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[[theater program]]

THE AMEN CORNER

CAST

SISTER MOORE, ELDER OF THE CHURCH.......Shirlee Patterson

SISTER BOXER, ELDER.......Hazel Swann

BROTHER BOXER, HER HUSBAND AND AN ELDER.......Eddie Marcus Jr.

SISTER MARGARET ALEXANDER, THE PASTOR.......Mildred Ellis

DAVID, HER SON.......Arthur Aveilhe

MRS. IDA JACKSON.......Samella B. Everett

BANKS, FRIEND OF DAVID.......Don Reeder

ODESSA, PASTOR'S OLDER SISTER AND AN ELDER.......Lucille Sayles

LUKE, THE PASTOR'S HUSBAND.......Joseph Walker

MAN.......James Martin

CONGREGATION.......Jean Anderson, Isabella Adona, Ruby Banner, Earlene Costner, Carol Eckburg, Roger Hunt, Charmaine Keyes, Bette King, Madeline King, Eleanor Rhodes

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...The action occurs in a Harlem tenement,
from Sunday morning to Sunday morning. The
time is midsummer, the present.

Setting: A store-front church, a kitchen, a bed-
room, a passageway, an areaway.

About the author: Mr. Baldwin is the son of a Harlem clergyman. In 1945 he received a Eugene Saxton Fellowship, in 1948 he was granted one by the Rosenwald Foundation and he has recently been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has contributed to Commentary, The Reporter, Partisan Review, American Mercury, The New Leader, and a number of other publications. He received national acclaim for his novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

What Mr. Baldwin had to say about his novel is also applicable to his play, THE AMEN CORNER: "It is a fairly deliberate attempt to break out of what I always think of as the 'cage' of negro writing. I wanted my people to be people first, Negroes almost incidentally. That is, I hoped by refusing to take a special, embattled tone, to involve the reader in their lives, and this to such an extent that he would know more about himself, and therefore more about Negroes, than he had known before.

^[[2011.99.43]]