Apr 2 - May 5
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical
With newly-discovered powers he cannot control, a destiny he does not want, Percy and his friends embark on an epic journey.
Overview
About the Show
It is the summer of 1930 in Harlem, New York. The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression. Young Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., is feeding the hungry and preaching an activist gospel at Abyssinian Baptist Church. Black Nationalist visionary Marcus Garvey has been discredited and deported. Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger is opening a new family planning clinic on 126th Street, and the doctors at Harlem Hospital are scrambling to care for a population whose most deadly disease is poverty. The play brings together a rich cast of characters who reflect the conflicting currents of the time through their overlapping personalities and politics. Set in the Harlem apartment of Guy, a popular costume designer, and his friend, Angel, a recently fired Cotton Club back-up singer, the cast also includes Sam, a hard-working, jazz-loving doctor at Harlem Hospital; Delia, an equally dedicated member of the staff at the Sanger clinic; and Leland, a recent transplant from Tuskegee, who sees in Angel a memory of lost love and a reminder of those “Alabama skies where the stars are so thick it’s bright as day.” Invoking the image of African-American expatriate extraordinaire, Josephine Baker as both muse and myth, Cleage’s characters struggle, as Guy says, “to look beyond 125th Street” for the fulfillment of their dreams.
About MAC Boys Entertainment
MAC Boys Entertainment (MBE) was created with the purpose of filling the void of Black representation within the theatre world, focusing first and foremost on the Central Florida community. Founders Maurice Mallard, Arius West, and Christopher Payen (the M-A-C in MAC Boys) are all co-artistic directors of the fledgling company, with the collective goal to bring the work and stories of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to the theatrical forefront. “It was created with the idea that theatre can be, and do anything. That the color of a person’s skin does not determine their talent or their range,” says MBE.
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