Performed by Megan Burnette
Produced/Directed by Be Boyd and John Shafer, Associate Professors of Theatre
Doors will open at 6:30 - Admission is Free
Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble uses the one-person show format, a play form that Kemble herself undertook in the 1850s, to explore the life, theatrical work, and literary endeavors of this idiosyncratic and passionate Englishwoman. A member of the leading family of Shakespearean roles in early 19th century England, Kemble came to this country to tour and left the stage to marry Pierce Butler. Subsequently discovering his family had large plantation holdings, Kemble found herself living on her husband’s plantation – and face to face with the daily workings of the slave system. Her Journal of a Residence on a Southern Plantation was embraced by the early anti-slavery movement. This script, taking Kemble’s journal as inspiration, offers a complex glimpse of all these facets of Fanny Kemble’s life, providing the performer with an opportunity to become English and American characters, men and women, slave and free, and to embody Shakespeare’s greatest creations.
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