<strong>Lorene Cary</strong>’s writing: <em>Drag</em>, gives voice to Gladys Bentley, the great Black, rags-to-riches Drag King of the Harlem Renaissance. She recorded and performed in top hat and tails during Prohibition and lived on Park Avenue. The monodrama starts in the 1950s. She remembers her fabulous club days, and then moves through the story she’ll write for Ebony magazine, where she will proclaim: “I Am a Woman Again.” We end with her television appearance in 1958.
<em>Amanireinas</em>, 2024, commissioned by Grammy-winner Karen Slack. Damien Geter, known for <em>Loving v. Virginia</em>, composed the music for this piece that ended Slack’s stunning song cycle, <em>African Queens. Promise Me, America!</em>, about the Fisk Jubilee Singers, then and now, with Damien Geter, for Portland Opera, date TK. <em>The Gospel According to Nana</em>, 2018. with composer Liliya Ugay, during our American Lyric Theater residency; based on my memoir, <em>Ladysitting</em>.
Following the opera version, the Arden Theatre adaptation premiered in Philadelphia in 2024; My General Tubman at Arden, 2020, was published by TRW, 2023.
Cary teaches Creative Writing at UPenn and directs #VoteThatJawn to bring youth to the polls in Philly. Read more at <a href=”http://www.lorenecary.com”>www.lorenecary.com</a>.