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Spelman Spotlight
THE ARTS
Kimberly K. Harding:
Breaking Barriers
by Monica Bentley
She is Spelman's first student
director, and this vibrant, subtle,
strong-minded senior Drama
Major has gotten her act
together and is ready to leave her
mark behind.
Kimberly K. Harding’s direc
tions in Gretchen Cryer’s musical
“I'm Getting My Act Together
And Taking It On The Road" has
altered the course and
stereotypes that exists among the
Drama Departments in the
Atlanta University Center.
According to Harding, this was
the first time that a Clark student
landed a leading role in a
Spelman production.
“I was looking for something
new... we have our familar faces
at Spelman,” she stated.
She added that her decision in
casting Jeanine Ridley, a
sophomore at Clark, as the
character Heather Jones in the
musical was a step in a new
direction.
Ridley portrayed a 39-year-old
struggling songstress who was
trying to revive her old singing
act. However, her conservative
manager Joe, played by Steve
Coulter who is a student at
Georgia State, did not agree with
her tactics. The character
Heather added a collection of
satirical skits and musical
numbers into her act that ex
pressed her disenchantment
with her past and discontent
ment with society's imposed
images on the roles of men and
women.
The mellow-drama ex
emplified the growth in
Heather’s newly confirmed
liberal attitude to gain control
over her own life. Heather’s
struggle was to define her self for
the audience and in order to do
that she had to reflect on her
past: An annoying former hus
band and an overprotective
father.
April 9-13 int he John D.
Rockefeller Jr. Fine Arts Building
Theater on Spelman’s campus
were examples of a multitude of
talent brought together by a
common interest, the love of
performing, Kim stated.
Ridley and Coulter along with
the writer of this article who is a
student at Clark and Corliss
Randall, a student at Spelman
dazzled the audience with an
enormous amount of energy.
Myself and Randall played
Cheryl and Alice in the musical.
They both assisted Heather in
presenting the new material to
their skeptical manager.
Included in the cast who
thrilled many were Morris
Nicholis Gearing, a Morehouse
student who played Jake; Terry
Hollis also a Morehouse student
who played Lou; and Douglass
Miller and Lorena Wilson who
were both Heather’s dancers.
Miller is a student at
Morehouse and Wilson attends
Clark. Harding stated when
performers from everywhere are
brought together, the results are
a talented cast and crew and an
exciting show, and those are the
ingredients that count the most.
"The Atlanta University
Center is supposed to be a
sharing environment, yet rivalry
exists among the schools,” she
stated.
Harding said she would like to
see each school’s Fine Arts
Department plan their season
together in order to give the
drama students the opportunity
to work under new directors and
participate in the technical
aspects of each school’s produc
tion.
Charles Reese is a drama
student at Morehouse. He ex
plained since Morehouse does
not have a Drama Department,
the Drama majors must work and
attend drama class through
Spelman’s Fine Arts Department.
He added the restrictions are
placed on the drama majors who
attend Morehouse including
Spelman theater majors who
seek theatrical work elsewhere.
“The four years that I have at
Morehouse and was affiliated
with Spelman’s Drama Depart
ment there was always the
restriction of not being able to
freely participate at the other
schools in the A.U.C.”
Reese added that he had to go
through extreme measure in
cluding requesting permission
from the head of Spelman’s
department.
The restrictions are forced
because the Drama departments
in the A.U.C. are competing
against each other, Reese con
tended.
“It is not fair for a drama
student to restrain himself from
participating in theater at other
schools, especially when your
own department is in its off
season," stated Reese.
Reese expressed that it hurts a
striving performer who is not
casted for a role at his school and
is still prohibited to go elsewhere
unless some type of action is
taken. We need an alternative,
he added.
Harding and Reese stated that
competition among actors is the
kind of environment that is
needed, not rivalry among the
schools because that is how the
barriers begin.
Closing night of the show,
Harding expressed her sincere
Continued on page 16
That’s what Adia temps say
about the summer work we get for
them. Because Adia’s got great
opportunities with top companies, at
top pay scales - right in your area.
If you want to work for the best companies
in town, talk to the best service in town.
Come in or call today
for a great summer job - tomorrow.
Check the white pages for
the office nearest you.
6 Atlanta offices.
personnel
services
“Good
friends
don’t let
good
fnends
smoke
cigarettes.”
