This fully realized Public Works Virginia production uses a pageantry style of puppets, movement, and music to present The Earth Remembers. An original song cycle created by Ronvé O’Daniel and Jevares C. Myrick integrating rap, hip hop, R&B and musical theatre as we tell the story of the Tidewater area from a diverse perspective you've probably never heard before, amplifying the voices of the Black, Indigenous, and Filipino foundations of the 757.

A PRESENTATION OF PUBLIC WORKS VIRGINIA 

IN COLLABORATION WITH NSU THEATRE COMPANY

Friday, August 13, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 2pm
Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 7:30 pm*
Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 3pm

*American Sign Language Interpretation Available at this performance.
*Access Virginia providing Open Captioning and Audio Description at this performance.

Show up early for a performance from TESTIMONY and Teens with a Purpose!

Tickets are FREE!
(but limited, so reserve today)

Face coverings will be required for all in-person attendees and a pre-performance health questionnaire will be provided.

About the Creators:

Ronvé O’Daniel is a songwriter, lyricist, composer, playwright, and rapper. He was the recent participant in the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley New Works Festival, as well as the Johnny Mercer Writers Colony Residency at Goodspeed Theater. He was also the recipient of Eugene O’Neill National Music Theater Conference’s Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award – given to only one lyricist every summer who exemplifies a promising career in musical theater writing. Ronvé’s music was recently featured in the Letters to the President concert at New York City’s historical Great Hall to celebrate Cooper Union’s 160th anniversary. Additionally, Ronvé was featured as a performer and writer for Rafael Casal and Daveed Digg’s (Blindspotting and Hamilton)  #BARS Workshop at The Public Theater.  You can keep up with him at ronveodaniel.com.

Jevares C. Myrick is a New York-based award winning Producer, Composer/Orchestrator Singer, Actor, Dancer, and Choreographer. Co-Creator and Composer/Orchestrator of the new, multi-award winning musical "Once Upon A Rhyme". BROADWAY CREDITS: The Book of Mormon (Current Swing, Understudy, and Dance Captain) NATIONAL TOUR CREDITS: The Book of Mormon (1st & 2nd National Tour). REGIONAL THEATRE CREDITS: Guys and Dolls (MUNY), Heart of Rock and Roll, Smokey Joe's Café, All Night Strut, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Grease, Ragtime, Ain't Misbehavin’, Sophisticated Ladies, and many more. TELEVISION/FILM CREDITS: The Originals (Choreographer, and actor). He is a five time Suzi Bass Award Nominee with 2 wins. Jevares is also an Ovation Award recipient for Best Male Vocalist. 

About the Directors:

ANTHONY MARK STOCKARD  returns to Virginia Stage after having previously directed The Wiz. The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival has honored him with multiple Meritorious Achievement Awards for Excellence in Directing for his productions of Topdog/Underdog, The Brothers Size, Black Nativity, Broke-ology, and The Color Purple. Anthony has directed more than 60 productions for professional and university stages. He proudly serves as director of Virginia’s most nationally recognized collegiate theatre program and America’s #1 Most Nationally Recognized HBCU Theatre Program of the last five years, NSU Theatre Company. Since his arrival to NSU, drama and theatre has gained historic national recognition and acclaim and record-breaking audience attendance. He is the Founding Director of the brand new BA in Drama & Theatre Program at Norfolk State University. Recent honors received were national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Distinguished Production & Performance Ensemble and Distinguished Performance by an Actor in a Play for the production The Brother’s Size. The production beat out more than 1,300 productions that were entered in the festival and involved more than 200,000 students nationwide. In July of 2017, the company won Best Fine Arts Program at the HBCU Awards in Washington, D.C. where Stockard was one of four national finalists for Male Faculty Member of the Year.  Anthony has also appeared as an actor in four VSC productions of A Christmas Carol and in The Parchman Hour as Martin Luther King Jr., How I Learned What I Learned as August Wilson, The Wiz as Uncle Henry, I Sing the Rising Sea as Langston Hughes and The Tempest as King Alonzo as well as many other off-Broadway and regional theatre productions. He holds a B.A. in Theater Arts from Alabama State University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University. He was recently named one of 25 Game Changers in American Theater; is an inaugural recipient of the 50 Under 50 Award at his alma mater, Alabama State University; is a presidentially appointed NSU Honors College Senior Fellow; is the recipient of the College of Liberal Arts’ 2015 Certificate of Achievement; the NSU Theatre Company’s 2016 Outstanding Dedication & Service Award and NSU Student Government Association’s 2016 Honor & Appreciation Award. He is the former Producing Artistic Director of Aldridge Repertory Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. He holds memberships and affiliations with Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, The Association for Theatre in Higher Education and The Society of American Fight Directors. He currently sits on the boards of Region IV of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Cloverdale Playhouse in Montgomery, Alabama and Virginia Theatre Conference. He holds a M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Alabama State University. www.nsu.edu/drama -- www.anthonystockard.com

PATRICK MULLINS Recent directing and adaptation projects include The Tempest with music by Jake Hull and puppetry by Paperhand Puppet Intervention; The Taming of the Shrew, a synth-pop fantasia mixing Shakespeare’s text with the music of Jacki Paolella; Beneath the Surface, an immersive performance event at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens; The Tempest with music by Jean Sibelius performed with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra at Chrysler Hall; Swingtime Salute, a 1940's music revue on the deck of the USS Wisconsin; and Midsummer Fantasy Festival – an immersive Shakespearean festival/visual art installation/ performance event in Town Point Park. Patrick has directed work across the country, is a professor at Old Dominion University, and is a frequent collaborator with Norfolk State University Theatre Company. He holds an MFA in acting from the University of South Carolina. Pmull.com