…” The mother knows that pre-school is not ready.

That’s what I imagine, anyway. The back of the photo simply says, “Ria, age 5.”

My memories of babysitting Ria—baking cookies, exploring the back yard, supervising her in Zoom kindergarten—fill in the rest. The school photo captures a moment; my love and admiration for her constructs the story.

Memory is a combination of emotion and sensation. Born in the same instant, each reflects and shapes the other. Flashes of memory arrive as an image, a song, a smell, texture, or taste. Cookies are famous for their evocative power.

In Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Ernestine constructs the story of her family. Her love, fear, admiration, and longing animate the characters in her life. In the face of tremendous loss and upheaval, her father does everything he can to protect her from the chaos of the world. But nothing he does can protect her from the big questions. What good is safety if there is no joy? What good is freedom if there is no love? Is it better to risk everything in expectation of a feast or risk nothing and be satisfied with crumbs?

And what does it take to stand arms akimbo, ready to take on the world, ready to feel the joy?