May 20–30, 2021
A bold reinvention of a Cherry signature form: the headphone walking play (perfect for social distance)!
Notice the streets we travel. How does our city’s past unfold as we walk? When, where, and how do sites of struggles for freedom—from the time of the Underground Railroad, to the civil rights era, to the present—disclose and disguise their narratives?
Whose job is it to tell these stories? Whose responsibility to remember?
Lead writer Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon writes, “Meandering these streets, one might happen upon a landmark site or a name easily recognized. But how many stories go untold? Which ones have slipped into gaps in history? What place do such silences hold in shaping a community?”
Part one of a two year exploration, Trap Door combined text, dialogue, music, and sound to create an unexpected and intimate new theatrical experiment with downtown Ithaca as its backdrop. Trap Door breaks open the form of the headphone walking play, challenging audiences and posing provocative questions about the pasts, presents, and futures of Ithaca’s downtown spaces and the roles we play in telling their stories.
It would seem to me that, however arrogant this may sound, I want to suggest two propositions.
The first one is, that the poets, by which I mean all artists, are finally the only people who know the truth about us. Soldiers don’t. Statesmen don’t. Priests don’t. Union leaders don’t. Only poets. …
The second proposition is really what I want to get at tonight. And it sounds mystical, I think, in a country like ours, and at a time like this when something awful is happening to a civilization, when it ceases to produce poets, and, what is even more crucial, when it ceases in any way whatever to believe in the report that only the poets can make. … Art is here to prove, and to help one bear, the fact that all safety is an illusion.
James Baldwin, The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings
Walks begun at The History Center located at 110 N Tioga St. Make sure your phone is fully charged and don’t forget your headphones! A limited supply of MP3 players and headphones were available for use if needed.
Thurs 5/20 – 6pm – 7pm – PREVIEW (pay what you will)
Fri 5/21 – 4pm – 7pm
Sat 5/22 – 2pm – 6pm
Sun 5/23 – 2pm – 6pm
Fri 5/28 – 4pm – 7pm
Sat 5/29 – 2pm – 6pm
Sun 5/30 – 2pm – 6pm
all walks were held in 2021
Underwriter:
Ron and Shelley Cooper
Sponsor:
Trap Door Artist Bios
Production
Cynthia Henderson – Director
Cynthia Henderson (Director) is delighted to make her directorial debut with The Cherry with “Trap Door.” a professor of acting in the Department of Theatre Arts at Ithaca College. She has performed and directed professionally throughout the U.S., Europe, China, Mexico, and Cameroon. Directing credits include “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf” (Cameroon, Africa), “Proof” (workshop in Beijing, China), “Driving to the End of World” (Puerto Penasco, Mexico). Plays she has directed at Ithaca College include “The Colored Museum” “Burn This,” “Plumfield, Iraq,” “My Children! My Africa!,” “Fires in the Mirror,” “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf,” “In the Red and Brown Water,” and “Everybody.” Cynthia is the founder and director of Performing Arts for Social Change (PASC) pa4sc.com; a program that uses theatre as a venue to give voice to societal issues, in the U.S. as well as internationally. She is the author of The Actor’s Landscape (available on Amazon), a member of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers, and Actors’ Equity Association. Cynthia is also a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of two Fulbright Specialist awards.
Jennifer Schilansky – Production Manager
Jen Schilansky (Production) is delighted to be working with The Cherry on this exciting production. Previous work for the Cherry Artspace includes Hotel Good Luck, The Fan, and Felt Sad, Posted a Frog. Jen has been the resident stage manager for the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca since 2012. KTC production favorites include: The Royale, Ironbound, Brawler, Birds of East Africa, Hand to God, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Mountaintop, Paloma, The Whipping Man, and Brian Dykstra Selling Out. This summer she will be the PSM for the world premiere of SHAPE taking place at Washing Park in Ithaca. She has also served as the the Production Stage Manager for the Hangar Theatre’s Pride and Prejudice, Dégagé, and A Doll’s House Part 2. Prior to moving to Ithaca, she spent five years as the resident stage manager for Stageworks Theater in Hudson, as well as Stage Managing for Half Moon Theater in Poughkeepsie and Bard College.
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon – Lead Writer
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is the author of Open Interval, a 2009 finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Prize, and Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She has been awarded fellowships from Cave Canem, the Lannan Foundation, and Civitella Ranieri. She has written plays and lyrics for The Cherry, an Ithaca arts collective, and in 2018, her work was featured in “Courage Everywhere,” celebrating women’s suffrage and the fight for political equality, at National Theatre London.
Jasmine Reid – Research Supervisor
Jasmine Reid is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. An MFA graduate from Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Poets House and Jack Jones Literary Arts, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Apogee, the Shade Journal, Pinwheel, TriQuarterly, & Already Felt, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Ithaca, NY. Find her at reidjasmine.com
Sabea K. Evans – Research Consultant
Sabea Evans has been living in Ithaca and working with The History Center of Tompkins County since 2019. She is also a coordinator, facilitator, and advocate invested in building equity, community, and global learning opportunities for students in Higher Ed. Sabea has a B.A. from Haverford College in Linguistics, with a minor in Religion and concentration in Africana Studies. Motivated by her long-term personal and professional investment in supporting access, inclusion, and engagement initiatives for minoritized students, Sabea’s also built expertise with ethical ethnographic media, language diversity activism, and innovative uses of technology for educational activism. Sabea thrives in collaborative spaces and aspires to co-facilitate projects that amplify the voices, knowledge, and creations of Black and Indigenous people, as well as other POC. She is also an occasional bartender, and an ardent fan of Octavia Butler and YouTube cooking shows.
