ETHIOPIA
MAY-JUNE, 2025
A WORLD PREMIERE
GREENBERG THEATER AMERICAN UNIVERSITY | BALTIMORE THEATRE PROJECT
A Living Newspaper by Arthur Arent
A New Play by Sybil R. Williams
With New Music by Janella Gill
The long-awaited world premiere of the first “living newspaper,” Ethiopia concludes the 2024-25 season. The work was banned by the Roosevelt administration and never performed, until now. Written in 1937, this production fuses theater and music to tell the hot-off-the-press story of Italy’s colonialist attack on Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia while the world stayed silent. “Ethiopia” runs May 17 – June 1 at Greenberg Theatre and Baltimore Theatre Project. This reconstruction, with vivid new texts, is the brainchild of DC writer Sybil R. Williams (“Stormy Weather,” “Alceste”) who has teamed up with DC composer and pianist Janelle Gill (“Desdemona,” “Chuck and Eva”) to imagine a new musical realization inspired by the music of Emahoy Tsege, an Ethiopian luminary artist known as “the honky tonk nun.” Williams and Gill expand the vision of the original work to explore how America’s Black and Brown communities responded to Europe’s aggression, and particularly the story of Mayme Richardson, a leading black soprano that became an activist for the Ethiopian causes. Jazz, classical, and African music blend and soar in this history-making musical moment.
PERFORMANCE DATES
GREENBERG THEATRE - AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
May 17 at 7:30pm - Board Night Reception to Follow
May 18 at 2:30pm - Talk-back to Follow
BALTIMORE THEATRE PROJECT
May 30 at 7:30pm
May 31 at 7:30pm
June 1 at 2:30pm
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS ON SALE SOON
