Hartford, CT – December 11, 2017 – Hartford
Stage Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak and Managing
Director Michael Stotts announced today that Feeding the Dragon, the moving debut
solo play written and performed by award-winning stage and screen actress Sharon Washington, will run January 11
through February 4, 2018.
Feeding the Dragon, a
co-production with Primary Stages,
made its world premiere at City Theatre
in Pittsburgh in 2016. The production will be directed by Maria Mileaf.
Entertainment Weekly says, “Sharon Washington is fabulous,” and Huffington Post calls her “a keen
actress, and a thorough joy.” Charles Isherwood from The New York Times says, "Don’t forget to bring the sunscreen.
Giving a breakout performance as Aunt Glo, the ferociously funny Ms. Washington
blazes so brightly it could come in handy.” The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette calls Feeding the Dragon
“moving, bittersweet and uplifting,” and the Pittsburgh City Paper raves that it is “the loveliest 90 minutes on
local stages.”
“Feeding the Dragon is a beautiful portrait
of the artist as a child and young woman in New York. Sharon Washington takes
us on an engrossing journey through key moments in her childhood that have
deeply informed the artist she has grown up to be, in her powerful and moving
one-woman show,” said Elizabeth
Williamson, Associate Artistic Director for Hartford Stage.
Darko
Tresnjak, Artistic Director for
Hartford Stage, added, “Like Mona Golabek’s The
Pianist of Willesden Lane, which graced our stage two years ago, and James Lecesne’s The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, which we presented last season,
Feeding the Dragon is a moving,
intimate, and highly personal story - one that only Sharon Washington could
tell. We are so happy that 2018 at Hartford Stage kicks off with this beautiful
play.”
This
intimate, heartwarming true story chronicles Washington’s
childhood growing up in the custodial apartment of a New York Public Library, where
her father toiled night and day loading the fiery furnace with coal (“feeding
the dragon”). Washington’s tale boldly examines how the power of forgiveness
and her lifelong love for the written word helped her battle dragons of all
forms.
Washington said of her play, “People have always been very
interested in my story – the little girl who lived in the library; it’s like a
fairy tale. I thought if someone is going to tell my story, it should be me. There
is also the flipside of the fairy tale – the
reality of what it was like growing up in New York City in the 1970s when times
were changing. It could be a dangerous
place, but there were also strong working class neighborhoods. I loved
watching my father stoke the furnace. It was very hard manual labor –but, to me,
it was like watching a knight feed a dragon. He opened up this world — he gave me a library.”
Washington has acted professionally for almost 30 years. She made her Broadway debut in the
critically-acclaimed The Scottsboro Boys,
in the role she originated Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theater. She recently
appeared Off-Broadway at the Vineyard in the world premiere of Dot by
Tony Award nominee Colman Domingo. Other Off-Broadway credits include While I Yet Live by Tony Award winner Billy
Porter at Primary Stages; Luce by
JC Lee at Lincoln Center Theater (LCT3); and Wild With Happy, also by Colman Domingo, at the Public
Theater, for which she received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination and an
Audelco Award.
Washington
will be seen in the upcoming feature
film On the Basis Of Sex (2018), starring Felicity Jones and directed by
Mimi Leder, and the Hulu limited
series The Looming Tower (2018). Other film recent appearances
include playing opposite Danny DeVito
in Weiner Dog and George Clooney in
Michael Clayton. Washington has also appeared in Gotham, Blue
Bloods, The Blacklist, White Collar, Royal
Pains, Damages, The Bourne Legacy, School
of Rock, Half Nelson, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Malcolm X, Die Hard With A Vengeance, Law & Order, Law & Order: CI, Law & Order: SVU and the web series Hustling for which she received a 2015 Indie Series
Award for Best Supporting Actress – Drama.
Director Maria Mileaf’s credits
include
the New York premieres of Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives at Primary Stages, Kira
Obolensky’s Lobster Alice at
Playwrights Horizons, and Vijay Tendulkar’s Sakharam Binder at The Play Company. She has also
directed works at La Jolla Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre
Company, and New York Stage and Film.
Feeding the Dragon’s artistic team
includes Scenic Designer Tony
Ferrieri (Hand to God at Pittsburgh
CLO, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre); Costume
Designer Toni-Leslie
James (August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at Hartford Stage, The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway); Lighting
Designer Ann G. Wrightson (The Rembrandt at Steppenwolf Theatre
Company, A Streetcar Named Desire at Portland Center Stage);
Sound Designer Lindsay Jones (A Time to Kill and Bronx Bombers on Broadway); Lloyd Davis, Jr. (Abundance and Breath & Imagination at Hartford Stage) is the Production Stage
Manager, assisted by Robyn Zalewski (Production Stage Manager for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Heartbreak House at Hartford Stage).