Norm Scott – Sound Designer
Norm is a sound designer, video editor, turntablist/composer, and electronic tinkerer. By day, he makes videos at PhotoSynthesis Productions; by night, he concocts strange noises in the basement. He recently produced season one of “Galactic Stacks”, a scratch space opera, and provided sound design for the House of Ithaqua productions “Bugs” and “The Skriker”. Following “Storm Country” and “The Missing Chapter”, he is humbled to work again with the Cherry Arts on their third walking headphone play.
Actors
Marc Gomes – Fredrick Douglass/Fred
Marc Gomes is a teacher, writer and actor in television, film and on stage. He is on faculty at Ithaca College’s Department of Theatre Arts as an Assistant Professor of Acting. Marc is also an avid cyclist and bicycling advocate.
Michelle Courtney Berry – Loretta/Narrator
As a “Best of Ithaca” Actor (Ithaca Times), favorite performances include: “Kate” (Good People, The Homecoming Players); “Claire” (Proof, Hangar Theatre); “Woman #4” (Cornered in the Dark, Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC); “The Lady in Blue,” (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide…Renaissance Theatre); “Alex,” “Rosie,” “Lynne,” “Liz’s Younger Sister,” “Mary,” “Heather,” & “Woman” (Love, Loss and What I Wore, AWI); “Hair,” (The Vagina Monologues, Cornell); solo shows “Mother Land,” “Labor,” (KTC); & “The Month of Not Speaking,” (KTC, Geneva Performing Arts Festival); & “Breathe,” (Theatre Incognita).
Michelle thanks the cast and crew for making her first Cherry appearance grand!
Adara Alston – Angie / Teacher
Adara Alston (Angie/Teacher) is delighted to be back working with The Cherry Arts after appearing in The Fan as the movement actor for Coronato. Other recent local credits include The Inferior Sex (Shirley Chisholm) and The Skin of Our Teeth (Joy) with Hangar Theatre, Emmett and Ella: A Doggone Mystery (Louella) with Rachel Lampert’s Fitz&Startz Productions, The One-Minute Play Festival with Kitchen Theatre, Katrina: A New Musical (Larinda) with Walking on Water Productions, and Pericles: Prince of Tyre (Goddess Diane) with Ithaca Shakespeare Company. Some of her other credits include Doubt: A Parable (Mrs. Muller) with Franklin Stage Company, Twelve Angry Jurors (Juror Eight) with Elmira Little Theatre, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hippolyta) with Cider Mill Playhouse. Adara would like too thank Sam for offering space for this piece, this season, and bold choices pushing theatre innovation. After great opportunities in a movement only then voice only role, Adara hopes to combine the two on a Cherry Arts stage in the future.
Sylvie Yntema – Dorothy Cotton
Sylvie’s previous Cherry Arts credits include The Snow Queen, Felt Sad Posted a Frog, and A Day. She has worked locally with Civic Ensemble (Katrina Ten Years Later, On the Corner, After Orlando, In the Parlour)and is currently a member of their Artistic Ensemble. She has also appeared in productions with Fitz&Startz Productions (A Case for the Classics, The Memory Book), Clockmaker Arts (What Haunts You), and Homecoming Players (In the Next Room, From the Mississippi Delta). Sylvie studied BFA acting at The Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, is a graduate of the Actors Workshop of Ithaca, a Pilates instructor, and a NYS licensed massage therapist.
Austin Jones – Truck Driver
Austin Jones is thrilled to be part of Trap/Door at The Cherry. Other Cherry credits include: The Missing Chapter, The Fan, and A Day. He has also been seen in Ironbound at the Kitchen and Or, What She Will, Pride and Prejudice, and The Foreigner at The Hangar. New York City Credits: Classic Stage Company, Roundabout Theatre, Public Theater, Next In Line Productions, Prospect Theater Company, Clubbed Thumb, Target Margin, and the New York City Fringe Festival. Other Regional: Yale Repertory Theatre, Stamford Center for the Arts. Film and Television: “The Sopranos”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “Law and Order”, and “Law and Order SVU.” Austin is a co-creator of the web series Meantime. He holds an MFA in Acting from the Yale School of Drama and is an Assistant Professor of Acting at Ithaca College’s Department of Theatre Arts. austinjonessite.com
Nicole Bethany – Student 1
Nicole Bethany is very grateful to be a part of the 2021 production of Trap Door. Her recent works as an actor include Antigone Project at Ithaca College (2019), as Antigone and as a writer, and producer in the film, City on a Hill (2021). Nicole Bethany is currently a rising senior at Ithaca College, studying for a BFA in Acting with minors in African Diaspora Studies and Writing for Television & Film. She loves both creating and being a part of stories that spark healing, hope and change, through both film and theatre.
Anthony Garcia – Student 2
Anthony Garcia is a Junior, B.F.A Musical Theater student, at Ithaca College. University credits include Pippin, Hedda Gabbler, Ragtime and The Wild party. Anthony has performed at the White House on two separate occasions, The Final State Dinner and the National Youth Awards with Rosie’s Theater Kids. He wants to thank Cynthia Henderson and The Cherry Arts space for this opportunity, His family, mentors, friends and Grandma.
Emily Mesa – Student 3
Emily Mesa is a queer, Latinx actor, dancer, and writer pursuing her BFA in Acting at Ithaca College. Credits include: Cassandra in Trojan Women, The Dauphin in Marie Antoinette, and Mrs. Elvsted in Hedda Gabler