Grande dames Grace Dunbar and Catherine Green prepare for the Nacirema Society’s 1964 centennial cotillion — the event of the season in Montgomery, Alabama. The elegant African American debutantes include Grace’s granddaughter Gracie, escorted by Catherine’s grandson Bobby, and the two grandmothers hope the young couple will soon be engaged. But Gracie and Bobby have other ideas. As the young ladies prepare for their debuts, a blackmail scheme brews behind the scenes and subterfuges unfold, all under the nose of a skeptical reporter covering the ball.

The Guthrie previously produced Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky during its 2022–2023 Season, marking the debut of the playwright’s work at the theater. 

The cast of The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years includes Charla Marie Bailey (Guthrie: debut) as Jessie, Aimee K. Bryant (Guthrie: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Christmas Carol, My Fair Lady) as Alpha Campbell Jackson, Joy Dolo (Guthrie: Twelfth Night) as Janet Logan, Nubia Monks (Guthrie: A Raisin in the Sun) as Gracie Dunbar, Darrick Mosley (Guthrie: A Raisin in the Sun, Choir Boy) as Bobby Green, Greta Oglesby (Guthrie: A Christmas Carol, Into the Woods, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) as Grace Dubose Dunbar, Essence Renae (Guthrie: debut) as Lillie Campbell Jackson, Regina Marie Williams (Guthrie: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Christmas Carol, Into the Woods) as Catherine Adams Green and Dedra D. Woods (Guthrie: debut) as Marie Dunbar.

The creative team includes Pearl Cleage (Playwright), Valerie Curtis-Newton (Director), Takeshi Kata (Scenic Designer), Trevor Bowen (Costume Designer), Mary Louise Geiger (Lighting Designer), Larry Fowler (Sound Designer/Composer), Carla Steen (Resident Dramaturg), Keely Wolter (Vocal Coach), Annie Enneking (Intimacy), Jennifer Liestman (Resident Casting Director), Lori Lundquist (Stage Manager), Kathryn Sam Houkom (Assistant Stage Manager), Vanessa Brooke Agnes (Assistant Director) and McCorkle Casting, Ltd. (NYC Casting Consultant). 

Pearl Cleage (Playwright) is an Atlanta-based writer whose plays include Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous, Flyin’ West, Blues for an Alabama Sky and Bourbon at the Border, which were commissioned by Alliance Theatre, where Cleage is Distinguished Artist in Residence. She is also the author of A Song for Coretta, written in 2007 while the Cosby Professor in Women’s Studies at Spelman College, and The Nacirema Society…, which was commissioned by Alabama Shakespeare Festival and premiered in 2010. Her plays have been performed at Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Huntington, Long Wharf Theatre, Just Us Theater Company, True Colors Theatre, Bushfire Theatre, Intiman Theatre, The Black Rep and 7 Stages. She is also an accomplished performance artist, often working with her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., in their Live at Club Zebra! performance installation. They have performed at the National Black Arts Festival, National Black Theatre Festival and colleges across the country. They also collaborated with performance artists Idris Ackamoor and Rhodessa Jones on the script for The Love Project, which premiered at the National Black Theatre Festival in 2008. Cleage is an accomplished novelist, with her New York Times bestseller What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day being chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. Cleage has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulton County Arts Council, Georgia Council for the Arts, Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs and The Coca-Cola Foundation. Among her many awards is a 2008 NAACP Image Award for Fiction and a 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild.