Tag: Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris

• April 4, 2013

  The Little-Told Story of Elizabeth Keckley and Mary Todd Lincoln

  Cross posted at Ms. As the DVD of Spielberg’s latest epic, Lincoln, hit shelves last week, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. was telling a different Lincoln story: that of Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley, author of Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in…
• April 1, 2013

  Race on Stage and in the Rehearsal Room: Tazewell Thompson’s Mary T. and Lizzy K.

  What made you want to write a play about Elizabeth Keckly and Mary Todd Lincoln? Thompson: I was actually commissioned to write play in 2001 and the only stipulation was that it be set in Washington. When Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena, said “Washington” I immediately thought political and I thought Lincoln. The idea…