Happy Ending
By Douglas Turner Ward
“This ‘Happy Ending’ is fresh, funny, and bursting with song-and-dance pizzazz. Yes, song and dance! It’s hard to imagine ‘Happy Ending’ ever ending with more upbeat joy” – DC Metro Theater Arts Review by John Stoltenberg.
A long-running Off-Broadway hit, Happy Ending was written by Douglas Turner Ward, founder of The Negro Ensemble Company.
It tells of two sisters, Ellie and Vi, who work as maid and laundress for the wealthy Harrisons. As the play begins they are sitting at the kitchen table in a tenement apartment in Harlem, lamenting the end of their good times. Mr. Harrison has discovered his wife in an act of infidelity.
The sisters fear that if the marriage breaks up they will be both out of a job. Their nephew, Junie, chides them for their sentiments at a time when Blacks are on the march towards liberation.
But what Vi and Ellie really fear is that the divorce threatens a cutoff in the household graft the sisters have engaged in and which has brought considerable luxury to their lives.
Happy Ending is directed by Ella Davis Artistic Director of All About the Drama Theater Group and Board Chair, Anacostia Playhouse.
About the playwright:
Douglas Turner Ward, dramatist, actor, director, and producer was born in 1930. Guided by a burning desire to continue the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, Ward was determined to create theater that was primarily written by, performed for, and representative of African American people. In his plays, Ward examines a mixed bag of attitudes and stereotypes that permeate our environment both within and outside the African American community. He uses various comic conventions such as satire, farce, absurdism, and irony to attack widely divergent cultural philosophies, politics, and ethics as well as social, moral, and racial biases. Since the 1960s, the African American dramatic literature and aesthetic philosophy of Douglas Turner Ward have been highly influential.
For more information on the Negro Ensemble Company click here.
Happy Ending Performance dates and times:
Previews
August 9th, 2018 -August 10th, 2018 8PM
Shows
August 11th, 2018-August 25th, 2018
Thurs-Sat at 8PM, Sat and Sun at 3PM
For tickets, click below:
Review from DC Theatre Scene: https://dctheatrescene.com/2018/08/14/review-douglas-turner-wards-happy-ending-at-anacostia-playhouse/
Review from DC Metro Theater Arts: https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2018/08/12/review-happy-ending-at-anacostia-playhouse/