Ocean Ana Rising Presents: Gypsy and the Bully Door

Join artist, playwright, culture worker and founder Nina Angela Mercer, Tanisha Christie and Ocean Ana Rising theater company as they bring Gypsy and the Bully Door, a multi-media and interactive ritual experience to life.

Synopsis
Sara has a dream, but life just keeps happening in ways that seem to pull that dream further and further away at every turn, especially when she keeps losing the people she loves. Though she fights to hold on, determined to shake loose the haunting of many past lives, there’s a cost. There’s also a way to heal. But the choice to be well is often more difficult than it seems.

Set to the undeniable call of DC’s Gogo music, led by The Mayor aka the funk conductor and “lead talker,” a full cast of vibrant characters become The Pocket Roll Call, a percussive band of characters who fuel and foil Sara’s soul-stirring journey as she fights for her dream.

Update: Tickets for the live in-person performance are now sold out, you can catch this performance by livestream via the link below.

WHEN: Sunday, October 8, 2023

WHERE: Livestream

TIME: 2:00PM EST

CLICK HERE TO WATCH LIVE

The Lorraine Hansberry Experimental Theater Laboratory at The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, & Culture:

GYPSY & THE BULLY DOOR had a two-week music and script development workshop at The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, co-produced by The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, & Culture and Ocean Ana Rising, Inc. from July 5th to July 19th. The artists in residence for that workshop include Woodshed community engagement fellow and playwright, Nina Angela Mercer; the music director, Matt “Swamp Guinee” Miller; and director Eric Ruffin. A full cast was also present. Following the July workshop, GYPSY & THE BULLY DOOR will return to the Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, & Culture from September 28th to October 8th, 2023 for a creative process laboratory with a full cast. There will be a culminating performance open to the public on October 8th at 2 p.m. at The Devine Theater at Georgetown University. The culminating performance will include a panel discussion featuring Georgetown University and DC-metropolitan area community members.

Themes in GYPSY AND THE BULLY DOOR:

• Sexual and reproductive autonomy
• The impact of cultures of violence on mental health
• The relationship between bodily autonomy, the state, and the nation
• Gogo music and culture
• Love and freedom
• Grief and loss
• Self and community care
• Intergenerational tension and connection
• Humanity’s relationship to the non-human (ancestors and nature)
• Africana cosmologies, mythologies, and ritual

Community Engagement:

• An opportunity for Georgetown University and Howard University theatre arts students to attend one rehearsal
• Workshop with the playwright with BTE
• Community conversation after the performance on Oct 8th at The Devine
• Live Stream of performance and virtual workshop for students at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA for the Radow Institute for Social Equity