Larry Hagman
Cigarettes aren't good
for your friends. Adopt a
friend who smokes and
help em quit today. You'll
both be glad tomorrow.
AMERICAN
>CANCER
SOCIETY'
May 1985
For Your Intellectual
Enrichment
*4^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ *4^ ^ ^4^ ^4*
^ ^ /fv /p /p /p
For your intellectual enrichment, the Literary Staff of the
Spelman Spotlight will compile for you in each issue a book
list. This is a suggested list of readings from various departments
of campus. We hope that you will take the time to read or
review one or more of the selections and that you will find
them to be enjoyable as well as informative.
The following list was suggested by Dr. lames T. Ravell, a visiting
professor in the History Department.
The following is a short annotated list of essential books - both fiction
and non-fiction - on the present and past of South Africa, the only country
in the world where overt racism is embodied in the constitution and laws
of the land. Do not just read these books; also discuss them with friends
and relatives, and with your college lecturers and others. If at all possible,
start building up your own collection of African books now by purchasing
the works of Black South Africans.
Bernstein, Hilda, For their Triumphs and for their Tears,
International Defence and Aid Fund (Idaf), 1975. The author, an exiled
white South African, provides a good overview of the struggle of women -
especially Black - in South Africa.
Boesak, Allan, Black and Reformed. Apartheid, Liberation and the
Calvinist Tradition,
Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1984. This is the latest collection of the
incisive sermons and lectures of the youthful president of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Biko, Steve, I Write What I Like. A selection of his writings edited by Aelred
Stubbs,
London/Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1979. A selectionof
the most important writings of the murdered leader and philosopher of
the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.
Colligan, Paddy, Soweto Remembered. Conversations with Freedom
Fighters,
New York: World View Publishers, 1981. A useful general overview of
the Soweto revolt (1976) which is well illustrated by photographs and
poems.
Cornevin, Marianne, Apartheid. Power and historical Falsification,
Paris: Unesco, 1980. In this important work of demythologization, a
French historian debunks many of the historical myths that buttress white
suppremacy in South Africa.
Feinberg, Barry, ed., Poets to the People. South African Freedom Poems,
London/Exeter, New Hampshire: Heinemann (African Writers Series
No. 230), 1980. This powerful collection contains radical poems by mostly
exiled South African writers, both Black and Whtie.
Head, Bessie, When Raindouds Father,
London: Gollancz, 1969; Harmondsworth (UK): Pennguin, 1971. This
gracefully written first novel by South AFrica’s most prolific Black woman
writer is set in Botswana where the author lives in exile.
International Defense and Aid Fund, Apartheid: the Facts,
London, Idaf and UN Centre against Apartheid, 1983. An excellent
illustrated overview of what Apartheid or white supremacy really means in
practice.
La Guma, Alex, A Walk in the Night and other stories,
London/Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann (African Writers Series No. 135),
1967/68. In the title novella, La Guma, an exiled Black political activist and
writer, masterfully evokes the erstwhile life and atmosphere of District Six,
the part of Cape Town from which Blacks were evicted under the racist
Group Areas Act.
Lipman, Beata, We Make Freedom. Women in South Africa,
London/Boston: Pandora Press, 1984. In this series of interviews, a
British journalist who had lived in South AFrica for thirty years highlights
the plight of Black women by letting them tell their life stories in their own
words.
Luthuli, Albert, Let My People Go,
New York: McGraw Hill: London: Collins, 1962. In his autobiography
the leader of the African National Congress in the 1950s and 1960s and
Africa’s first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1960) recounts his life-long
struggle for the liberation of his people.
Mandela, Nelson, The Struggle is my Life,
London: Idaf, 1978. The book comprises a selection of the inspiring
speeches and addresses of the imprisoned national hero of Black South
Africa.
Nogobo, Lauretta, Cross of Gold,
London: Longman, 1981. The theme of this moving first novel by a Black
South African exile is, not unnaturally, the liberation struggle in her
country of birth.
Ntantala, Phyllis, An African Tragedy. The Black Woman under Apartheid,
Detroit: Agascha Productions, 1976. A forceful indictment of the
treatment of Black women in racist South Africa by an exiled author who
knows the subject-matter from personal experience.
Continued on page 14