Playwright Ifa Bayeza chosen for Bunk Johnson project at Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia

Ifa Bayeza

The following has been taken from a press release.

The Shadows-on-the-Teche selected Ifa Bayeza as the playwright for the project “Bunk Johnson at the Shadows: Historic Interpretation through Dramatic Performance,” funded through a grant from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning theater artist and novelist. Her critically acclaimed drama “The Ballad of Emmett Till” premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and was awarded a Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference fellowship and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Play. “The Ballad” made its West Coast premiere at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, garnering six Ovation Awards, including Best Production; four Drama Desk Critics’ Circle Awards, including Best Production; and the Backstage Garland Award for Best Playwriting. Bayeza has recently expanded “The Ballad” into “The Till Trilogy,” recounting the epic Civil Rights saga from three distinct vantage points. “The Till Trilogy” received its first public reading at Mosaic Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. in June 2018.

Bayeza’s other works for the stage include “Infants of the Spring, Ta’zieh – Between Two Rivers; Welcome to Wandaland;” “String Theory;” and “Homer G & the Rhapsodies in The Fall of Detroit,” for which she received a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. Musicals include Charleston Olio, a Fred Ebb Musical Theatre Award finalist, and Kid Zero with music by multiple Grammy-nominee Harvey Mason.

Bayeza is also a novelist, debuting with the "gorgeous" (NY Times), "magical" (Elle), “dazzling” “(Essence) Some Sing, Some Cry,” co-authored with her sister Ntozake Shange. A graduate of Harvard University and formerly Distinguished Artist-in-Residence and Sr. Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, Bayeza received her MFA in Theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The one-act dramatic work will focus on William G. “Bunk” Johnson (c. 1880-1949), an accomplished jazz trumpeter, who performed in concert halls and on stages from California to New York with the Charles “Buddy” Bolden band and jazz legends Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong. Johnson always returned to his chosen hometown of New Iberia where he was known to practice his trumpet and work odd jobs including as yardman at The Shadows-on-the-Teche.

The project will seek to educate the community about the life of this local legend and expand the interpretation of The Shadows into the 21st century, while also telling a more inclusive story of both The Shadows and New Iberia.

To produce this dramatic work, The Shadows has partnered with the Bunk Johnson Jazz, Arts, and Heritage Festival; City of New Iberia and its Main Street Program; and the Iberia Parish Library.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.