National Black Theatre · Theatre
The Festival in da Back
“For a single weekend in April, in a small theatre in Tribeca, Mr. Egland got to go and feel at home. It was kind of him to take us along, too.”
The sound
Sound traces the Jolivette family’s path from gritty realism to magical realism, with Celestine’s spirit haunting the radio through drumming, broken accordion, and a “spirit box” that builds from grief to gunshots to release.
The sonic landscape of 318 Dorset Street during the 1997 Crawfish Festival is both setting and character. Celestine, Phéno’s father, manifests through drumming — soft drumming for spirit guidance, louder for stronger spiritual connection — plus accordion fragments and the “spirit box” that haunts T-Cho: radio static and broken accordion riffs building to gunshots (trauma), then release. The climax turns violence into music: Phéno’s gun traded for a washboard. One cue places the spirit literally inside a passing car’s radio via QLab to an FM transmitter and a practical radio prop. Actors enter from the aisles on practical instruments (washboard, wind chimes, trash-can tops) — “our version of a 2nd line” — with a hard stop before the first line of dialogue. Period texture: 1997 Louisiana zydeco, radio announcers, Lomax field recordings, and a 1997 hip-hop top ten for Phéno’s Houston identity.
Press
“For a single weekend in April, in a small theatre in Tribeca, Mr. Egland got to go and feel at home. It was kind of him to take us along, too.”
Black Star Reviews · anastazia x